WE have in this book God’s governmental ways with a servant, whose disobedience to the plain word, and displeasure with the divine ways toward others, called for direct interference in discipline.
The prophet was commanded by Jehovah to go to Nineveh and testify against it— “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come before me.” (chapter 1:2.) Instead of obeying, he fled from the presence of the Lord, and finding (as some might say, most providentially) a ship going to Tarshish, and having means at his command to meet the expenses, he paid the fare, and went to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
But he cannot flee from the region of God’s government; for all things serve Him. The wind, sea, mariners, fish, worm, gourd, sun, are all brought forth, as each is required, in dealing with His servant. While the prophet was fast asleep in the sides of the ship, God sent out a great wind, made a tempestuous sea, filled the mariners with such alarm that they roused Jonah from sleep, called upon their gods, cast lots to know the cause of the storm, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Then they so press him that he confessed that he had departed from the presence of the Lord, assured them that the tempestuous sea would not subside unless they cast him into the deep; which they reluctantly did, and the sea ceased from her raging. (chapter 1)
But, throughout, God is with His servant, and disciplining him. He therefore prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, where he remained for three days and three nights. Here, in the fish’s belly, he effectually learned deep and precious lessons, and especially the vanity of having fled from the presence of the Lord—the lying vanity, because it was impossible to get away from the eye and hand of God. He also learned that “salvation is of the Lord,” so that, when the discipline was no longer needed, “God spake unto the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry land.” (Chap. 2)
Having now passed through, in his own experience, death and resurrection, he unhesitatingly obeys the divine direction. Hence we read, “And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.” The effect of his testimony, that Nineveh would be overthrown in forty days, was that the people believed God; so that the king proclaimed a fast, put on sackcloth, and said, “Who can tell if God will turn and repent,” &c. “So God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them, and He did it not.” (Chap. 3).
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he said it was fearing that God would thus act that induced him at first to flee to Tarshish. It was with him, then, a question of his own reputation, not of God’s glory. Pride was thus wounded. He therefore asks God to take away his life; for it is better to die than to live. He sits in a booth on the outside of the city, that he might see what became of Nineveh. But while God reproves him for his anger, He graciously prepares a gourd, and made it to come up over his head to deliver him from his grief. But while the prophet rejoices in the gourd, and not in the giver, God prepares a worm, which smote the gourd, and it withered. God then prepared a vehement east wind, which caused the sun so to beat upon his head that he fainted, and again wished to die. Again God reproves Jonah for his being angry; but he justifies himself, saying, “I do well to be angry, even unto death.” The book concludes with the Lord’s appeal to the prophet’s conscience as to sparing Nineveh, that great city.
No doubt Jonah is a type of the Lord in His death and resurrection—calming the furious tempest only by his death, and bringing in blessing consequent upon his resurrection from the dead; but he may be also an illustration of Israel’s moral condition—God’s governmental discipline for their disobedience, and then saving Gentiles. But, withal, it reads us searching lessons as to service, and shows how much of self may come in to hinder true communion with the Lord in it. Having to do with Him, as risen and ascended, and thinking only of His glory, is the true secret of happiness.