The Book of Jonah - Analysed and Explained in Summary - Volumes 1, 2, and 3 of "The Analysed Bible" by G. Campbell Morgan.
To the best of our knowledge we are of the understanding that this book, taken from Volumes 1, 2, & 3 of the "Analysed Bible" by G. Campbell Morgan published in 1907, and freely available elsewhere on the internet is in the public domain.
JONAH - CONDEMNATION OF EXCLUSIVENESS
PART A: THE FIRST COMMISSION - Jonah 1:1-2:10
A1. The Prophet's Commission and Disobedience - Jonah 1:1-1:3
A2. Jehovah's Interposition - Jonah 1:4-1:2:10
- The Tempest - 1:4-1:14
- Jonah Cast Out - 1:15-1:17
- The Experiences of the Deep - 2:1-2:9
- The Deliverance - 2:10
Part B: THE SECOND COMMISSION - Jonah 3:1-4:11
B1. The Prophet's Commission and Obedience - Jonah 3:1-3:10
- The Commission - 3:1-3:2
- The Obedience - 3:3-3:4
- The Result - 3:5-3:10
B2. The Prophet and Jehovah - Jonah 4:1-4:11
- Jonah displeased - 4:1-4:3
- Jehovah - 4:4-4:8a
- Jonah distressed - 4:8b
- Jehovah - 4:9-4:11
Introduction
Jonah was the son of Amittai. There can be no reasonable possibility of doubt as to his identity with the prophet referred to in 2 Kings 14:25. These names, Jonah and Amittai, occur nowhere else in the Old Testament. It is evident therefore that Jonah exercised his ministry about the time of the accession of Jeroboam II. This would make him an early contemporary of Hosea and Amos.
The relation of the Hebrew people to foreign nations at this period was characterized by a strange contradiction. They were making political alliances with outside nations, while yet religiously they were bitterly exclusive. Both these attitudes were wrong in the measure in which they misinterpreted the Divine attitude and prostituted the Divine purpose. The book as we have it was undoubtedly written for Israel, and is a prophetic story. In narrating his own experience in the matter of his commission to Nineveh, Jonah intended to teach his people the lesson of the inclusiveness of the Divine government, and thus to rebuke the exclusiveness of their attitude toward surrounding peoples.
The book naturally falls into two parts: the First Commission (1-2); the Second Commission (3-4).
A. The First Commission - Jonah 1:1-2:10
In this first division we have the prophet's account of Jehovah's command, his own disobedience, and the Divine interposition.
There was evidently no doubt in his mind that the command was from Jehovah. In order to understand how strange a commission it must have seemed to Jonah, it is necessary to remember the national prejudice of the Hebrew against all other peoples in the matter of religion. Believing in Jehovah as a loving God, they yet thought of Him as their God exclusively. The charge to deliver a message to a city outside the covenant, and one moreover which was the centre of a power which had been oppressive and cruel, must have been a startling one to Jonah. His attempt to escape was an act of wilful disobedience. The statement that he went out from the presence of the Lord is equivalent to a declaration that he abandoned his prophetic office and work. Circumstances seemed to favour him, as he found a ship at Joppa going to Tarshish. Outside the path of duty he recognized that he was chargeable to himself, and with a touch of fine, if mistaken independence he paid his fare.
His going out from the presence of the Lord did not, however, ensure his escape from His government. All the forces of nature are at the command of God, and are pressed into His service when need requires. The ship had started on her course, but Jehovah sent out a wind. The incidents of the storm are full of interest. In reading the account of it one cannot help feeling that Jonah when he ultimately wrote the book which tells the story of his failure had indeed learned the lesson which he intended to teach others, for the men outside the covenant are revealed in such a way as to suggest how much of good was in them. Terrified by the storm, and at their wits' end, they nevertheless made every possible effort to save the life of Jonah. The governing God however. Who had sent out the wind, presided over the casting of the lots, and at last Jonah was cast out into the deep. There he was received by the fish, prepared. In the midst of the strange and awful circumstances he poured out his soul in anguish before God. The prayer, as chronicled, consists of quotations from the book of Psalms. It is exactly the kind of cry which a man, familiar with the sacred penitential writings of his people, would utter in such circumstances. Again Jehovah interfered, and the prophet was released.
B. The Second Commission - Jonah 3:1-4:11
Immediately he was charged to go to Nineveh. There is a fine revelation of the patient grace of God toward His servant in the declaration, "The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time" With a new sense of the authority of Jehovah, Jonah arose and obeyed. It was a strange and startling thing for Nineveh, this coming into it of a man who had been cast out to the deep; and it is easy to understand how the monotony of his declaration, that within forty days Nineveh should be destroyed, would fill the hearts of the people with terror. They heard, they believed, they were filled with fear, and repented from the greatest to the least. This repentance on their part was answered by the repentance of God, so that the doom was averted, and the city was spared.
All this leads to the final picture of the controversy between Jonah and Jehovah, which revealed in the most vivid light, on the part of Jonah, the attitude of the ancient people which his story was intended to correct; and on the part of Jehovah, that attitude of care for, and patience with all sinning peoples, which they so little understood. The prophet was angry because mercy had been exercised toward those outside the covenant. Of course, behind this was a strict sense of justice. He could not comprehend why a people so cruel and oppressive should be spared. It seemed a violation of justice, and in his anger he asked that his own life might be taken. The wrong of this attitude lay in the fact of Jonah's knowledge of God. He declared that he knew Him to be "a gracious God, and full of compassion, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy." The answer of Jehovah is a wonderful revelation of His patience. It consists of a question: "Doest thou well to be angry?" Without reply the prophet went out of the city, and in distress and resentment sat in a booth of his own making to watch the course of events. Again the overruling of Jehovah was manifest in the prepared gourd, the prepared worm, and the prepared sultry east wind. So great was the anger and anguish of the prophet that he fainted, and asked again that he might die. Jehovah repeated His question, but now with a new application, "Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?" He who had been angry that the city was not destroyed, was angry that the gourd was destroyed, and he answered the inquiry by affirming, "I do well to be angry, even unto death." Thus the last picture we have of Jonah is that of a man still out of harmony with the tender mercy of God, and the last vision of Jehovah is that of a God full of pity and compassion even for a city such as Nineveh, and willing to spare it as it returned to Him in penitence. Thus in the story, Jonah unveils an episode in his life which reflected upon him, as it revealed a side of the Divine nature of which the people had no appreciation. It was a revelation far in advance of the age in which Jonah exercised his ministry. As a matter of fact, the people as a whole never came to understand it, and thus in his persistent displeasure Jonah represented the nation in its ultimate failure to understand the deepest truth concerning their God.