YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

ftfit Camorfoge Bihlt for S>ttiOO\S.
JONAH.

PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

sspjy fttsjoAiufl o9pijquje3

%U Cambrtoae 3BfoIe for ^tfwls
General Editor :— J. J. S. PEROWNE, D.D.,
De^n of Peterborough.
J'tle. at JanoJh- fnql'Sh, 157-3.
JONAH,

WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTION

THE VEN. T. T. PEROWNE, B.D.,
ARCHDEACON OF NORWICH;
LATE FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMURIDGE.

EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF THE UNIVERSITY EMESS.

©amtirf&ge :
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
3L0nBmr : CAMBRIDGE WAREHOUSE, 17, Paternoster Row
ffiamiitiiJBf: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO.
1879
[All Hights reserved.]
Yale Divinitv Ubrvs

CONTENTS.
I. Introduction. page
Chapter I. The Author  9
Chapter II. Historical Character of the Book ... n — 15
Chapter III. Object of the Book  15—19
Chapter IV. Analysis of Contents  19 — 20
II. Text and Notes  25— 58
III. NoteA. The Great Fish  59—60
Note B. Nineveh  60—62
IV. Index  ,  63
*,* The Text adopted in this Edition is that of Dr Scrivener's
Cambridge Paragraph Bible. A few variations from the ordi
nary Text, chiefly in the spelling of certain words, and in the
use of italics, will be noticed. For the principles adopted by
Dr Scrivener as regards the printing of the Text see his Intro
duction to the Paragraph Bible, published by the Cambridge
University Press.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.
THE AUTHOR.
i. There is no reason to doubt that Jonah was himself the
author of the book which bears his name. There is nothing
inconsistent with that view in the contents of the book. No
other satisfactory theory of authorship has been suggested.
The candour of the writer, supposing him to be relating his
own history, finds a parallel in the case of other inspired writers
both in the Old and New Testaments. The graphic style of
the book harmonises with the vigorous and resolute character
of Jonah as pourtrayed in its pages.
2. Of Jonah himself very little is known beyond what we
gather from this book. There is however one other mention of
him in the Old Testament, which furnishes us with some
particulars concerning him. In 2 Kings xiv. 25, we read of
Jeroboam II, king of Israel, that "he restored the coast of Israel
from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, ac
cording to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He spake
by the hand of His servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet,
which was of Gath-hepher.'' It can hardly be doubted that the
Jonah thus spoken of is the same person as the Jonah of this
book. Both are prophets. Both are sons of Amittai. And
when it is remembered that' neither the name Jonah, nor the
name Amittai, occurs anywhere else in the Old Testament, it
appears most improbable that there should have been two
distinct persons, both prophets, both bearing the same un-

io INTRODUCTION.
common name, and both sons of a father with the same un
common name1.
3. Assuming then, as we may reasonably do, their identity,
we learn from the passage in Kings,
(<z) That Jonah was a prophet of the Northern kingdom
(Israel) ;
(6) That his birthplace was Gath-hepher2, a town of
Lower Galilee, not far from Nazareth, in the tribe of Za-
bulpn ; (c) And that he exercised the prophetical office, either
before the reign of Jeroboam II. or very early in that reign3.
He would thus be a contemporary of Hosea4 and Amos5, if
indeed he was not earlier than they, and therefore one of the
most ancient, if not the most ancient of tbe prophets whose
writings we possess.
1 Jonah means a dove, Amittai, true. The latter name, which is
thought by some to be identical with Matthew, has given rise to the
tradition that Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath, whom
Elijah raised to life, and on receiving whom at his. hands she said,
" Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of
the Lord in thy mouth is truth" 1 Kings xvii. 24. An equally uncertain
tradition makes him also " the boy who attended Elijah to the wilder
ness," and "the youth who anointed Jehu."
s Called Gittah-hepher, Josh. xix. 13. It is in all probability the
same as the modern village of el-Meshhad, where by a constant tradition
from the time of Jerome to the present day, the tomb of Jonah is
pointed out. See Smith's Bib. Diet. Art Gath-hepher, and Pusey
Commentary on Jonah, Introd. p. 1.
3 Ewald writes : " It follows clearly from the words in 2 Kings xiv.
25—27 that this Jonah uttered the prediction neither long before nor
long after the accession of Jeroboam II. , especially as the king, accord
ing to all appearance, won his great victories very early. Jonah's pre
diction therefore must fall in with the childhood of Jeroboam or in
the first commencement of his reign." Hist, of Israel, vol. IV. p. 124,
note 1. Carpenter's Translation. According to the ordinary chronology
Jeroboam's reign was from B.C. 823 to B.C. 782.
4 Hosea i. 1. s Amos i. 1.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOK.
I. The thoughtful student of the book of Jonah cannot fail
to observe that it differs in some important particulars from the
other prophetical writings of the Old Testament.
(a) In form it is a story and not a prophecy. It is an
account of what befel a prophet, and not a record of his
predictions. (b) In style it is almost dramatic. Its teaching, what
ever it may be, is rather acted before our eyes than uttered for
our ears. (c) Moreover, the miraculous or supernatural element
enters in an unusual degree into the contents of this book.
Seldom, if ever, do we find so many and so great wonders
accumulated in the compass of so brief a narrative.
The question has, accordingly been raised, whether this book
is not rather to be regarded as an allegory or parable or
romance, either founded on fact, or altogether independent of
any real basis, than as a history of what actually happened.
2. It can hardly be doubted that this question really owes
its origin to the miraculous character of the book of Jonah.
Amongst the principal advocates of the non-historical theory
of the book are those who deny the possibility of miracles.
With a marvellous amount of ingenuity, but with an entire
want of agreement among themselves, these writers have pro
posed a great variety of interpretations of the book of Jonah,
including even the suggestion, of which it would be difficult
to say whether it be more improbable or more irreverent, that it

INTRODUCTION.

is to be regarded as a Jewish adaptation of a heathen mythical
legend1. 3. Without going however to any such lengths as these,
without doubting the possibility of miracles, or denying the
canonicity and inspiration of the book of Jonah, it may still
be open to us to consider the question of its historical character.
May it not be, we may ask, all that the most devout Christian
holds it to be, and yet be not a history, but a divinely originated
parable or allegory ?
4. To the question thus modified it may be objected in
reply, that even in this form it is really suggested by the
miracles with which this book abounds. But for them, it may
well be doubted whether anyone would ever have taken the
book of Jonah to be anything but history. Are then the
miracles, for into this the enquiry resolves itself, really such as
to warrant the question? We think not. When fairly examined
they lose much of that character of the merely marvellous,
which to a cursory and mistaken view they have some of them
appeared to wear. By such probable explanations as will be
given of each of them in its place below, they may be brought
properly within the sphere of the Gospel miracles themselves,
as being for the most part accelerations and adaptations of
the known powers and processes of nature, the normal, if
extraordinary working, as Holy Scripture reveals it to us, of a
living and ever-present God. And if this be so, then the question
falls to the ground together with the supposed necessity for
asking it.
5. But even were it otherwise, were there anything in these
pages which when rightly explained lay beyond the sphere of
humble and intelligent faith, are we really gainers by transferring
them from the region of history to that of parable or allegory ?
It is not the wont of the sacred writers to make use of portents
or prodigies in their allegorical or parabolic teaching. It is
1 The story of Perseus and Andromeda, in one or other of its forms
or modifications. The whole theory is fully stated and as fully refuted
by Dr Pusey, Introduction to Commentary on Jonah, pp. 261 — 263.

INTRODUCTION. 13

one of the recognised distinctions between canonical and
apocryphal writings, that whilst the latter often abound in
legends and marvels, the former never transgress the limits of
the possible, even in their figurative teaching. Even from a
literary point of view, higher considerations apart, the allegori
cal character of the book of Jonah cannot be satisfactorily
maintained. On that hypothesis it is out of harmony as a
whole. What may be called the setting of the allegory is
too exact, too detailed, too closely in accordance with facts,
to be in keeping with the allegory itself. The book is com
posed of two elements which will not properly fuse together.
One whole section of it at least, Jonah's psalm of thanksgiving
in the second chapter, is quite out of place. Most pertinent in
a true history, it becomes in an allegory a discord and an
intrusion. 6. Nor is it easy to understand why the writer of an
allegory, free to choose his characters at will, should have
selected a known prophet of God as the subject of so great mis
conduct and reprobation. If the introduction of a prophet were
necessary, to heighten the contrast and to enforce the moral of
his teaching, would not that end have equally been answered by
a fictitious name, or by the omission of the name altogether?
If Jonah did not act as this book represents him to have done,
it is incredible that a Jewish writer should have ascribed conduct
such as this to him, and that the fiction in which he ascribed it
should have found a place in the Jewish Canon. This con
sideration is fatal to such a theory of the origin of the book
of Jonah, as that which has been proposed by a recent com
mentator1. He supposes the book to be in form a kind of
historical romance^ written long after the time of Jonah, and
founded either upon a tradition which credited Jonah "with
a missionary journey to distant and powerful Nineveh," or upon
a "real fact," a political "legation from the king of Israel to
the king of Assyria,'' which however this later writer was unable
to conceive of, except under a religious aspect, the moral re-
1 Kalisch, Bible Studies, Part II, pp. 122, 123, 133, 134.

14 INTRODUCTION.

formation of the Assyrians to whom Jonah was sent. But
when, in pursuit of this arbitrary theory, he comes to deal with
the "ill-feeling" exhibited by Jonah, and asks, "Was the author
justified in imputing to an old and honoured prophet such
bitterness, nay, such meanness ? " he has no better answer than
this to give, "we must, therefore, ascribe that feature to the
author himself, who thus wronged both his hero and his cpm-
position." 7. There remains however another argument for the histori
cal character of the book of Jonah, which is the weightiest of all,
and which would to a Christian mind appear to be of itself
conclusive. In a well-known passage in the Gospels our Lord
makes a double reference to the book of Jonah.
(a) To the request for a sign, addressed to Him by the
Scribes and Pharisees, He replies, "An evil and adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign ; and there shall no sign be given
to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas : for as Jonas was three
days and three nights in tbe whale's belly ; so shall the Son of
man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth1."
It is difficult to see how, if Jonah's incarceration in the fish
were merely an allegory, it could have been referred to by our
Lord in language such as this. The whole Old Testament
history not excluding even its minor incidents was, as St Paul
teaches us, allegorical2; allegorically intended by its divine
Author, and to be interpreted allegorically by His Church.
But to recognise this is not to invalidate the historical truth
of the narrative. It is true history, but representative history ;
history which foretells throughout Christ and the good things
to come. With this view the parallel which our Lord draws
between what befel Jonah and what should befal Himself exactly
coincides. There is no departure from the firm basis of historical
fact on which our holy religion rests; no endangering the
literal truth of the second member of the comparison by admit
ting the unreality of the first.
(d) But even if it were conceded that our Lord's
1 Matthew xii. 39, 40. a Galatians iv. 24.

INTRODUCTION. 15

words so far are compatible with the non-historic view,
there follow in the same place other words of His, which
are plainly repugnant to any such interpretation, "The men
of Nineveh," He goes on to say, "shall rise in judgment with
this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented
at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is
here1." Is it possible to understand a reference like this on the
non-historic theory of the book of Jonah ? The future Judge is
speaking words of solemn warning to those who shall here
after stand convicted at His bar. Intensely real He would make
the scene in anticipation to them, as it was real, as if then pre
sent, to Himself. And yet we are to suppose Him to say that
imaginary persons who at the imaginary preaching of an ima
ginary prophet repented in imagination, shall rise up in that
day and condemn the actual impenitence of those His actual
hearers, that the fictitious characters of a parable shall be
arraigned at the same bar with the living men of that genera
tion. On all these grounds then it would seem that the book of
Jonah can only be regarded as actual history.

CHAPTER III.

OBJECT OF THE BOOK.

• 1. It has been held by some, that the chief object of this
book is to' teach the nature and efficacy of true repentance.
"So obvious," says a recent writer, "is the main idea which
pervades the book and stamps it with the character of perfect
unity — the idea of the wonderful power of true repentance— that
it seems surprising that this point should ever have been
mistaken, and should have called forth the most varied and
1 Matthew xii. 41.

16 INTRODUCTION.
most fanciful views1." That we have in the book of Jonah two
striking examples of repentance and its happy results, one of
individual repentance in the case of Jonah himself and of his
deliverance and restoration to his office and mission ; the other
of national repentance in the case of the Ninevites, and that
they hold an important place in the moral teaching of the book,
is undoubtedly true. The latter of them is thought worthy by
our Lord Himself to be singled out from the history of the Old
Testament as a typical example of repentance2. But to teach
repentance is not the main object of this book. To regard it as
such is to miss altogether the proper aim and design of the
author. It is to leave unexplained the flight of Jonah and his
reluctance to be the messenger of mercy to Nineveh. It is practi
cally to expunge the last chapter of the book, and to make its
teaching culminate in the words, "And God saw their works,
that they turned from their evil way ; and God repented of the
evil that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did
it not3." The lesson of repentance is only a part, however
important, of the higher and wider lesson which this book1 is
designed to teach us.
2. Still more prominent when we study the book as a whole
is the object of the writer to shew in its true colours the unloving
exclusiveness which too often characterised the Jew, and to
rebuke the grudging narrow-mindedness that would deny all
favour from the God of Israel to the Gentile world. It is the
spirit of the elder brother in the parable that the author is
commissioned to reprove. By that spirit Jonah was actuated,
as he himself confesses (c. iv. 2.). It was the source of all thatr
was unworthy in his conduct as here described. It was at the •
root of his disobedience at the first, and of his subsequent
1 Kalisch, Bible Studies, Part II., The Book of Jonah, p. 265.
s Matthew xii. 41. .
3 Ch. iii. 10. One of these writers at least is candid enough to con
fess this consequence of his view. " It may be admitted," says Kalisch,
" that if this chapter (iv.) were wanting, it would hardly have been
missed, and that, without it, the story would have concluded almost as
satisfactorily as it does in its present form."

INTRODUCTION. 17

displeasure. It prompted him to throw up his office as a
prophet, and abandon his privileges as an Israelite, to relinquish
alike the service and the favour of his God, rather than be His
instrument of blessing to a heathen nation. It found vent in
the ungenerous anger and petulant complaints, with which the
unwelcome reprieve of the sentence on Nineveh was received by
him. Taught by the discipline of God to see this spirit in its
true light, he exhibits it (if as is most probable he was himself
the author of this book) in his own personal history, in all its
deformity and injustice, as a lesson to others. He exalts the
Gentile in comparison of the Jew. He places the heathen
sailors in the storm in favourable contrast with himself, the
prophet of God, and by implication at least, the penitent
Ninevites in like favourable contrast with impenitent Israel.
With noble disregard of self he is content to pass out of view at
the close of the book silenced and disgraced, that so he may the
better point the moral with which he is charged. Yet not even
this, taken alone and simply in itself considered, is the proper aim
and object of the book of Jonah. Like the teaching of repent
ance, it is an integral part of a larger aim.
3. Three Acts, as it were, in a drama, three movements, so
to speak, in an oratorio, this book contains. Each of them is
full of interest, replete with instruction, the work of a master's
hand. In the first, Jonah himself is the central figure. His
conversion is its subject. At its commencement he is self-
willed and refractory. At its close he is submissive and obedi
ent. The Flight, the Storm, the Imprisonment in the fish, the
Prayer, the Deliverance, are the several scenes in this Act. Its
beginning and end are marked by the words, "Now the word of
the Lord came unto Jonah, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh.. .but
Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the
Lord" (c. i. 1—3) ; "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah
the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh.. .So Jonah arose
and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord"
(c iii i—3) The second Act as we have called it concentrates
our attention on "that great city" Nineveh. Its repentance
and salvation are now the engrossing theme. In the simple
JONAH 2

INTRODUCTION.

grandeur of its vast size, imagination being left to complete the
picture, to fill in that great area with royal palaces and crowded
marts and gardens and vineyards and parks and pleasances,
the city .stands before us. Scene follows upon scene in quick
and lifelike succession. The solitary stranger enters Nineveh
as "a voice crying," not in the wilderness but in the city, no
word or deed of his within its precincts recorded but this, that
as he went he said "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be over
thrown." The scene changes. "Lamentation and mourning
and woe" are heard in every quarter of that vast city, "All joy
is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone." Costly ap
parel is exchanged for sackcloth. Sumptuous fare gives place-
to fasting. Even the lower animals are included in the uni
versal sorrow and humiliation. Business and pleasure alike
cease. Nineveh is one vast temple of penitence and prayer. Yet
another and no less striking scene brings this act to a conclu
sion. Their prayer is heard, their repentance is accepted, their
city is spared, the stream of their life purified and renewed
returns to its accustomed course. The cloud that hung threat
eningly over their city is dispersed, and the sun shines forth
upon it again. "And God saw their works, that they turned
from their evil way, and God repented of the evil, that He had
said that He would do unto them : and He did it not" (c. iii. io).
But this, however morally grand and impressive, is not the
climax of the history. The teaching of the book of Jonah does
not end here. There remains another Act in which the prophet
himself is again the chief character. Jonah displeased at the
result of his mission, irritated and complaining, weary of life,
and praying that he may die; Jonah sojourning in the hut
which he has built him on the hill-side without the walls of the
city, watching thence with evil eye the fortunes of Nineveh ;
Jonah exceeding glad of the shady plant which God had
mercifully prepared to overshadow his- booth and screen him
from the heat, vexed and angry even unto death again when
that welcome alleviation is withdrawn; Jonah convinced and
silenced by the divinely-drawn contrast between his own selfish
sorrow for a plant, and God's large and liberal pity for the

INTRODUCTION. 19

populous city of Nineveh — these are the scenes pourtrayed with
the same brevity and vigour as before in this final Act or
chapter of the work.
4. But the book of Jonah is complete as a whole as well as
thus complete in its several parts. The three Acts make one
drama, the three movements form one composition. For
the true harmonising "idea," which while it gives unity to
the whole adds force and lustre to the several parts, we are
indebted to the teaching of the New Testament. It is by the
light of the later revelation that we discern the meaning and
unity of this portion of the earlier. Our Lord, as we have seen
aheady, regards Jonah as a type of Himself. He teaches us to
see in this book an historical parable, a prophecy in act. As
Jonah was swallowed, by the fish, so Christ was laid in the
heart of the earth. As Jonah after three days was cast up alive
and unharmed on dry ground, so Christ rose again the third day
from the dead. As Jonah went forth from his living prison to
preach to the Ninevites (the only instance of a Jewish Prophet
sent to the heathen), so Christ after His resurrection went forth,
not in His own person, but by the agency of His Church, to
preach the Gospel in all the world. The typical teaching of
the book may be summed up, as has been said, in the words of
St Paul, "That Christ should suffer, and that He should be the
first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto
the people (of Israel), and to the Gentiles1." Thus the lesson of
repentance and the rebuke of exclusiveness take a higher,
because in fact a Christian form, while the claim of this book to
a place in the canon of Old Testament prophecy is amply
justified. The history of Jonah is a part of that great onward
movement, which was before the Law and under the Law, which
gained strength and volume as the fulness of the times drew
near, but which could only find its consummation in the Incar
nation and work of Him in whom all distinctions of country
and race were to be for ever broken down, in Whose name
repentance and remission of sins were to be preached among
1 Matthew xii. 40, 41 ; Acts xxvi. 23.

20 INTRODUCTION.

all nations1, in Whom all nations of the earth were to be blessed,
Who was to be at once a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the
glory of His people Israel.

CHAPTER IV.

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS.

The book of Jonah may conveniently be divided into four
sections, corresponding almost exactly with the four chapters in
our English Bibles.
/. Jonah's disobedience and punishment, ch. i. r — 17.
Jonah, sent on a divine mission to Nineveh, refuses to go, and takes
ship to flee to Tarshish, i. 1 — 3.
Overtaken by a storm sent by God to arrest him in his flight, he is,
at his own request, cast into the sea by the sailors, after all their efforts
to save the ship have proved unavailing. The sea then becomes calm,
i. 4 — 16.
II. Jonah's prayer and deliverance, ch. i. r7 — ii. 10.
Swallowed alive by a great fish, prepared by God for the purpose,
Jonah remains in the belly of the fish three days and three nights,
i. 17. He offers a prayer of thanksgiving for the deliverance from death by
drowning already accorded him, mingled with confident expectation of
yet further rescue, ii. 1 — 9.
At the command of God the fish casts him up on dry land, ii. ro.
III. Jonah's preaching and its result, ch. iii.
Profiting by the chastisement he has undergone, Jonah promptly
obeys a second command to go to Nineveh, iii. 1  3.
He delivers there his startling message, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh
shall be overthrown," iii. 4.
The Ninevites believe God and repent, and the threatened judgment
is averted, iii. 5 — 10. °

IV. Jonah's displeasure and its rebuke, ch. iv.
ion displeases Jona
'. 1—4.
1 Luke xxiv. 47.

This result of his mission displeases Jonah exceedingly, and he com-
plains to God against it, iv. 1 — 4.

INTRODUCTION. 21
Still hoping, as it would seem, that Nineveh may be overthrown,
he constructs for himself a booth without the walls, and sits beneath
its shade to watch the fate of the city, iv. 5.
God causes a shady plant to spring up quickly and cover his booth,
so as to shelter him from the burning heat of the sun ; but the comfort
thus afforded him is speedily withdrawn by the sudden withering of the
plant, iv. 6, 7.
His grief for the loss of the plant is made the occasion by God of
rebuking his want of pity for Nineveh, and of justifying His own
merciful compassion in sparing that great city with its teeming popula
tion and exceeding much cattle, iv. 8 — 11.

JONAH.

i — 3. Jonah's Disobedience.
Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of 1
Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, 2
and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up be
fore me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the 3
presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he
Ch. I. 1 — 3. Jonah's Disobedience.
1. Now the word, &c] Lit., "And the word," &c. There is no
reason to conclude from this that the Book of Jonah is only a fragment
of a larger work. Many books of the Old Testament begin with
"And." In some cases (e.g. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, 2 Samuel)
they do so, because the writer wishes to mark the fact that the book so
commencing is a continuation, a second or third volume so to speak, of
what he has written before. In other cases, as here and in Ezekiel i. r,
the author begins his work with the words, "And it was," "And it
came to pass," because, though he may have written nothing before
himself, yet there is a reference in his own mind to the national records
that had gone before, and he consciously takes up the thread of past
history. See Maurer on Ezek. i. i.
2. Nineveh] On the E. bank of the Tigris, the capital of the ancient
kingdom and empire of Assyria, and "the most magnificent of all the
capitals of the ancient world. " The building of it is mentioned as early
as Gen. x. n. In the time of Jonah it appears to have been at the
zenith of its glory.
that great city] See note on c. iii. 3, and Note B.
3. Tarshish] Probably Tartessus, an ancient mercantile city of the
Phoenicians, in the S. of Spain, of which the site is supposed to have
been "between the two arms by which the Guadalquivir flowed into the
sea." See Smith's Bib. Diet. Art. Tarshish. " God bid him go to
Nineveh, which lay North-East from his home, and he instantly set him
self to flee to the then furthermost West." — Pusey.
from the presence of the Lord] This may mean from standing before
the Lord or being in His presence, as His servant or minister (Deut. x. 8,
Kings xvii. t, Matthew xviii. io, Luke i. 19. See Dr Pusey, Commentary
on Jonah, p. 247, note d.) ; i. e. he renounced his office of prophet rather

26 JONAH, I.  Lv-3-
found a ship going to Tarshish : so he paid the fare thereof,
and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from
the presence of the Lord.
than obey so unwelcome a command. It may, however, only refer to
that special presence of God in the Holy Land, which all Jews recognised.
Either view is compatible with a belief on the part of Jonah in the om
nipresence of God (Ps. cxxxix.). It is said of Cain (Gen. iv. 16) that
he "went out from the presence of the Lord" (and the Heb. phrase
is the same as here), when he forfeited the favourable regard, together
possibly with some local manifestation of the presence of the Almighty.
The reason of Jonah's disobedience is given by himself, ch. iv. 2.
Knowing well the lovingkindness of God, he anticipated that He would
spare the Ninevites on their repentance, and he could not bring -him
self to be the messenger of mercy to heathen, much less to heathen who
(as the Assyrian inscriptions state) had already made war against his
own people, and who as he may have known were destined to be their
conquerors. See the statements of his probable contemporary, Hosea,
ix. 3, xi. 5.
Joppa] Now Jaffa, the well-known port of Palestine on the Mediter
ranean. It was 50 miles from Gath-hepher.
"Jaffa is one of the oldest cities in the world. It was given to
Dan (?), in the distribution of the land by Joshua, and it has been known
to history ever since. It owes its existence to the low ledge of rocks,
which extends into the sea from the extremity of the little cape, on
which the city stands, and forms a small harbour. Insignificant as it is
and insecure, yet there being no other in all this coast, it was sufficient
to cause a city to spring up around it even "in the earliest times, and to
sustain its life through numberless changes of dynasties, races and
religions, down to the present hour. It was in fact the only harbour of
any notoriety possessed by the Jews throughout the greater part of their
national existence. To it the timber for both the temples of Jerusalem
was brought from Lebanon; and no doubt a lucrative trade in cedar
and pine was always carried on through it with the nations who had
possession of the forests of Lebanon. Through it also nearly all the
foreign commerce of the Jews was conducted until the artificial port of
Caesarea was built by Herod."
"The harbour, however, is very inconvenient and insecure. Vessels
of any considerable burden must lie out in the open roadstead — a very
uneasy berth at all times ; and even a moderate wind will oblige them
to slip cable and run out to sea, or seek anchorage at Haifa, sixty miles
distant. The landing also is most inconvenient, and often extremely
dangerous. More boats upset and more lives are lost in the breakers at
the north end of the ledge of rocks that defend the inner habour;
than anywhere else on this coast. I have been in imminent danger
myself, with all my family in the boat, and never look without a shudder
at this treacherous port, with its noisy surf tumbling over the rocks, as
if on purpose to swallow up unfortunate boats." — Thomson, Land and
Book, pp. 514 — 516; see also Smith's Bible Diet. Art. Joppa.

w- 4, 5-]  JONAH, I. '27
4 — 16. Jonah's Punishment. The Storm and its
consequences.
But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there 4
was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to
be broken. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every 5
man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the
4—16. Jonah's Punishment. The Storm and its
consequences.
No sooner does Jonah decide upon his course of action and think
himself now secure of its accomplishment, than God arrests him by the
judgment of the storm.
4. sent out] Lit. , as in margin, cast forth, indicating the sudden
ness and violence of the storm. The same word occurs and is rendered
"cast forth" in E.V. in w. 5, 12, 15.
Josephus speaks of a violent wind called "the black North wind,"
which he says sometimes visited the sea off the coast of Joppa. And
we read of " a tempestuous wind called Euroclydon " in another part
of the same sea, which rushing down the highlands of Crete suddenly
caught the ship in which St Paul was sailing, and brought on a tempest
scarcely less severe than that to which Jonah was exposed (Acts xxvii.
14). The modern name Levanter is a witness to the prevalence of such
winds in those seas. v
was like to be broken] Lit., thought to he broken, as in the margin.
A vivid image or personification in keeping with the graphic style of
this book. The same word " broken," i.e. " broken up," or " broken
in pieces," is used of a ship that is wrecked in 1 Kings xxii. 48. Comp.
Acts xxvii. 41.
6, 6. The conduct of the heathen mariners stands in striking and
favourable contrast with that of the Jewish prophet. They call upon
their gods and use every effort to save the ship. He, moody, miserable,
and weary with mental conflict and bodily fatigue, is sunk in deep
sleep, and has to be roused to consciousness and prayer by the
reproaches of the heathen captain.
5. the mariners'] The Hebrew word is formed from the word for
salt, and denotes those occupied with the salt sea. So we sometimes
speak of a sailor as a " salt:"
See note on next verse, and for the whole description of their terror
and their prayer comp. Ps. cvii. 23 — 30 ; Matt. viii. 23 — 27.
every man unto his god] They were probably Phoenicians, who had
the carrying trade between Joppa and Tarshish. This would account
for their multiplicity of gods. The crew, however, may have been com
posed of men of different nations. Comp.
" All lost ! to prayers, to prayers ! All lost ! "
Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I. Sci V.
the wares] It is doubtful whether this includes the cargo. It may

28 , JONAH, I. [v. 6.
ship into the sea, to lighten it of them, But Jonah was gone
down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast
6 asleep. So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him,
only mean the furniture of the ship, moveables, spare tackling, etc.
In St Paul's shipwreck a similar course was taken (Acts xxvii. 19), but
the cargo was not thrown overboard till a later period (ver. 38). Jonah's
ship may have been, like St Paul's, a corn ship. The export of com
from Joppa was very considerable. See r Kings v. 9 ; Ezek. xxvii. r7 ;
Acts xii. 20.
to lighten it of them] Rather, to lighten (the burden) from upon
them (the mariners), i. e. to make matters easier for them*. Comp.
Exod. xviii. 22, where the same Hebrew phrase is rendered "it shall be
easier for thyself."
the sides of the ship] The Hebrew word is not the same as that
rendered "ship" earlier in the verse. It occurs nowhere else in the
O. T., but the verb from which it is derived signifies to 'cover' or 'board
over' (1 Kings vii. 3, 7), so that it is probably used to denote that it
was a decked vessel in which Jonah sailed, and that he had, as we should
say, gone down below. The "sides of the ship " are what we should
call the bottom of the ship, the part in which the two sides meet. The
same expression is used of the innermost recess of a cave, the point of
meeting of the two sides (1 Sam. xxiv. 3).
was fast asleep] Jonah had probably fallen asleep before the storm
commenced, and slumbered too deeply to be roused by it, or by the
commotion on board. Our Lord's sleep amidst the storm on the lake -
(Mark iv. 38) furnishes at once a comparison and a contrast. Kalisch
quotes in illustration of the heavy sleep of sorrow the case of the
disciples in the Garden; " He found them sleeping for sorrow," Luke
xxii. 45; and the words of Sallust, "primo cura, dein, uti segrum
animum solet, somnus cepit," Bell. Jug. c. 71.
6. the shipmaster] Lit. , the chief of the sailors, i. e. the captain.
The word here for sailors (which is singular and used collectively) is not
the same word as that rendered mariners in v. 5. It is formed from the
Hebrew word for a rope, and means properly those who handle the
ropes. Both words occur again (and it is the only other place in the
O. T. where either of them is found) in the description of the maritime
greatness of Tyre in Ezekiel xxvii. The word used in this verse is
there rendered in w. 8, 27, 29, pilots, and the mention of their wisdom
in v. 8 has been thought to justify this distinction. It should be
observed, however, that the contrast there is between mere rowers (for
so, and not mariners, the other word in that verse should be rendered)
who were hired from Sidon and Arvad, and skilled sailors, who were
the product of Tyre herself. The word rendered mariners in v. 5 of
this chapter and in Ezek. xxvii. 9, 27, 29, appears to be a more
general word, including all seafaring persons. The Hebrews, not
being a maritime nation, make but little use of nautical terms. Wc
have in addition to the words just mentioned the expressions, " ship-
men that had knowledge of the sea" (lit., " men of ships, knowing.the

v. 7-] JONAH, I. 29
What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if
so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.
And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us 7
cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon

sea"), r Kings ix. 27 (comp. 2 Chron. viii. 18); "They that go down
to the sea in ships," Psalm cvii. 23, or simply, " They that go down to
the sea," Isaiah xiii. 10.
What meanest thou, 0 sleeper?] Lit., What (is there) to thee,
Bleeping ? i.e. What reason hast thou for sleeping? The E. V. apparently
takes the participle "sleeping" as a vocative, "O sleeper?" What
meanest thou by sleeping! would perhaps be the best translation. It is
an exclamation of indignant surprise at the unreasonableness of Jonah's
conduct The word for sleep here and in v. 5 means heavy or deep
sleep, such as Adam's (Gen. ii. 21), or Sisera's (Judg. iv. 21). LXX. W
God] This abstract use of the word (lit, "the God") immediately
after "thy God" in this verse, and the mention in v. 6 that the
mariners "cried every man unto his god," is remarkable. It would
seem to imply, as Calvin argues, that behind and above the many gods
whom the heathen invented for themselves, they retained the idea,
vague perhaps and indistinct for the most part, but starting into promi
nence in times of danger and distress such as this, of one supreme God
by whose providence the world is governed, and in whose hand are the
life and safety of all men.
will think upon us] Some would render, " will brighten, or shine
upon us," i.e. will be propitious or favourable to us ; but there seems
no reason to depart from the E.V.
7. Finding their prayers as unavailing as their efforts, the sailors
conclude that the storm is sent upon them by the gods as a judgment
for some crime committed by one of their number ; and they proceed
to cast lots to discover who the culprit is. Instances of a similar belief
on the part of the heathen have been adduced from classical authors
(see Rosenmiiller and Maurer in loe. ). A story is told by Cicero (de
Nat. Deor. in. 37) of Diagoras, how that when he was on a voyage,
and the sailors, terrified by a storm which had befallen them, charged
him with being the cause of it, he pointed to other vessels in the same
plight with themselves, and asked them whether they thought that they
too carried Diagoras. Horace, in a well-known passage, affirms that he
would not suffer a man, who had provoked the anger of the gods, to
put to sea in the same boat with him, because the innocent in such
cases were not unfrequently involved in a common punishment with the
guilty (Hor. Od. lib. HI. c. 2. 26 — 30). The truth, which underlay this
wide spread conviction, is taught us in its pure form in such histories as
those of Achan (Josh, vii.) and Jonathan ( 1 Sam. xiv. 36—46).
for whose cause] Lit., on account of (that) which (refers) to whom,
i.e. on whose account. The same expression occurs in v. 12 ("for my
sake"), and, though in the Hebrew in an uncontracted form, in v. 8,

30 JONAH, L [vv- 8> 9"-
8 us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Then
said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose ' cause
this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence
comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art
9 thou? And he said unto them, I am a Hebrew; and I fear
the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and
the lot fell upon Jonah] An illustration of Prov. xvi. 33 ; comp.
Josh. vii. 18; 1 Sam. xiv. 42. It is worthy of note that the use of the
lot, though frequently mentioned and sanctioned in the O.T., and
employed even after the Ascension in the choice of an Apostle to fill
the place of Judas, never occurs in the Bible after, the day of Pentecost.
It would seem to have been superseded and rendered needless by the
gift which conferred "a right judgment in all things."
8. for whose cause] The lot has detected Jonah, but they will not
condemn him unheard. They will give him an opportunity of clearing
himself, or like Achan (Josh. vii. 19), of making confession with his
own lips. The judicial fairness and calmness of these heathen men,
their abstinence from anger and reproach for the wrong done them,
their sense of the sanctity of human life, their fear of punishing the
innocent, are very strikingly brought out in the whole of this excitmg
scene. "Even in their supreme danger the mariners were anxious not only to
avoid all violence, but all haste. While the fury of the waves and the
tempest constantly increased, and every instant was precious to those
who prized their lives, they patiently instituted an investigation with
almost judicial calmness. Though fully trusting to the reality of the
decision by lot, they were resolved neither to execute the judgment
without the offender's confession, nor to execute it in an arbitrary
manner." Kalisch, who quotes the words of Philo: "One might see in
the scene a terrible tribunal : for the ship was the court of justice, the
judges were the sailors, the executioners were the winds, the prisoner at
the . bar was the prophet, the house of correction and prison of safe
keeping was the whale, and the accuser was the angry sea. "
What is thine occupation, &c] This crowding together of questions ¦
in their excitement is very true to nature. It has been compared with
the well-known passage in Virgil, JEn. VIII. 112 — 114.
9. The emergency recals Jonah to his true self. All the better part
of his character now comes out. His conduct throughout the remainder
of the chapter is dignified and manly, worthy of a servant and prophet
of Jehovah,
a Hebrew] This is the name by which the Jews were known to
foreigners (comp. the use of it by Juvenal and other classical writers).
It is quite in keeping with Biblical usage that Jonah employs it in
describing himself to the heathen sailors. Had he been addressing
one of his own countrymen, he would have spoken of himself as an
Israelite. I fear tjie Lord] Rather, I fear Jehovah. They knew already

vv. 10— 12.] JONAH, I. 31
the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and 10
said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew
that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had
told them. Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto n
thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought,
and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, 12
and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto
(v. 10) that he was a worshipper of Jehovah, and that he had offended
Him, and was fleeing from His presence. But hitherto they had only
looked upon Jehovah as a god, one of many, with whom they had no
concern. Comp. Pharaoh's contemptuous question, "Who is Jehovah,
that I should obey his voice, to let Israel go ? I know not Jehovah,
neither will I let Israel go." Ex. v. 2. Now, however, when Jonah
added that Jehovah was the God of heaven, who had made the sea and
the dry land, while the tempest raged still to confirm his words, "The
men were exceedingly afraid."
10. Why hast thou done this?] Rather, What is this that thou
hast done? A question not of enquiry, but of amazement and re
proach. Comp. Gen. iv. 10.
11. What shall we do unto thee] No doubt in their thus appealing
to Jonah to tell them what was to be done, instead of at once ridding
themselves of him as the acknowledged cause of their calamity, we may
recognise their reverence for Jehovah, and in a measure also for His
servant. At the same time it was only natural and reasonable that,
having learned of him the cause, they should seek to know from him
the cure of their trouble. " Since you are a worshipper of the most High
and Almighty God, you ought to know how the anger of your God can
be appeased." — Rosenm.
may be calm unto as] Lit., may he quiet from upon us, i. e. from
pressing upon us and being hostile to us. The word used for being
quiet or silent in this and the next verse only occurs beside in Ps. cvii.
30, of quiet after a storm at sea, and in Prov. xxvi. 20, of the ceasing
of strife.
wrought, and was tempestuotts] Lit., was going and being tossed,
i. e. according to the Hebrew idiom, became increasingly tempestuous.
So in Gen. viii. 3, "the waters returned from off the earth continually,"
is literally, "returned to go and to return," i. c. returned increasingly, or
more and more.
12. cast me forth into the sea] "The question is raised whether
Jonah ought of his own accord to have offered himself to death ; for his
doing so seems to be a sign of despair. He might, indeed, have sur
rendered himself to their will, but here he, as it were, incites them to
the deed. Cast me into the sea, he says, for in no other way will you
appease God, than by punishing me. He seems like a man in despair
when he thus goes at his own instance to death. But without doubt
Jonah recognised that he was divinely summoned to punishment. It is
uncertain whether he then conceived a hope of preservation, whether,

32 JONAH, I. [w. 13, 14
you : for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon
13 you. Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the
land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was
14 tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the
Lord, and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee,
let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us
innocent blood : for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased

that is, with a present confidence, he rested on the grace of God ; but,
however that be, one may gather that he goes forth to death because he
perceives and is assuredly persuaded that he is in a manner summoned
by the open voice of God. And so there is no doubt that he patiently
undergoes the judgment which the Lord has brought against him." —
Calvin. 13. rowed hard] Lit., digged. The word is used for digging or
breaking through a wall, Job xxiv. 16; Ezek. xii. 5, 7. The figurative
use of it does not occur again in the O. T., where, as has been before
observed, the references to maritime affairs are very few, but the figure
itself is common in other languages. Rosenm. compares the phrases
"infindere sulcos," "arare aquas, "scindere freta." Virg. ^Sn. v. 142,
Ovid, Trist. m. Eleg. xn. 36, Metamorph. xi. 463. They used their
utmost endeavours to bring her to land again, but in vain, for the tem
pest, so far from abating, only raged more furiously.
14 — 16. The openness of these heathens to religious impressions ;
the readiness with which they acknowledged Jehovah (hitherto to them
an unknown God), and addressed no longer to their own gods (v. 5),
but to Him their most earnest and humble prayers ; their submission to
His will (v. 14), and the worship which they subsequently paid and
promised Him (v. 15), are all brought out in bold relief, and in strong
and (in pursuance of the object of this Book) intended contrast with
the conduct of His own people Israel in turning from Him to idols.
These heathens, too, reverence and would fain save from death a prophet
of Jehovah who has come to them unbidden, and has well-nigh com-
passed their destruction ; Jerusalem " killed the prophets and stoned
them that were sent unto her" for her salvation. They shew the
utmost tenderness for a single life ; Jonah, the prophet of the Lord, is
worse than regardless of "more than sixscore thousand" human souls.
14. for this man's life] i. e. for having taken it away. Lit., in the
. life of this man, according to a well-known use of this Heb. prepo
sition in the sense of ' in the place of,' ' in exchange for.' So Gen. "
xxix. 18, "I will serve thee for (lit. 'in,' in exchange for) Rachel;"
and Deut. xix. ai, " life for (in) life," &c.
lay not upon us innocent blood] i. e. the guilt of having shed innocent
blood. Comp. Deut xxi. 8.
for thou, 0 Lord, &c] The death of this man is no doing of ours.
We are only carrying out Thy declared will. Hold us not, therefore^
responsible for it " That Jonah betook himself to this ship of ours,

w. 15—17.] JONAH, I. 33
thee. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the 15
sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men 16
feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto
the Lord, and made vows.
i. 17 — ii. 10. Jonah's Prayer and Deliverance.
Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up 17
that the tempest was raised, that Jonah was taken by lot, that he passed
this sentence upon himself, all thisacomes of Thy will." — Rosenm.
IB. they took up] With respect and' reluctance, with no struggle on
his part, or violence on theirs.
her raging] Lit., her anger. "Maris ira," Ovid. Met. I. 330,
"iratum mare," Hor. Epod. 11. 5, 6, are quoted by the commentators.
16. feared the Lord exceedingly] They had feared exceedingly before
(v. 10, where the Heb. expression is the same as here), but their fear
then was vague and indefinite, now it recognised as its object Jehovah,
the God of Jonah.
offered a sacrifice] It would certainly seem to be implied, that im
mediately on the ceasing of the storm the sailors offered a sacrifice to
Jonah's God, in acknowledgment of what He had already done, and at
the same time vowed that they would present to Him other gifts and
offerings when He should have brought them safe to land. We know
but little of the ships of the ancients, but some of them were of con
siderable size, and there is no difficulty in supposing that there may
have been one or more live animals suitable for sacrifice on board
Jonah's ship.
I. 17 — II. 10. Jonah's Prayer and Deliverance.
Cast into the sea at his own request by the sailors, Jonah is swallowed
alive by a large fish, and remains uninjured inside it for three days and
three nights, i. 1 7. While there, he offers a prayer of thanksgiving to
Almighty God (ii. 1 — 9), at whose command the fish, at the end of the
three days and three nights, vomits up Jonah on the dry land, ii. 10.
17. had prepared] Rather: assigned, or appointed. (LXX. irpotri-
ra£e.) The same word and tense are used of the gourd; the worm, and
the East wind, ch. iv. 6, 7, 8. They do not necessarily imply any
previous or special preparation, much less the creation of these various
agents for the purpose to which they were put ; but merely that they
were appointed to it by Him, whom "all things serve." He sent the
fish there to do His bidding. The word is rendered "appointed" in
Job vii. 3, Dan. i. 5, 10; and "set" in Dan. i. 11.
"By God's immediate direction it was so arranged that the very
moment when Jonah was thrown into the waves, the 'great fish' was
on the spot to receive him ; God charged the animal to perform this
function, as He afterwards ' spoke to ' it {v. 10), or commanded it, to
vomit out the prophet on the dry land." — Kalisch.
a great fish] Probably a shark. See note A.
JONAH 3

JONAH, I. II. [vv. 17; 1,2.

Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days
2 and three nights. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his
a God out of the fish's belly, and said,
three days and three nights] At this point the transaction becomes
clearly miraculous. The swallowing of Jonah by the fish may have
been in the course of the ordinary working of divine Providence. His
preservation within it for so long a time plainly belongs to that other
working of Almighty God which, though it be no less after the counsel
of that Will (Ephes. i. n) which is the highest and only Law, appears
to us to be extraordinary, and which we therefore call miraculous.
A comparison of 1 Cor. xv. 4 with Matt. xii. 40 shows that the period
of Jonah s incarceration in the fish was divinely ordered to be a type of
our Lord's being "three days and three nights in the heart of the
earth." This is the only passage in the O. T., if we except Hosea
vi. 2, in which there is any prophetical intimation of the length of time
between our Lord's burial and resurrection.
' Ch. II. — 1. Then Jonah prayed] What follows, w. 2 — 9, is rather
a thanksgiving than a prayer. The same, however, may be said of
Hannah's utterance (1 Sam. ii. I — 10), which is introduced by the same
word ("Hannah prayed"). Comp. Acts xvi. 25, where Alford renders
"praying, sung praises," or "in their prayers were singing praises,"
and remarks that ' ' the distinction of modern times between prayer and
praise arising from our attention being directed to the shape rather than
to the essence of devotion, was unknown in these days : see Col. iv. 2."
It has, indeed, been held (Maurer) that Jonah does pray here, and that
the past tenses (v. 2, &c.) are in reality present and only in form past,
because they are literal quotations from some of the Psalms. It is
simpler, however, to suppose, with the great majority of commentators,
that Jonah had prayed to God in the prospect and the act of being cast
into the sea, while he was being buffeted by the waves and sinking into
the depths, and in the agony of being swallowed by the fish. During
all this time, whether his lips spoke or not, his mind was fixed in that
intent Godward attitude and posture which is the truest prayer. Now,
, however, when he finds himself alive and unharmed in 'that strange
abode, he prays no longer, but offers thanksgivings for the measure of
deliverance already granted him in answer to those former prayers,
mingled with joyful anticipations of the yet further deliverance which
the last verse of the chapter records. It seems probable that Jonah's
prayer was offered at the end of the three days and nights, and was
followed immediately by his release. How the three days and nights
were spent by him, whether in unconsciousness, as some have thought,
or in godly sorrow and repentance, like Saul at Damascus, as others
have held, we have no means of knowing. '
his God] When Jonah flees in disobedience it is "from the presence
of Jehovah;" when he prays in penitence, it is to "Jehovah his God."
Comp. "O Lord my God," v. 6, and "my God," Psalm xxii. r.
- 2. and said] The prayer which follows falls naturally into three
parts or divisions. In each of these the two elements of danger and

v. 2.] JONAH, II. 35
I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and
he heard me;
deliverance, of need and help, appear. But they enter into them in
very different proportions. Faith grows, and the prospect brightens at
each fresh- stage of the hymn. The first rises to prayer, the second to
confidence, the third to thankfulness and praise.
I. w. i — 4.
(1) Introduction, containing the general subject of the hymn : I
cried and was heard, I was in trouble and was delivered.
v. 1.
(2) Description of the danger and distress, v. 3,
(3) Faith triumphing over despondency and prompting to prayer.
v. 4.
II. w. 5, 6.
(1) More vivid description of the danger and distress, w. 5, 6a.
(2) Deliverance not only prayed for, but possessed, v. 6b.
III. w. 7—9.
(1) Prayer, offered in danger and distress, has been heard, v. 7.
(2) God, no longer forsaken, but sought and recognised as the
fountain of mercy, has granted deliverance which shall be
acknowledged with sacrifices of thanksgiving and vows
joyfully paid. w. 8, ga.
(3) All salvation, as this typical instance shows, is of God. v. gb.
The prayer is remarkable for its many resemblances in thought and
expression to passages in the Book of Psalms. The words of the
Psalter, however, are not exactly and literally quoted, but its ideas
and phrases are freely wrought into the prayer, as if drawn from the
well-stored memory of a pious Israelite, familiar with its contents, and
naturally giving vent to his feelings in the cherished forms, which were
now instinct for him with new life and meaning. The manner in which
our English literature (not only sacred, but secular and even profane
and infidel) abounds in Scripture imagery and phraseology may help us
to understand how coincidences of this kind may have arisen, without
any deliberate intention on the part of a later writer to copy from an
earlier, or even any direct consciousness that he was doing so.
by reason of mine affliction] Rather, as in E. V. margin, out of
mine affliction, i. e. out of the midst of it, while it still compassed me
about. The time referred to is when he was in the sea.
The first half of this verse is identical in the Heb. words, though not in
their order, with Ps. cxx. 1, except that ip the Psalm we have "in,"
instead of "from" or "out of" mine affliction, and a lengthened form
of the word for affliction is used. The coincidence cannot, however, be
properly said to affect the date of the Book of Jonah. The Psalm, it is
3—2

36  JONAH, II.  [vv. 3, 4-
Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my
voice.
3 For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of
the seas;
And the floods compassed me about:
All thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
» Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight;

true, belongs to a collection which " in its present form must have been
made after the return from Babylon," but it by no means follows that
no ode of the collection had been composed before that time. Besides,
the whole sentence is, both in language and idea, too commonplace, so
to speak, to be safely insisted upon as a quotation at all. Two quite
independent writers may easily have lighted on it. And moreover, if
quoted at all, it may owe its origin no less probably to Psalm xviii.,
between which and the prayer of Jonah the resemblance, though less
exact in this particular verse, is as a whole more close and striking.
Comp. Ps. xviii. 6 (ist clause).
of hell] The unseen world, the place of the dead, amongst whom,
when cast into the sea, he seemed already to be numbered. Comp. Ps.
xviii. 5, "the sorrows of hell (or rather "the bonds of the unseen
world") compassed me about."
3. hadst cast] There is no pluperf. tense in the Heb. language.
There is no need, however, here to depart from the more literal ren
dering castedst or didst cast. See note on v. i.
the deep] The same word is used (in the plur.) literally of Pharaoh
and his host, Ex. xv. 5, "They sank into the bottom," and meta
phorically, Micah vii. 19. ¦
the floods] Lit., the river. Used of the current or flowing of the
sea. " And the flowing (of the sea) surrounds me. " Gesenius : ' das
strbmen.' The same word occurs in the same sense, Ps. xxiv. 2.
All thy billows, &c] Lit., "all Thy breakers and Thy long rolling
waves." Comp. "Quanti montes volvuntur aquarum." Ovid. Trist.
I. ii. 19. The whole clause occurs again in Ps. xiii. 7, though there it
is used metaphorically and here literally; or rather, to the metaphorical
sense is here superadded the literal. For by calling them "Thy"
breakers and waves, Jonah shews that to him, as to the Psalmist, the
sense of God's punishment and displeasure was the soul of his affliction.
4. Then I said, &c] The first clause of this verse may, perhaps
be a reminiscence of the first clause of Ps. xxxi. 22 (Heb. 23), though
there the words "in my haste" are added, and a different verb ("cut
off" instead of "cast out") is used. "Jonah substitutes the stronger
word, / am cast forth, driven forth, expelled, like the mire and dirt
(Is. Ivii. 20), which the waves drive along, or like the waves themselves
in their restless motion (#.), or the heathen (the word is the same)
whom God had driven out before Israel (Ex. xxxiv. n), or as Adam
from Paradise. (Gen. iii. 24.)" — Pusey.

vv. 5, 6.] JONAH, II. 37
Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: .
The depth closed me round about,
The weeds were wrapt about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; .
The earth with her bars was about me for ever:
thy holy temple] Not the heavenly temple or dwelling-place of God,
but the literal temple. This is not, however, an expression of Jonah's
confident belief that, outcast as he now seemed to be, he would certainly
be delivered, and visit again, and behold once more with his bodily
eyes the temple on Mount Sion. It is the then present thought and
resolution with which, when he said "I am cast out of Thy sight," he
corrected and overcame his unbelieving despondency. "One thing is
left me still, one resource is still open to me, I will still pray, I will
look (mentally) yet again towards Thy holy temple." The phrase "to
look towards the temple," denoting prayer, has its origin in the prayer of
Solomon at the dedication of the Temple. See I Kings viii. 29, 30, 48,
and comp. Dan. vi. 10. The fact that Jonah was a prophet of the
Northern Kingdom is no valid objection to this view. The Temple on
Mount Sion was the only centre of the true worship of Jehovah, and was
recognised as such by all faithful Israelites. But it would be enough
to say with Calvin, " He had been circumcised, he had been a wor
shipper of God from his youth, he had been educated in the Law, he had
been a constant participator in the sacrifices : under the name of the
Temple he briefly comprehends all these things."
S. compassed me about] It would be better, perhaps, to render
surrounded me, in order to show that this is a different word from that
in v. 3, and then in the second clause of this verse, where the word is
the same as in v. 3, to render compassed me about, instead of closed me
round about.
to the soul] i. e. so as to endanger- my soul, or life. Comp. Ps. lxix. 1
(where similar language is used figuratively) and Jer. iv. 10.
the weeds] The Heb. word is siiph, which so often occurs in the
name Red Sea (lit., sea of suph). "The suph of the sea, it seems quite
certain, is a seaweed resembling wool. Such sea-weed is thrown up
abundantly on the shores of the Red Sea." — Smith's Bible Diet., Art.
Red Sea.
6. bottoms] Lit., as in margin, " cuttings off," the mountains being
poetically conceived of as stretching away their roots or ridges to the
lowest depths of the sea, and there ending or being cut off.
her bars] Lit., (as for) the earth, her bars, &c. The idea is that
the gates of the earth were not only closed, but barred and made fast
upon him, shutting him into the unseen world. The same word is used
of Samson carrying away the gates of Gaza, "bar and all," i.e. pro
bably a. wooden beam used to hold fast the gates when they were
closed. Judg. xvi. 3. Comp. " Let not the pit shut her mouth upon
me," Ps. lxix. 15.

38 JONAH, II. [w. 7, 8.
Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O
Lord my God.
7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the
Lord :
And my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy
temple.
8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own
mercy.
from corruption] Rather, from the pit.
7. fainted] Lit., covered itself; with reference to the film and
darkness that comes over eye and mind in fainting and exhaustion.
Comp. Pss. cxlii. 3, cvii. 5, where the same Heb. word occurs.
thine holy temple] at Jerusalem, as in v. 4.
8. observe lying vanities] Comp. Ps. xxxi. 6, where the same Heb.
word is rendered "regard. By "lying vanities" we are to under
stand "all inventions with which men deceive themselves" (Calvin),
all false, and therefore vain and disappointing objects of trust and con
fidence. Idols and false gods are no doubt included, but the sentiment
is conceived and expressed in the most general form, and therefore
embraces Jonah's own case. He had observed the lying vanity, the
deceitful promise of his own will and his own way, as opposed to God;
and not only had he found that God was stronger than he, but he had
been brought to see and confess that in such a course he had been his
own enemy.
forsake their own mercy] Rather, their mercy. Some (as Kalisch,
for example) would render, "they forget their kindness," i.e. "they
quickly and heedlessly forget the mercies they have enjoyed ; the word
forsake being taken in the sense ol deserting, or dismissing, viz. from
their thoughts," and "their mercies," as analogous to the phrase, the
sure mercies of David (Isai. lv. 3), "the benefits conferred upon or
enjoyed by David." But, apart from the meaning thus arbitrarily given
to the word "forsake," the sentiment attributed to the writer is unsatis
factory and untrue. " The suppliant declares," writes Kalisch, " I was
in distress, I prayed and was saved ; and now, unlike the idolaters who
gracelessly forget the bounties they have received, I shall evince my
gratitude to Jehovah by the voice of praise and by sacred gifts." But
it is not true that the idolaters in this sense " forget the benefits they
have received," as ch. i. 16 shows, and as the heathen temples filled
with votive offerings in acknowledgment of deliverance abundantly
testify. By "their mercy" we are to understand God, who is the only source
of mercy and loving-kindness to all His creatures. The sentiment is
similar to that which is figuratively expressed by the prophet Jeremiah :
" They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed
them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." (ii. 13.)
So God is called, " my mercy," Ps. cxliv. 2 (margin), the same word
being used as here.

w. 9, io; 1—3.] JONAH, II. III. 39
But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanks- 9
giving;
I will pay that that I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord.
And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out 10
Jonah upon the dry land.
1 — 10. Jonah's Preaching and its result.
And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second 3
time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and *
preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah 3
arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the
9. But I] in contrast to my former self, and to the whole body of
those of whom I then was one, will humbly claim and gratefully acknow
ledge my share in " my Mercy." " I will sacrifice unto Thee," &c.
Salvation is of the Lord] Comp. Ps. iii. 8, Rev. vii. 10. This is at
once confession and praise, a Creed and a Te Deum. It is the sum of
his canticle, the outcome of all he has passed through. Deliverance in
its fullest sense is already his in faith and confident anticipation. But
God alone is the Author of it, and to Him alone shall the praise for it
be ascribed. This point reached, Jonah's punishment has done its
work, his discipline is at an end.
Ch. III. 1—10. Jonah's Preaching and its result.
Sent a second time by God on a mission to Nineveh, Jonah promptly
obeys, w. 1 — %a. He enters into Nineveh and delivers his message,
w. 3^—4. The Ninevites believe God and repent, w. 5 — 9; and are
spared, v. 10. 1 — 4. Jonah's Preaching.
1. the second time] Like St Peter (John xxi. 15—17), Jonah is not *~
only forgiven, but restored to his office, and receives anew his com
mission. 2. that great city] Calvin explains this repeated mention of the
greatness of Nineveh (comp. i. 2), as intended to prepare Jonah for the
magnitude of the task before him, lest when he came face to face with
it he should be appalled and draw back. But perhaps the true key is
to be found in iv. 11, where the same expression "the great city"
occurs as an argument for God's compassion. It is on no mean errand
of mercy, not to save a few only from destruction, that I bid you go.
preach tcnto it the preaching] Lit., cry to it the crying. The word
is rendered cry, i. 1.
3. arose, and went] Before, he arose and fled. He is still the same L
man. There is still the same energy and decision of character. But he
js now "as ready to obey as before to disobey."

40 ' JONAH, III. [v. 3.
Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three
was] It has been asserted that the use of the past tense here, " ac
cording to all sound rules of interpretation, must be understood to imply
that, in the author's time, Nineveh existed no longer," (Kalisch). No
thing, however, can safely be determined from the use of a tense in such
cases. The clause " Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city,"&c,
is evidently a part of the narrative, and prepares the way for verse 4.
It simply states what Nineveh was, and what Jonah found and saw it to
be, when he visited it. It is not a historical note, like that which is
introduced with reference to the building of Hebron, Numbers xiii. 22.
St John writes (v. 2) "Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep-gate a
pool. " It might be argued (as it has been) that because he uses the
present tense, Jerusalem must have still been standing when he wrote
his Gospel. Yet it might with equal force be concluded (and it is a
proof of the unsatisfactory nature of this sort of criticism) that because
he says that Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem (xi. 18), that "Jesus
went forth with His disciples over the brook Kedron, where was a
garden" (xviii. 1), and that "in the place where He was crucified there
was a garden" (xix. 41), the city and its environs were already laid
waste when he wrote.
exceeding great] Lit, great to God. The expressions of this kind
which occur in the Bible may be divided into two classes. They all
alike spring out of the devout habit of the Hebrew mind, which recog
nises God in everything, and sees Him specially in whatever is best and
greatest upon earth. But this habit of mind finds expression in two
somewhat different ways. Sometimes, at the contemplation of what is
more than ordinarily grand or beautiful, the pious mind rises at once to
God, and recognises Him in His works. A thing so great, so fair,
must be the work of His hands. " By the greatness and beauty of the
creatures proportionably the Maker of them is seen."
"Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? 
God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer'! and let the ice-plains echo, God!"
Hence such expressions as "mountains of God," Ps. xxxvi. 6; "cedars
of God," Ps. lxxx. 10; "trees of Jehovah," Ps. civ. 16; the explanation
being added in the last of these instances (comp. Num. xxiv. 6), "which
He hath planted. " The other class of expressions are those in which
the excellence of the object contemplated appears to suggest to the
mind that it will bear the scrutiny of God's judgment, that even before
Him, or as referred to Him, it is what the writer asserts it to be. To
this class the expression here belongs. "Nineveh was a city, great, not
only to man's thinking, but to God's." (Comp. ch. iv. ir.) In like
manner we have, "a mighty hunter before the Lord," Gen. x. 9; "fair
to God," Acts vii. 20.
• of three days' journey] The most probable and most generally received
opinion is that these words- refer to the circuit of Nineveh, and that the

v.4-1 JONAH, III. 41
days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a 4

writer intends by them to say that the city was so large, that it would
take a man, walking at the usual pace, three days to go round it. This
would give about 60 miles for its circumference. See note B.
4. And Joriah began to enter into the city] Calvin well brings out
the moral grandeur of the scene which this verse so simply and briefly
describes ; the promptitude of Jonah's action, in entering without delay
or hesitation or enquiry, immediately, as it would seem, upon his
reaching the city, upon his difficult and dangerous task ; his boldness,
as a helpless and unprotected stranger, in standing in the heart of "the
bloody city," and denouncing destruction upon it. It was, indeed, to
"beard the lion in his den" to adventure himself on such an errand
into "the dwelling of the lions and the feeding place of the young
lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion's whelp,
and none made them afraid." (Nahum ii. 11.)
a day's journey] " He began to perambulate the city, going hither
and thither, as far as was possible, in the first day." (Maurer.) And
as he went he cried. In him was personified the description of the
wise King of Israe" :
"Wisdom crieth without;
She uttereth her voice in the streets:
She crieth in the chief place of concourse,
in the openings of the gates: '
In the city she uttereth her words,
Snving,

Turn ye at my reproof." Proverbs i. 20 — 23.
Some have supposed that, as a day's journey would suffice to traverse
from One side to the other a city, of which the dimensions were such
as have been assigned (v. 3) to Nineveh, and as, moreover, Jonah is
found afterwards (iv. 5) on the east side of Nineveh (i. e. the opposite
side to that on which he would have entered it in coming from Pales
tine), we are intended here to understand that he walked quite through
the city in a single day, uttering continually as he went "his one deep
cry of woe." The other view, however, is more natural, and it en
hances the idea of the impressibility of the Nineyites, and their readiness
to believe and repent, which it is evidently the design of the inspired
writer, to convey, if we suppose that while the preacher himself was seen
and heard in only a portion of the vast city, his message was taken up
and repeated, and sped and bore fruit rapidly in every direction, till
tidings of what was happening came to the king himself (v. 6), and in
obedience to the yet distant and unseen prophet, he issued the edict
which laid the whole of Nineveh, man and beast, abashed and humbled
before the threatened blow.

42 JONAH, III. [v. 4.
day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and
Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Yet forty days] "He threatens the overthrow of the city uncon
ditionally. From the event, however, it is clear that the threat was to
be understood with this condition, ' unless ye shall (in the mean time)
have amended your life and conduct.' Comp. Jer. xviii. 7, 8." —
(Rosenm.) God's threatenings are always implied promises.
overthrown] The word is the same as that used of the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrha, both in the history of that event (Gen. xix. 25,
29), and in subsequent reference to it (Deut. xxix. 23 [Heb. 22]). Not
necessarily by the same means, (comp. "overthrown by strangers,''
Isai. i. 7,) but as complete and signal shall the overthrow be. The use
of the participle, lit., Yet forty days and Nineveh overthrown, is
very forcible. To the prophet's eye, overlooking the short interval of
forty days, Nineveh appears not a great city with walls and towers and
palaces, and busy marts and crowded thoroughfares, but one vast mass
of ruins.
It may be asked whether the whole of Jonah's preaching to the
Ninevites consisted of this one sentence incessantly repeated. The
sacred text, taken simply as it stands, seems to imply that it did._ We
have indeed here "the spectacle of an unknown Hebrew, in a pro
phet's austere and homely attire, passing through the splendid streets of
the proudest town of the Eastern world;" but not (except so far as
imagination completes the picture) of his "uttering words of rebuke
and menace, bidding the people not only to make restitution of their
unlawfully acquired property, but to give up their ancestral deities for
the one God of Israel." (Kalisch.) To an oriental mind (and Almighty
God is wont to adapt His means to those whom they are to reach) the
simple, oft-repeated announcement might be more startling than a
laboured address. "Simplicity is always impressive. They were four
words which God caused to be written on the wall amid Belshazzar's
.impious revelry; Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. We all remember the
touching history of Jesus the son of Anan, an unlettered rustic, who,
' four years before the war, when Jerusalem was in complete peace and
affluence,' burst in on the people at the feast of tabernacles with one
oft-repeated cry, 'A voice from the East, a voice from the West,
a voice from the four winds, a voice on Jerusalem and the temple, a
voice on the bridegrooms and the brides, a voice on the whole people;'
how he went about through all the lanes of the city, repeating, day and
night, this one cry; and when scourged until his bones were laid bare,
echoed every lash with ' Woe, woe, to Jerusalem,' and continued as his
daily dirge and his one response to daily good or ill-treatment, 'Woe,
woe, to Jerusalem.' The magistrates and even the cold Josephus
thought that there was something in it above nature." (Pusey.)

vv- S, 6.] JONAH, IH. 43
5 — 1°. The happy Result of Jonah's Preaching.
So the people of Nineveh believed God, and pro- s
claimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest
of them even to the least of them. For word came unto 6
5— 10. The happy Result of Jonah's Preaching.
.5. believed God] Or, believed in God. Three things their faith
certainly embraced. They believed in the God of the Hebrews, as
the true God. They believed in His power to execute the threat which
He had held out. They believed in His mercy and willingness to
forgive the penitent. And this was marvellous faith in heathen, con'
trasting favourably with that of the chosen people. "So great faith"
had not been found, "no not in Israel." What they knew of the
Hebrews and their God (for doubtless they recognised in Jonah a Jewish
prophet) may have contributed to the result. That they knew also the
miraculous history of Jonah's mission to them, and so were the better
prepared to credit him, appears to be plainly taught us by our Lord*
It is difficult to understand how Jonah should have been " a sign unto
the Ninevites," corresponding in any way to the sign, which by His
resurrection the "Son of man" was to "the men of that generation,"
(Luke xi. 30 with Matthew xii. 38 — 41,) unless they were aware that
he had passed, as it were, through death to life again, on his way to
preach to them. How that information reached them we have no
means of judging certainly. Of course it may have come to them
from the lips of Jonah himself, though we have seen reason (see note
on v. 4) to regard that as improbable. Afford speaks of "-his preaching
after his resurrection to the Ninevites, announcing (for that would neces
sarily be involved in that preaching) the wonderful, judgment of God in
bringing him there, and thus making his own deliverance, that he might
preach to them, a sign to that people. "
6. For word came unto] Rather, And the matter reached. The
introduction of the word "for" for "and" in E. V. is of the nature of
a gloss. Our translators appear to have taken the view that v. 5
states generally the effect of Jonah's preaching upon the Ninevites,
and that vv. 6 — 9 relate more particularly how the fast mentioned
in v. 5 was brought about. "They proclaimed a fast," I said, "and
it was by a - royal edict that they, did so, for the report of what was
going on was brought to the king, and he too was moved like his
people, and both inaugurated in his own person and instituted by his
authority a national fast." The statement in v. 5, however, is not neces
sarily proleptical. It may be intended ¦ by the writer to describe the
effect produced in each district of the city as Jonah reached it, before the
Court had any knowledge of what was going on. The people were
first impressed, and then their rulers. The tide of penitence and hu«
miliation rose higher and higher, till it reached and included the king
and his nobles, and what had been done by spontaneous action, or local
authority, received the final sanction and imprimatur of the central

44 JONAH, III. [v. 7.
the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and
he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sack-
7 cloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused il to be pro-

government. Whichever view be adopted, the literal translation should
be retained.
he arose from his throne, &c. ] It is in favour of the view that the
people did not wait for the royal edict to commence their fast, that the
king himself seems to have been the subject of immediate and strong
emotion, as soon as the tidings reached him. He first, as by a resistless
impulse, humbled himself to the dust, and then took measures, out of
the depth of his humiliation, that his subjects should be humbled with
him. The outward form which the humiliation both of king and people
took was that common in the East (comp. Ezek. xxvi. 16; and see
Dictionary of the Bible, Article Mourning), as we know both from sacred
and secular writings. In the case of the king of Assyria it is the
more remarkable both because of his characteristic pride as "the great
king" (2 Kings xviii. 19, 28), and because of the pomp and luxury with
which he was ordinarily surrounded. No greater contrast could well
be conceived than between the royal "robe" and "sackcloth," or be
tween the heap of "ashes" and the king's "throne." "In the bas-
relief I am describing," writes Layard, "the dress of a king consisted
of a long flowing garment, edged with fringes and tassels, descending to
his ankles, and confined at the waist by a girdle. Over this robe a
second, similarly ornamented and open in front, appears to have been
thrown. From his shoulders fell a cape or hood, also adorned with
tassels, and to it were attached two long ribbons or lappets. He wore
the conical mitre, or tiara, which distinguishes the monarch in Assyrian
bas-reliefs, and appears to have been reserved for him alone  Around
the neck of the king was a necklace. He wore ear-rings, and his arms,
which were bare from a little above the elbow, were encircled by armlets
and bracelets remarkable for the beauty of their forms. The clasps
were formed by the heads of animals, and the centre" by stars and
rosettes, probably inlaid with precious stones." (Nineveh, abridged
edition, 1851, p. 97.)
Of the throne the same writer says, " The thrones or arm-chairs, sup
ported by animals and human figures, resemble those of the ancient
Egyptians, and of the monuments of Kouyunjik, Khorsabad and Per-
sepolis. They also remind us of the throne of Solomon, which had
' stays (or arms) on either side on the place of the seat, and two lions
stood by the stays. And twelve lions stood there, on the one side and on
the other, upon the six steps.'" 1 Kings x. 19, 20. (lb. p. 164.)
his robe] The same word is used of Achan's " goodly Babylonish
garment," Josh. vii. 21, which this may have resembled. But it is also
used of a garment of rough hair-cloth, Gen. xxv. 25 ; Zech. xiii. 4, and
of Elijah's hairy "mantle," or cloak, 1 Kings xix. 13, 19. The root-
meaning of the word is size, amplitude.

v. 7-] JONAH, III. 45
claimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of
the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast,
herd nor flockj taste any thing : let them not feed, nor drink
7. and published] This word is not a participle, though likely to
be taken for one in the E. V. It is literally, "And he caused a pro
clamation to be made, and said, &c.
the decree] The word here used is not properly a Hebrew word. It
occurs frequently in the Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra to denote a
mandate or decree of the Babylonish and Persian monarchs. Dr
Pusey rightly sees in the employment of it here a proof of the
"accuracy" of Jonah as a writer. He observes, "This is a Syriac
word; and accordingly, since it has now been ascertained beyond all ques
tion that the language of Nineveh was a dialect of Syriac, it was, with
a Hebrew pronunciation (the vowel points are different here from
those in Daniel and Ezra), the very word used of this decree at
Nineveh." and his nobles] Lit., his great men, or grandees, Prov. xviii. 16.
We have a similar association of his nobles with himself by Darius thq
Mede, when he caused the stone which was laid upon the mouth of the
den, into which Daniel had been cast, to be sealed "with his own signet
and with the signet of his lords, that the purpose might not be changed
concerning Daniel" (Dan. vi. 17). In the present case, however, it
would seem that it was not in the exercise of a constitutional right, but
by a voluntary act on the part of the king, that the nobles were
associated with him in the edict which he issued. Kalisch observes,
" It would be unsafe to infer from this passage that the nobles were in
some manner constitutionally connected with the government of the
kingdom, and thus tempered its arbitrariness, as we know now from
the monuments, no less than from the records of history, that ' the
Assyrian monarch was a thorough Eastern despot, unchecked by
popular opinion, and having complete power over the lives and pro
perty of his subjects, rather adored as a god than feared as a man.' "
(Layard, Nin. and Babyl. p. 632). May not this association of his
nobles with himself have been "fruit meet for repentance," an abdica
tion, in some sort, of the haughty arbitrariness of his power, an humbling
of himself "under the mighty hand of God"?
saying] The decree, thus introduced, extends to the end of v. 9.
man nor beast, herd nor flock] The Hebrew word for ' ' beast " here
means tame or domestic animals, and probably refers only to "beasts of
burden," horses, mules, and the like. So Ahab says to Obadiah
when the famine was in Samaria, " peradventure we may find grass to
save the horses and mules alive, that we be not deprived of beasts "
(1 Kings xviii. 5). "Herd and flock" will then be an additional clause,
not amplifying, but distinct from "beast," and the covering with
sackcloth, in v. 8, will thus be confined to those animals which were in
man's more immediate use, and many of which, with their gay and costly
trappings and harness, had been the ministers of his pomp and pride,
or, as employed in war, had been the instruments of his "violence,"1

46 JONAH, III. [V. 8.
8 water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and
cry mightily unto God : yea, let them turn every one from his
The extension of the fast to all, and of the sackcloth to some at least, of
the animals in Nineveh, is probably without exact parallel in extant history.
The Speaker's Commentary rightly points out that " the voluntary fast
ing of animals, wild as well as tame, at the death of Daphnis, described
by Virgil, Eclog. v. 24 — 28, which has often been referred to, is plainly
a mere poetic fancy. " But the description in the text is quite in keeping
with the common instinct and practice of mankind. Men have always
been wont to extend the outward signs of their joy or sorrow to every
thing under.their control. Our dress, our food, our houses, our equipage,
our horses, our servants, all wear the hue of the occasion for which
they are employed. "Man, in his luxury and pride, would have
everything reflect his glory and minister to pomp. Self-humiliation
would have everything reflect its lowliness. Sorrow would have every
thing answer to its sorrow. Men think it strange that the horses at
Nineveh were covered with sackcloth, and forget how, at the funerals >
of the rich, black horses are chosen, and are clothed with black velvet "
(Pusey). In the extreme case of Nineveh, the instinct may well have
been indulged to an extreme. Like all other common instincts of our
nature, it had a true origin, for the destiny of man and of the lower
creation is inseparably connected (Gen. i. 26, 28; Rom. viii. 19 — 23).
The effect upon the Ninevites of seeing "their deserts set before them
as in a mirror or a picture " (Calvin), all that belonged to them involved
with them, through their guilt, in a common danger with themselves—
all creation, as it were, threatened and humbled for the sin of its
lord — may well have been to incite them powerfully to repentance.
The appeal to the compassion of Almighty God, who " preserveth man
and beast" (Ps. xxxvi. 6; comp. ch. iv. 11), may well have been
strengthened by the mute misery of the innocent beasts (Joel i. 20).
But, apart from these considerations, the requirements of the history are
fully satisfied by regarding the act of the king of Nineveh as instinctive,
called for by the urgent circumstances of the case, and coloured by the
demonstrativeness of oriental character.
8. and cry mightily] These words are to be restricted to "man."
They do not include, as some have thought (comparing Joel i. 18, 20),
"beast" as well. The addition "mightily" favours the restriction, and
so also does the exact order of the Hebrew: "Let them be clothed
with sackcloth, man and beast (the parenthesis is inserted here as
qualifying what precedes only), and let them cry  and let them
turn," &c.
let them turn] The prominence of the moral element in the repent
ance of heathen Nineveh is very striking. Complete as was the out
ward act of humiliation, the king's decree implies that it would be
worthless without a corresponding moral reformation. The tenth verse
tells us that it was to this that God had respect, "He saw their works,
that they turned from their evil way," and the heathen king seems
clearly to have understood that it would be so. Here again, the favour-

v. 9-] JONAH, III, 47
evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who
can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his
able light in which these heathen show, in comparison with the chosen
people, is most marked. Frequent and indignant is the remonstrance
of the Hebrew prophets against the attempt of their countrymen to
gain the favour or avert the displeasure of Almighty God by fasting
and sackcloth, while the heart remained unchanged and the life un
renewed. "Is it such a fast that I have chosen?" is God's own
indignant question to His people by the prophet Isaiah (ch. lviii.).
the violence that is in their hands] "Violence" was their chief sin,
as all we learn of the Assyrians, both from sacred and secular history,
shows. Comp. Nahum ii. n, 12, iii. 1, and Isaiah x. 13, 14. The form
of expression, in their hands, the hand being the instrument of violence,
is the same as in Ps. vii. 3 (Heb. 4), and elsewhere.
9. Who can tell] Comp. Joel ii. 14, where the Hebrew is the
same. Calvin well explains the doubtful form assumed by the king's
decree. "How can it be," he asks, "that the king of Nineveh re
pented earnestly and unfeignedly, and yet spoke doubtfully of the
grace of God ?" I answer, that there is a kind of doubt which may be
associated with faith ; that, namely, which does not directly reject the
promise of God, but which has other things as well in view  No
doubt the king of Nineveh conceived the hope of deliverance, but in
the mean time he was still perplexed in mind, both on account of
the preaching of Jonah, and on account of his consciousness of his own
sins  The first obstacle (to his immediate certainty of forgiveness) was
that dreadful preaching, Nineveh after forty days shall perish.  Then
again, the king, no doubt, when he pondered his sins might well waver
a little." God will turn] Lit., the God, i. e. the One supreme God. See note
on i. 6, and comp. 1 Kings xviii. 39. This acknowledgment by the
Assyrians of Jehovah, the God of the Jews, as "the God" is all the
more remarkable, because, as Kalisch points out (though he unhappily
sees in the description of this chapter, not an historical fact, magnifying
the grace of God and the efficacy of true repentance, but the ' ' aspiration "
of a later writer for " that time when ' the Lord shall be One and His
name One' "), it is contrary to all else we know of them. "The prophet
Nahum declares distinctly, among other menaces pronounced against
Nineveh, ' Out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image
and the molten image' (i. 14; comp. iii. 4); the Books of Kings state
by name the Eastern idols Nibhaz and Tartak, Nergal and Ashima,
Adrammelech and Anammelech (2 Kings xvii. 30, 31) ; in the remark
able account of Sennacherib's war against Hezekiah, the former,
through the mouth of one of his chief officers, bitterly taunts the Hebrew
king with his futile reliance on his national god, whose nature the
Assyrian understands so little that, in his opinion, Hezekiah must have
incurred Jahveh's wrath, for having deprived him of all the heights and
of all the altars except that solitary one in Jerusalem ; and he places, in
fact, Jahveh on the same level of power with the gods of Hamath and

9

48 JONAH, III; [v. io.
10 fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works,
that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of
Arpad, or any Syrian idol (2 Kings xviii-. 22, 30, 33, 34). And, on the
other hand, all Assyrian monuments and records, whether of a date
earlier or later than Jeroboam II., disclose the same vast pantheon
which was the boast of king and people alike — Asshur, ' the great lord
ruling supreme over all the gods,' with his twelve greater and four
thousand inferior deities presiding over all manifestations of nature and
all complications of human life ; for the Assyrians at all times saw their.
strength and their bulwark in the multitude of their gods, and considered
that nation feeble and defenceless indeed, which enjoyed only the pro
tection of a single divinity."
10. that they turned from their evil way] " See what removed that
inevitable wrath. Did fasting and sackcloth alone? No, but the
change of the whole life. How does this appear? From the prophet's
word itself. For he who spake of the wrath of God and of their fast,
himself mentions the reconciliation and its cause. And God saw their
works. What works? that they fasted? that they put on sackcloth?
He passes by these and says, that everyone turned from his evil ways;
and God repented of the evil which He had said that He would do
unto. them. Seest thou that not the fast plucked them from the peril,
but the change of life made God propitious to these heathen? I say
this, not that we should dishonour, but that we may honour fasting.
For the honour of a fast is not in abstinence from food, but in' avoid
ance of sin. So that he who limiteth fasting to the abstinence from
food only, he it is who above all dishonoureth it. Fastest thou? Show
it me by thy works." St Chrysostom, On the Statues, Horn. iii. 4,
quoted by Pusey.
God repented] When we regard the relations of Almighty God to
men and His dealings with them from the divine side, so far as it
is revealed to us and we are able to comprehend it, then they are all
foreseen and planned and executed in accordance with His perfect fore
knowledge. Then there is no place for repentance, .no room for
change. "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of
the world." But when we alter our stand-point, and regard them from.
the human side, when from the pure heights of contemplation we come
down to the busy field of action, free scope is given in the aspect
in which God then presents Himself to us for human effort and prayer
and feeling, then His purpose waits upon our will. Both of these
sides are freely and fearlessly set forth in Holy Scripture. On the one
side, "God is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man
that He should repent" (Num. xxiii. 19). With Him "is no variable
ness, neither shadow of turning " (James i. 17). On the other side we
read, "It repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and
it grieved Him at His heart" (Gen. vi. 6); "God repented of the evil
that He had said that He would do unto them, and He did it not."
Both views art equally true, and they are in perfect harmony with each'
other, but Holy Scripture never attempts to harmonise them, nor is it

•i.] JONAH, III. IV.

49

the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and
he did it not.
i — 1 1. Jonah's Displeasure, and its Rebuke.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very 4
wise for us to attempt to do so; we cannot look upon both sides of the
shield at once.
he did it not] It is obvious that this statement, and indeed the whole
account of the repentance of the Ninevites, is to be taken within the
limits which the history itself prescribes. There is nothing here to
contradict the subsequent relapse of the Ninevites into sin, their filling
up the measures of their iniquities, and the consequent overthrow of
their city and extinction of their national life. But none of these
things are here in view, the present fills the whole picture, and fills it
grandly. They are sinners. They are threatened. They repent. They
are saved.
The fact that no reference has been discovered amongst extant
Assyrian monuments to the mission of Jonah and its results may be
reasonably accounted for. The Assyrian records of this particular
period are singularly meagre in comparison of those of the immediately
preceding and succeeding reigns. The subject-matter of this event in
the national history is not such as the monuments are wont to record.
Wars and victories and material works chiefly occupy them. Moral
reformation is foreign to their theme. The marvellous manner in which
recent discoveries have come in confirmation of the statements of Holy
Scripture leave it open to us, however, to believe that some such
confirmation of the history of Jonah may yet reach us from secular
sources. Ch. IV. 1 — 11. Jonah's Displeasure, and its Rebuke.
Greatly displeased at the clemency of God towards Nineveh, Jonah
confesses that it was the expectation that that clemency would be exer
cised, which rendered him unwilling to undertake the divine mission at
the first, and in his annoyance and chagrin requests that he may die,
I — 3. Met by the calm appeal to reason, which however he is in no
mood to entertain, Doest thou well to be angry ? Jonah goes out of the
city, and constructs in the immediate vicinity a booth or hut, under
the shelter of which he may dwell and watch, till the forty days are
expired, what the fate of Nineveh will be, 4, 5. Intending to correct
and instruct him by an acted parable, in which he himself should bear
the chief part, God causes a wide-spreading plant to spring up and
cover his booth with its refreshing shade. But scarcely has Jonah
begun to enjoy the welcome shelter from the burning rays of the sun
thus afforded him, when God, in pursuit of His lesson, causes the plant
JONAH 4

50 JONAH, IV. [v. 3.
= angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray
to be attacked by insects, which rapidly strip it of its protecting leaves
and cause it to wither away, 6, 7. Once again, the hand that governs
all things sets in motion, like the blast of a furnace, the burning wind
of the desert, and the sun's unbroken rays pour down on the now de
fenceless head of Jonah, so that faint and weary, beneath the weight of
bodily distress and mental disappointment, he urges anew his pas
sionate complaint, Better for me to die than to live I 7, 8. And now
the parable is complete, and only needs to be applied and interpreted.
Thou couldst have pity upon a short-lived plant, which cost thee and
which owed thee nothing ; thou art angry and justifiest thine anger,
even unto death, for its loss ; and shall not I, the Maker and the Lord
of all, have pity upon a great city, which, apart from its adult popu
lation who might seem to have deserved their doom, numbers its six-
score thousand innocent children, and "very much cattle" — they too
"much better than" a plant? 9 — n.
1. it displeased Jonah, &*c] Lit. It was evil to Jonah, a great
evil, and it (viz. anger) kindled to him. Comp. Nehem. ii. 10. It
is clear that the immediate cause of Jonah's anger and vexation was the
preservation of Nineveh and the non-fulfilment of the threat which he ..
had been sent to pronounce. It was the anticipation of this result,
founded on the revealed character of God, that made him decline the
errand at first (v. 2). It was the realisation of it that so greatly troubled-
him now. But why this result of his mission should have thus affected
him it has not been found so easy to decide. Some have thought — but
the view has nothing to commend it— that his annoyance was purely
personal and selfish, and that he was stung by the disgrace of appearing
as a false prophet in the sight of the heathen because his predictions
had not been verified. Others with better show of reason have assigned
to his displeasure the more worthy motive of jealousy for the honour
of God, in whose name and with whose message he had come to
Nineveh, and on whom he thought the reproach of fickleness and in
constancy would fall. "He connected," writes Calvin, "his own .
ministry with the glory of God, and rightly, because it depended on His
authority. Jonah, when he entered Nineveh, did not utter his cry as a
private individual, but professed himself to be sent by God. Now, if the
proclamation of Jonah is found to be false, the disgrace will fall upon
the author of the call himself, namely on God. There is no doubt
therefore, that Jonah took it ill that the name of God was exposed to
the revilings of the heathen, as though He terrified without cause."
It is far more satisfactory, however, to suppose that Jonah was dis
pleased that the mercy of God should be extended to heathen, and
especially to heathen who were the enemies and future oppressors of his
own people, and that he himself should be the messenger of that
mercy. This view falls in entirely with the exclusive spirit which marks
the Old Testament dispensation, while it brings out into bold relief the
liberal and Catholic spirit of the New Testament, which it is the object
of this book to inculcate.

3,4-] JONAH, IV. Si

thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my
country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish : for I knew
that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger,
and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore 3
now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it
is better for me to die than to live. Then said the Lord, 4
2. he prayed] His better mind had not altogether forsaken him.
He did not as before flee from the presence of the Lord, but betook
himself to Him, even in his irritation and discontent.
I pray thee] A particle of entreaty. In 1. 14 it is translated " we
beseech thee."
I fled before] Lit. 1 prevented or anticipated to flee. That is, I fled
before something could happen. LXX. irpo{<p9aaa. tov tpvytiv. The
ellipsis has been variously supplied. '"I anticipated or prevented
(another charge) by escaping' ; that is 'I fled before' another charge
could reach me. " — Kalisch. " I anticipated (the danger which threatens
me) by fleeing to Tarshish." — Gesenius. "I hastened my flight." —
Rosenmiiller. for I knew, Gr*c] In common with all Israelites Jonah knew the
character of God to be what he here describes it,, from His ancient reve
lation to Moses (Exodus xxxiv. 6), repeated frequently by prophets and
psalmists (Numbers xiv. 18; Psalm ciii. 8, cxlv. 8), and renewed in
exactly the same terms as here by the prophet Joel (ii. 13). Knowing
that God threatens that He may spare, and warns that He may save,
Jonah rightly understood from the first that his mission to Nineveh was
a mission of mercy, and therefore he was unwilling to undertake it.
3. take... my life from me] So had Moses prayed (Numbers xi. 15) and
Elijah (1 Kings xix. 4), both with better cause, and in nobler spirit, but
both in the same utter weariness of life as Jonah. No one of them,
however, attempts to take his own life. They all regard it as a sacred
deposit, entrusted to them by God and only to be relinquished at His
bidding, or in accordance with His will. Comp. v. 8 below.
4. Doest thou well to be angry ?] Two other translations of these
words have been suggested. One, which though perhaps possible is
far-fetched and highly improbable, is, " Does (my) doing good (that is,
to Nineveh in sparing it) make thee angry?" the reproof then being
similar to that in Matthew xx. 15, "Is thine eye evil because I am
good ? " The other, which is given in the margin of our English Bibles,
" Art thou greatly angry ? " is fully borne out by the Hebrew, but, as
has been truly said, it "is in this context almost pointless." But the
rendering of the text is in accordance with Hebrew usage (comp. "They
have well said all that they have spoken," Deut. v. 28 [Heb. 25J;
"Thou hast well seen," Jer. i. 12) and gives a much more forcible
¦sense. It is the gentle question of suggested reproof, designed to still
the tumult of passion and lead to consideration and reflection. _ God
¦does not as a judge condemn Jonah's unreasonable anger, but invites
him to judge and condemn himself.
4—2

52 JONAH, IV. [vv. 5, 6.
5 Doest thou well to be angry? So Jonah went out of the
city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him
a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see
e> what would become of the city. And the Lord God pre-
5. So Jonah went out of the city] It has been proposed to take the
verbs in this verse as pluperfects : "Now Jonah had gone out of the
city, and abode on the east side of the city, &c." The verse will then
be a parenthesis introduced to relate what had really taken place before
Jonah's anger and complaint. In point of time it will precede the first
verse of the chapter. It is doubtful, however, whether such a ren
dering is grammatically allowable ; nor is there any reason for adopting
it The course of the narrative flows regularly on throughout the chap
ter. Jonah while still in the city comes to know that Nineveh will be
spared. In bitter displeasure he complains to God, and is rebuked
(vv. i — 4). Still cherishing the hope of vengeance, fostered possibly
by the question in v. 4, which his distempered mind might interpret
to mean, " Do not judge too hastily what My purposes may be," he
will not abandon the city altogether. He will linger yet awhile in its
precincts, and watch what its fate shall be.
on the east side of the city] where it was skirted by hills. Probably
he chose some eminence from which he could command a view of the
city. a booth] of twigs and branches, such as the Israelites were directed to
dwell in for seven days at the feast of tabernacles (Lev. xxiii. 42; Neh.
viii. 14 — 16). Such were the "tabernacles" which St Peter proposed
to make on the Mount of Transfiguration.
till he might see what would become of the city] We are not told whe
ther this was before or after the forty days had expired. If it was
before, then we must suppose that Jonah, and possibly the Ninevites
also, had some direct intimation that God would spare the city, and
that Jonah in his reluctance to accept the result still tarried in the
neighbourhood, in the hope that on the appointed day the blow would
fall. If however we suppose that the forty days had elapsed without
the threatened judgment being executed, and that it was by this that
Jonah and the Ninevites knew that God had repented Him of the evil,
we can only conclude that Jonah hoped for some later punishment upon
the people of Nineveh, provoked it might be by their speedy relapse
into sin. "The days being now past, after which it was time that
the things foretold should be accomplished, and His anger as yet taking
no effect, Jonah understood that a respite of the evil has been granted
them, on their willingness to repent, but thinks that some effect of His
displeasure would come, since the pains of their repentance had not'
equalled their offences. So thinking in himself apparently, he departs
from the city, and waits to see what will become of them."^St Cyr.
quoted by Pusey.
6. prepared] Rather, appointed. And so in w. 7, 8. See i.
17, note.

v. .6,] JONAH, IV.

53

pared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it
a gourd] This is the only place in the Old Testament in which the
Hebrew word here translated gourd occurs. It is quite a different word
which is rendered gourd in 2 Kings iv. 39, and (of architectural orna
ments) in 1 Kings vi. 18 (margin), vii. 24. It is an old controversy,
dating back as far as the times of Jerome and Augustine, whether
Jonah's plant was a gourd or not. It is now generally admitted that it
was not, but that the plant intended is the ricinus communis or castor-
oil plant. This plant satisfies all the requirements of the history. The
name kikaion here used in the Hebrew is akin to the word kikeia
or &'&'(Herodot. 11. 94), which ancient authors tell us was used by the
Egyptians and others for the castor-oil plant. That plant is a native
of North Africa, Arabia, Syria and Palestine, and is said by travellers
to grow abundantly and to a great size in the neighbourhood of the
Tigris. It is succulent, with a hollow stem, and has broad vine-like
leaves (much larger, however, than those of the vine), which from their
supposed resemblance to the extended palm of the hand have gained
for the plant the name of Palma Christi, or palmchrist. It grows with
such extraordinary rapidity that under favourable conditions it rises to
about eight feet within five or six months, while in America it has been
known to reach the height of thirteen feet in less than three months.
Jerome also bears testimony to the rapidity of its growth. It is, he '
says, "a shrub with broad leaves like vine-leaves. It gives a very
dense shade, and supports itself on its own stem. It grows most abund
antly in Palestine, especially in sandy spots. If you cast the seed into
the ground, it is soon quickened, rises marvellously into a tree, and in
a few days what you had beheid a herb you look up to a shrub." —
Pusey. made it to come up] Or, it came up. The naturally rapid growth of
the plant was miraculously accelerated. As in other miracles of Holy
Scripture Almighty God at once resembled nature and exceeded na
ture. " We know that God, when He does anything beyond the course
of nature, does nevertheless come near to nature in His working.
This is not indeed always the case ; but we shall find for the
most part that God has so worked as to outdo the course of
nature, and yet not to desert nature altogether.... So too in this place,
I do not doubt that God chose a plant, which would quickly grow up
even to ¦ such a height as this, and yet that He surpassed the wonted
course of nature. " (Calvin.) In like manner, our Lord, when at the
marriage-feast in Cana He turned the water into wine, "was working
in the line of (above, indeed, but not across or counter to) His more
ordinary workings, which we see daily around us, the unnoticed
miracles of every-day nature." " He made wine that day at the mar
riage in those six water-pots which He had commanded to be filled with
water, Who every year makes it in the vines. For as what the servants
had put into the water-pots was tnrned into wine by the working of the
Lord, so too what the clouds pour forth is turned into wine by the work
ing of the same Lord. This however, we do not wonder at, because it

54 JONAH, IV. [vv.7,&.
might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his
7 grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But Gpd
prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and
s it smote the gourd, that it withered. And it came to pass,
when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east
happens every year: its frequency has made.it cease to be a marvel."
St Augustine, quoted by Trench On the Miracles.
a shadow ovei- his head] His booth or hut, made as we have seen of
twigs and branches, the leaves of which would naturally soon wither,
was far from being impervious to the rays of the sun. The living plant
rising above the booth and covering it with its broad shadow would
prove a most welcome addition.
from his grief ] Lit. his evil, the same word as in v. r. The gloomy
and dissatisfied condition of his mind had been aggravated by physical
causes. The heat and closeness of his booth had added to the weariness
and oppression of his spirit. The palmchrist with its refreshing shade
by ministering to his bodily comfort had tended also to calm and soothe
the agitation of his mind. We need not look for any deeper meaning ,
in the words. It is surely a mistake to say that Jonah "must have
looked upon its sudden growth as a. fruit of God's goodness towards
him (as it was) and then perhaps went on to think (as people do) that
this favour of God showed that He meant in the end to grant him
what his heart was set upon. " (Pusey. ) The object of the writer is
not to tell us what inferences Jonah drew from the sudden growth of the
plant, but what was the object and intention of Almighty, God in
causing it to grow up over him. He sent it to refresh him as a step in
His lesson of correction and amendment ; He did not send it to mislead
him. The force of the rebuke in verses IO, n, in which the chapter
culminates and which turns entirely upon Jonah's joy and grief for the
plant, is greatly weakened if we import into that joy and grief such
moral elements.
7. a worm] This of course may mean a single worm which either
by attacking the root or gnawing the stem, still young and tender and
not yet hardened by' maturity, suddenly destroyed the palmchrist. It
is better, however, to take the word in its collective sense, worms, as in
Deut. xxviii. 39 ; Isaiah xiv. n, and other passages. Thus the special
intervention of Almighty God again accommodates itself to nature.
"The destruction may have been altogether in the way of nature,
except that it happened at that precise moment, when it was to be
a lesson to Jonah. ' On warm days, when a small rain falls, black
caterpillars are generated in great numbers on this plant, which, in one
night, so often and so suddenly cut off its leaves, that only their bare
ribs remain, which I have often observed with much wonder, as though
it were a copy of that destruction of old at Nineveh.' "—Pusey.
8. a vehement east wind] Margin, silent. This, or sultry, is'probably
the true meaning of the word. " We have two kinds of sirocco/'
writes Dr Thomson, " one accompanied with vehement wind which

v. 8.] JONAH, IV. 55
wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he
fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better

fills the air with dust and fine sand  The sirocco to-day is of the
quiet kind, and they are often more overpowering than the others.
I encountered one a year ago on my way from Lydd to Jerusalem.
There is no living thing abroad to make a noise. The birds hide in
thickest shades ; the fowls pant under the walls with open mouth and
drooping wings ; the flocks and herds take shelter in caves and under
great rocks ; the labourers retire from the fields, and close the windows
and doors of their houses ; and travellers hasten, as I did, to take
shelter in the first cool place they can find. No one has energy enough
to make a noise, and the very air is too weak and languid to stir the
pendent leaves of the tall poplars." Land and Book, pp. 536, 537.
The occurrence of this wind at sunrise is referred to as a usual thing
by St James, i. it, where the same Greek word (xaiawv) is used for
" burning heat " as is used by the LXX. here.
fainted] It is the same word as occurs in Genesis xxxviii. 14,
"covered her with a veil," veiled herself, the reference being either
to the film that comes over the eyes in fainting and exhaustion, or to
the clouding of the mental powers from the same cause. This word is
used again of fainting from thirst in Amos viii. 1 3, and a similar word
in the same metaphorical sense in ch. ii. 7 of this book, where see
note. wished in himself to die] Lit. asked for his life to die. Exactly the
same expression occurs with reference to Elijah when he was fleeingfrom
the wrath of Jezebel, 1 Kings xix. 4. The meaning of the phrase
seems to be that the prophet, both in the one case and in the other,
recognizing that his life was not his own, but God's, asked for it of
Him as a gift or boon, that he might do with it what he pleased.
Then the object with which he asked for it, the way in which he would
have it disposed of, is expressed by the word "to die," or "for death."
Hezekiah might have asked for his life, as indeed he did, in his grievous
sickness, but it was not "to die," but "to live." The example of
Elijah may perhaps have been in Jonah's mind when he penned these
words, or even when he gave vent to his impatient desire to die. If
the Jewish tradition that Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath
and the " servant " whom he left at Beersheba, 1 Kings xix. 3, could be
accepted, this would be the more probable. The cases of the two
prophets were however in reality very different. Both were weary of
life. Both desired to die. Both gave expression to their desire in the
same words. But here the resemblance ends. Elijah's was a noble
disappointment. "On Carmel the great object for which Elijah had
lived seemed on the point of being realised. Baal's prophets were
slain, Jehovah acknowledged with one voice : false worship put down.
Elijah's life aim— the transformation of Israel into a kingdom of
God — was all but accomplished. In a single day all this bright picture
Was annihilated." (Robertson.) But Jonah's was a far less worthy grief.

56 JONAH, IV  [vv. 9,10.
9 for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doesf;
thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well
jo to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast
It was not that God's kingdom was overthrown in 'Israel, but that it
was extended to the heathen world, that made him weary of his life.
Elijah grieved because he had failed in his efforts to convert and save
Israel; Jonah because he had succeeded in converting and saving
Nineveh. It is better cVf.] The words "It is" which, as the italics in E. V.
show, are not in the original, are better omitted : " And said, Better
for me to die than to live."
The excess of Jonah's joy and grief over the bestowal and loss of
the gourd was partly due to his sanguine and impulsive character.
But the influence here ascribed to physical circumstances over the mind,
especially when it is burdened with a great grief, is very true to nature.
"We would fain believe that the mind has power over the body, but
it is just as true that the body rules the mind. Causes apparently
the most trivial : a heated room — want of exercise— a sunless day—
a northern aspect — will make all the difference between happiness and
unhappiness, between faith and doubt, between courage and indecision."
(Robertson. )
9. even, unto death] "Art thou rightly angry for the palmchrist?
I am rightly angry, (and that) unto death:" i. e. "'my anger is so great
that it well-nigh kills me, and even in that excess it is justified by the
circumstances." In like manner it is said of Samson that "his soul was
vexed unto death" by the urgency of Delilah (Judges xvi. 16), and
our Lord exclaims in the garden, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death" (Matt xxvi. 38), where Alford observes, "Our
Lord's soul was crushed down even to death by the weight of that
anguish which lay upon Him — and that literally — so that He (as regards
His humanity) would have died, had not strength (bodily strength up
holding His human frame) been ministered from on high by an angel,
Luke xxii. 43." The question in its more general form, "Doest thou
well to be angry?" (v. 4) is here narrowed to a single issue, "Doest
thou well to be angry for the palmchrist ?" And Jonah, in his Un
reasoning irritation, accepts and answers it on that single issue, and
thus unwittingly prepares the way for the unanswerable argument
which follows.
10, 11.] The final appeal is forcible and conclusive, a. grand and
worthy climax to this remarkable book. The contrasts are striking and
designed ; Thou and I (the pronouns are emphatic, and each of them
introduces a member of the comparison), man and God ; the short-lived
palmchrist and Nineveh that great city ; the plant that cost thee nothing,
the vast population, the sixscore thousand children, the very much cattle,
which I made and uphold continually. Jonah is met upon his own
ground, the merely human sentiment of compassion, regard for what
is useful and good after its kind, sorrow for its loss, unwillingness to
see it perish. The higher moral ground is for the time abandoned.

v. i i.J JONAH, IV. 57
had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured,
neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and
perished in a night: and should not I spare Nineveh, that "
great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons
that cannot discern between their right hand and their left
hand; and also much cattle?
The repentance of the Ninevites is not brought into consideration.
But the lower ground is a step to the higher. "The natural God-
implanted feeling is the germ of the spiritual."
10. for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow]
The principle on which the contrast implied by these words rests
is that the effort which we have bestowed upon any object, the degree
in which our powers of mind or heart or body have been expended
upon it, in a word what it has cost us, is a measure of our regard for it.
No claim of this kind had the plant on Jonah. No single effort had
he made for it. He had not planted, or trained, or watered it, yet
he pitied it, and mourned for its decay with a yearning tenderness.
But on Almighty God, though the contrast is rather implied than
expressed, all creation has such a claim in fullest measure. He
" labours " not indeed ; He speaks, and it is done; He wills, and it is
accomplished. Yet in all things that exist He has the deepest interest.
He planned them, He made them, He sustains them, He rules them,
He cares for them. His tender mercies are over all His works. " This
entire train of thought," as Kalisch well remarks, " is implied in the
following fine lines of the Wisdom of Solomon : ' The whole world is
before Thee as a drop of the morning dew ; but Thou hast mercy upon
all  and overlookest the sins of men, in order that they may amend;
for Thou lovest all the things that are, and disdainest nothing that
Thou hast made  Indeed Thou sparest all, for they are Thine, O
Lord, Thou lover of souls.' Wisd. xi. 22 — 26."
came up in a night &*c] lit. was the son of a night, and perished
the son of a night, i.e. it came into existence and reached maturity
(comp. for this sense of was, And God said Let light be, and light was,
Gen. i. 3) in a single night, and no less rapidly (not literally in a
single night, for it was when the morning arose) withered away.
11. that cannot discern &*c] The idea that the whole population
of Nineveh is thus described, the reference being to their moral con
dition of heathen ignorance and darkness, has nothing to recommend it.
On the contrary, the moral susceptibility of the Ninevites, although they
are heathen, is, as we have seen, a prominent feature in the history.
The reference is no doubt to the children of tender age who were as
yet incapable of moral discrimination, and could not therefore be
regarded as responsible agents. The same thought is expressed, with
out a metaphor, by the phrases, " having no knowledge between good
and evil," Deut. i. 39; " Knowing to refuse the evil, and choose the
good," Isaiah vii. 15, 16. Between these helpless and innocent children,
together with the great multitude of unoffending animals which the

58 JONAH, IV.

vast area of Nineveh contained, and the plant over which Jonah
mourned, regarded simply as objects of human compassion, all moral
considerations apart, the comparison lies.
Any attempt to compute the whole .population of Nineveh from
the data thus given must necessarily be precarious, from the difficulty
of deciding at what age 'the line is to be drawn. But in any case the
total would not be excessive, for the population of so large an area as
we have seen that Nineveh enclosed.

NOTE A. THE GREAT FISH.
There is no reason to suppose that the fish which swallowed Jonah
was not naturally capable of swallowing him whole. The old objection,
that it is said to have been a whale, and that the gullet of a whale is not
large enough to allow of the passage of a man, rests, as is now generally
known, upon a mistake. Jonah's fish is not really said to have been
a whale. Even if it were, it might be urged that one kind of whale,
" the sperm whale ( Catodon macrocephalus) has a gullet sufficiently large
to admit the body of a man" (Smith's Bible Diet., Art. Whale), and
that if whales are not now found in the Mediterranean, they may have
been "frightened out of it" by the multiplication of ships, and may
have been common there in Jonah's time, when " navigation was in its
infancy, ships were few and small, and they kept mostly along the
shores, leaving the interior undisturbed." (Thomson, The Land and
the Book, pp. 68, 6g.) But in fact the common idea of Jonah being
swallowed by a whale has no real warrant in holy Scripture at all.
Our Lord, indeed, is made to say in our English Bibles that Jonah
was "in the whale's belly" (Matt. xii. 40); but the word (kiJtos) used
by Him to denote Jonah's fish is taken from the Greek translation of the
Book of Jonah, with which He and His hearers were familiar, and
cannot be restricted to H. whale, or to any of the so-called Cetaceans.
It means "any sea-monster, or huge fish," and is used of a "seal, or
sea-calf and later especially of whales, sharks, and large tunnies."
(Liddeli and Scott, Lex. s. v.). The Bible then does not say that
Jonah was swallowed by a whale. The O. T. simply speaks of "a
great fish," and the N. T. employs a strictly equivalent term. Here
we might he content to leave the question. We are not bound to show
what the fish was. It is, however, interesting to enquire whether any
particular fish can with probability be fixed upon, and the rather because
the choice of an agent ready to hand and naturally fitted for the work
accords with that "economy" of the miraculous which is characteristic
of holy Scripture. Now it has been satisfactorily proved that the com
mon or white shark (Carcharias vulgaris) is found in the Mediterranean,
and well-authenticated instances have been given of its having swallowed
men and other large animals entire. "A natural historian of repute
relates, 'In 1758, in stormy weather, a sailor fell overboard from a
frigate in the Mediterranean. A shark was close by, which, as he
was swimming and crying for help, took him in his wide throat, so that
he forthwith disappeared. Other sailors had leaped into the sloop, to
help their comrade, while yet swimming ; the captain had a gun which
stood on the deck discharged at the fish, which struck it so, that it cast

60 JONAH.
out the sailor which it had in its throat, who was taken up, alive and
little injured, by the sloop which had now come up. The fish was
harpooned, taken up. on the frigate and dried. The captain made a
present of the fish to the sailor who, by God's Providence, had been so
wonderfully preserved. The sailor went round Europe exhibiting it.
He came to Franconia, and it was publicly exhibited here in Erlangen,
as also at Nurnberg and other places. The dried fish was delineated.
It was 20 feet long, and, with expanded fins, nine feet wide, and
weighed 3924 pounds. From all this, it is probable that this was the
fish of Jonah.'" (See Dr Pusey's Commentary on Jonah, Introd.,
pp. 257, 258 ; Smith's Bible Diet., Art. Whale, where other instances
are given.) There is another fish, of which the Norwegian name is
Rorqual, i. e. whale with folds, which from its peculiar internal con
struction is thought likely by some commentators to have been the
receptacle of Jonah. "The distinguishing feature of the whole genus
is the possession of 'a number of longitudinal folds, nearly parallel,
which commence under the lower lip, occupying the space between the
two branches of the jaw, pass down the throat, covering the whole
extent of the chest from one fin to the other, and terminate far down
the abdomen ;' in the Mediterranean species ' reaching to the vent.' "
It has accordingly been suggested that "it may have been in the folds
of a Rorqual's mouth, which in the case of an individual 75 feet
long (such as was actually stranded at St Cyprien, Eastern Pyrenees;
in 1828) would be a cavity of between 15 and 20 feet in length, that
the prophet was imbedded." (Speaker's Commentary in loe, and
Encycl. Brit, quoted there.) It would seem, however, that this Ror
qual's throat is not large enough to swallow a man, so that on the
whole it is most likely that Jonah's fish was a shark. •

NOTE B. NINEVEH.
It is evidently the design of the writer of this Book to give promi
nence to the vast size of Nineveh. When he speaks of lit, it is with
the constant addition, "the great city" (i. 2; iii. 2; iv. 11), and the
addition is justified by the statements that it was "great to God," that
it was a city "of three days' journey," and that it contained " more than
sixscore thousand persons unable to discern between their right hand
and their left, and also much cattle" (iv. n). In seeking to verify this
description and to identify, with some reasonable degree of probability,
the Nineveh of Jonah, we have first to determine what is meant by the
expression "a city of three days' journey. " It has been held that the
"three days' journey" describes the time that would be occupied in
traversing the city from end to end; along "the 'high street ^repre
senting the greatest length or 'the diameter' of the town, which ran
from one principal gate to the opposite extremity." (Kalisch.) But
unless we are prepared to regard the "figures given in the text "as

JONAH. 61
"the natural hyperboles of a writer who lived long after the virtual
destruction of the city, and who, moreover, was anxious to enhance the
impressiveness of his story and lesson, by dwelling on the vastness of
the population whose fate depended on their moral regeneration " (lb.),
we shall find it difficult to accept the gratuitous assumption that Nineveh
is here described as a city " about fifty-five English miles in diameter,"
-with a "high street" fifty-five miles long. Nor is it more satisfactory
to suppose that by a city of three days' journey is meant a city which it
would require three days to go all over. No intelligible idea of size
could possibly be conveyed by such a definition. Adopting, then, the
more reasonable view that the "three days' journey" refers to the cir
cumference of the city, and estimating a day's journey at about twenty
miles, we have Nineveh here described as comprising a circuit of about
sixty miles. Whether this large area was inclosed by continuous walls
we cannot certainly say. One ancient writer, indeed, (Diodorus Siculus)
asserts that it was, and that the walls were " ioo feet high, and broad
enough for three chariots to drive abreast upon " (Diet, of Bible, Article
Nineveh) ; and he, moreover, gives the dimensions of the city as an
irregular quadrangle of about 60 miles in circuit. But without relying too
much upon his testimony, which may be regarded as doubtful, we may
conclude that an area such as has been described was sufficiently marked
out to be known and spoken of as the city of Nineveh. This vast area
was not, however, completely covered as in the case of our own cities,
with streets and squares and buildings. That was a feature unusual,
and almost unknown, in the ancient cities of the East. It was per
haps the feature which, belonging to Jerusalem by virtue of the deep
ravines by which it was surrounded, and which "determined its natural
boundaries," and prevented its spreading abroad after the fashion of
other oriental cities, called forth the surprise and admiration of the
Jews after their return from Babylon. "Jerusalem," they exclaim,
"(unlike Babylon where we so long have dwelt) is built as a city
which is compact together." Like Babylon, Nineveh included not
only parks and paradises, but fields under tillage and pastures for
"much cattle" (iv. 11) in its wide embrace. The most probable site
of the city thus defined will be seen by reference to the accompanying
plan. It lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris in the fork formed by
that river and the Ghazr Su and Great Zab, just above their confluence.
The whole of this district abounds in heaps of ruins. Indeed, "they
are found," it is said, "in vast numbers throughout the whole region
watered by the Tigris and Euphrates and their confluents, from the
Taurus to the Persian Gulf." " Such mounds," it is added, "are espe
cially numerous in the region to the east of the Tigris, in which Nineveh
stood, and some of them must mark the ruins of the Assyrian capital."
(Diet, of the Bible.) Four of these great masses of ruins, which will be
found marked on the plan, Kouyunjik, Nimrud, Karamless, Khorsabad,
form together an irregular parallelogram of very similar dimensions to
those mentioned in the text. From Kouyunjik (lying opposite Mosul)
on the Eastern bank of the Tigris, a line drawn in a S.E. direction,
parallel to the course of the river, to Nimrud is about eighteen miles.
From Nimrud, in a northerly direction, to Karamless is about twelve.

62 JONAH.
The opposite sides of the parallelogram, from Karamless to the most
northerly point Khorsabad, and from Khorsabad to Kouyunjik again,
are about the same. These four vast piles of buildings, with the area
included in the parallelogram which they form, are now generally
identified with the site of the Nineveh which Jonah visited. For
fuller particulars the reader is referred to Smith's Dictionary of the Bible,
Article Nineveh, and to the well-known works of Mr Layard and
Professor Rawlinson.

INDEX.

Assyrian, king's robe, 44; king's throne,
ib. ; king, an autocrat, 43 ; polytheism,
47
booth, 52
Diagoras, story o£ 29
east wind, see Sirocco
fainting, Hebrew method of describing,
fasting, the true, 48 ; of dumb animals,
46
fish, that swallowed Jonah, not called
a whale, 59 ; probably a shark, 59,
60
gourd, 53
great to God, 40
Hebrew, a, 30
Jerusalem, "compact together," 61
Jonah, what is known of, 9, 10 ; birth
place, 10; name, 10 note; when he
lived, 10 ; traditions of, 10 note ; anger
of, 50, 51 ; sign of, 43
Jonah, book of, authorship, 9 ; historical
.character, 11 — 15; typical and prophe-
" tical, 18, 19; object of, 15 — 19; analysis

of, 19, 20 ; date, how affected by quo
tations from Psalms, 35, and mention
of Nineveh, 40
Joppa, 26
lots, 30
mariners, 27
mercy, God so called, 38
miracles, 12 ; accommodated to nature,
53, 54
Nineveh, description of, 60 — 62 ; dimen
sions, 40, 60, 61 ; site, 61, 62 ; popula
tion, 58
prayer, wide meaning of in Holy Scrip
ture, 34
presence, of the Lord, 25
repentance, of Jonah, 15 ; of the
Ninevites, 15, 43—46; of God, 48
shipmaster, 28
Sirocco, 54
Tarshish, 25
temple, looking toward the, 37
wares, 27, 28

CAMBRIDGE \ PRINTED BY C. J, CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

The CAMBRIDGE BIBLE fop"  — '
ie volumes to follow,
... , , - ,„ -,, er, the conciseness yet
#PimOn£j Of tftt P»f the general index, and
and phrases.... Amongst
" In many of our Grammar Schools and fll and lucid analyses ; and
elder lads are now 'examined' in some porf annotated in the form of
feave to 'get it up' as they would a book r14, only ls a11 collateral m-
a large proportion of these schools the Sial> and linguistic, pressed
ducted by members of the Cambridge Un1™4 the be^ books illustrative
found, as was natural, that, while on ev-1 Palestl,ne' Tristram s "Land
the most accessible and serviceable kin 4he Book> Wlth other ™idred
dearth of similar manuals on the severa'd' as well as on more reflective
lads in our schools, and even the juni^hen we add that here and there
hardly be expected to keep a long ich as "Caro premit, fides tanglt,
shelves, or to be able to use them to1 that all niceties of language...
access to them. Hence the Syndic] ^e shall have shown, it may be,
decided to produce a series of the Scr,d 4>ose that ,foll°w ,l4> ." of. hke
just now so great a need, and have & ln, the f4udy of4ne intelligent
editor of the series. No better selec'lar> but aIs?.m the clergyman s
name of Dr Perowne is a guarantee f for sermon hints may be derived
his intimate acquaintance with the n> although contained in a succinct
and school of thought will enable hiflOTa"- ... _.., , „ , ,
men best fitted to assist him. 'f the Cambridge Bible for Schools;
"The first volume of the series36 a useta} assistant to the intelligent
of two hundred pages. Paper and we 'eSard the high reputation of. the
And into this small volume Dr Macille J1!1 of proposed contributors, or
duction to the Gospel, and the text anticipation from the specimen now
hundreds of valuable and helpful n Maclear for the use of schools will
a capital manual of the kind require' book m completeness and arrange-
illustrate the text, i.e. all that can bicter of hls well-known Manuals on
customs, and manners of the timeV6 are two ways of studying the
Bible, and does not trace the seqvle^of. th,e whole of a subject, as of
emphasize the truths taught in it ; > Maclear s New Testament Manual j
doctrines. But as a handbook, giv*y to °nf particular book, observing
information which a lad requires in ?e and style and matter, and compar.
Gospel, it is admirable.. lean <or such a. purpose the present work
to the senior boys and girls in our111 that ^"^ known or may be m-
school teachers, who m!y get from ?arshals the charactenstic features of
often find it hardest to get.''-^?." of the purpose and other circum-
"The scheme is well started ,hesa carlul ana>sls ?f its contents.
Maclear has formed a sound concept40 !he authorised version, illustrated
school purposes, and has made his cW111?/68 ]*««•. These are so full
The text, with copious notes, is preing,noteworthy is left untouched. -
briefly with the general characteristf;, , .. „ . „ „,.
Mark, its genuineness, integrity, the thef' hJ, the*f\ ^ C/rr. This
the portion xvi. o-.o, and such like u?d« 4he editorship of Professor
like this, an intelligent teacher ma>d 4horongh educational work in
a lesson as any in the school course. Vdenses m 4heMs?allest V°****
be, for the most part, intelligible to b?4a4.ors on St Matthew s Gospel.
public schools; but they may be read w.™41? P/achcal, as i bears
and sixth, in conjunction with the original t^-^he gnalfa

'IDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS.
¦ 3ible for Schools: St Mark. — This little
art of an edition of the Bible which is being
ly Press, under the general direction of Prof.
. ted by Dr Maclear, Head Master of King's
-ery business-like little book. The text is
h paragraph has a title, which reappears as
ntroductioh, which occupies twenty pagesj
. les with an analysis of the book. There
'.. notes are pointed and instructive, and
^ses from Wicliff's version, and quota-
•n authors, which add greatly to the
sefulness for schools. There is a good
• :en other parts of this edition of the
his distinguished brothers, Professor
on, and Mr Sanday." — Contemporary
ark, with Notes and Introduction, by
'-idge University Press), is a publi-
": value for all teaching purposes; it'
-.-, and deserves a high recommend-
iful facts of criticism without its
culture and ability. We observe
ies by various editors, to bear the
ible for Schools, and which is
Biblical science as far as it can be
'executed as well as this, there could
schools and educational institutions
an. ¦rk, with Notes by the Rev. G. F.
i es of Text-books upon the Bible,
for school use. The whole of the
. and published in separate parts,
- of the Cambridge University Press.
- shall be as well edited as the one
redict a large sale for them.... Dr
malysis of the Gospel of St Mark
¦1 student a sketch of the Evangelist
of his Gospel. They answer his
hom, and in what language it was
information — not mere words and
¦ias laid under tribute the labours of
es a remarkable faculty for making
very author that he has read. Of
e and scholarly acquaintance with the
. found most useful to schoolmasters
hem the cheapness of this book (only
i recommendation." — John Bull.
/ism this first fruit of the banding to-
ents of our Universities under the editor-
?not sorry that it represents the labours of
y^nd teacher as Dr Maclear, upon the Gospel
4' from it an earnest of the handy and compact

OPINIONS. OF THE PRESS. 3
arrangement to be looked for in the contents of the volumes to follow,
the ordering of the requisite introductory matter, the conciseness yet
sufficiency of the notes to the text, the fullness of the general index, and
the discreet choice of that of special words and phrases.... Amongst
other introductory matter are several helpful and lucid analyses ; and
when we come to the chapters of the text annotated in the form of
footnotes, it is borne in upon us that not only is all collateral in
formation, historical, geographical, textual, and linguistic, pressed
judiciously into the allotted note-space, but the best books illustrative
,of the subject — e.g. Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine," Tristram's "Land
of Israel," and Thomson's "Land and the Book," with other kindred
works of reference, are concisely quoted, as well as on more reflective
matters, Farrar's "Life of Christ."... When we add that here arid there
some pregnant sentence of Augustine, such as ' ' Caro premit, fides tangit,"
is brought to bear on the text  and that all niceties of language 
are carefully traced out and explained ; we shall have shown, it may be,
sufficient cause why this volume, and those that follow it, if of like
calibre, should find a. place, not only in the study of the intelligent
schoolboy and young biblical scholar, but also in the clergyman's
library, where not a little pabulum for sermon hints may be derived
from what is a mine of information, although contained in a succinct
and handy volume." — English Churchman.
" This is the first instalment of the Cambridge Bible for Schools,
which, we venture to predict, will be a useful assistant to the intelligent
reading of the Scriptures, whether we regard the high reputation of the
editor, Dr J. J. S. Perowne, or the list of proposed contributors, or
whether we judge of the whole by anticipation from the specimen now
before us. Anything written by Dr Maclear for the use of schools will
at once command respect, and this book in completeness and arrange
ment fully maintains the high character of his well-known Manuals on
the Old and New Testaments. There are two ways of studying the
Scriptures : ist, by taking » wide view of the whole of a subject, as of
the Gospel history, in such a book as Maclear' s New Testament Manual ;
or, indly, by giving a minute study to one particular book, observing
its special characteristics of language and style and matter, and compar
ing it in detail with the others. For such a purpose the present work
is admirably adapted. It collects all that either is known or may be in
ferred of the life of the author, marshals the characteristic features of
the Gospel as bearing on the question of the purpose and other circum
stances of its composition, and supplies a careful analysis of its contents.
The Gospel itself follows according to the authorised version, illustrated
by an abundant supply of notes occupying 168 pages. These are so full
that we may venture to say that nothing,noteworthy is left untouched." —
The Church Sunday School Magazine.
" The Gospel according to St Matthew, by the Rev. A. Carr. This
valuable series of school books is under the editorship of Professor
Perowne, and is doing a great and thorough educational work in
our schools. The volume before us condenses in the smallest possible
space the best results of the best commentators on St Matthew's Gospel.
The introduction is able, scholarly, and eminently practical, as it bears
on the authorship and contents of the Gospel, and the original form
in which it is supposed to have been written. It is well illustrated by

4 CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS.
two excellent maps of the Holy Land and of the Sea of Galilee." —
English Churchman.
" The Book of Joshua. Edited by G. F. Maclear, D.D. We have
tbe first instalment of what we have long desiderated, a School Com
mentary on the books of Scripture. If we may judge of the work con
templated by the sample before us it has our heartiest commendation.
With Dr J. J. S. Perowne for General Editor and an eminent list of
well-known Biblical scholars as contributors, we have the highest
guarantee that the work will be completed in a scholarly, useful, and
reliable form. The introductory chapter of the present volume on the
life, character, and work of Joshua is ably and attractively written.
We would call special attention to the section that treats of the destruc
tion of the Canaanitish nations by Divine command. This, as a subject
likely to be misunderstood by young Bible scholars, called for clear and
judicious handling, and we are glad to notice that it has been fully, and,
as we think, very successfully dealt with.... The 'notes' will be found
brief, terse, pointed, and suggestive. The historical illustrations are
apposite and felicitous. The maps and geographical explanations are
accurate and valuable. The book ought to be in the hands of every
teacher, and even clergymen will find it a valuable accession to their
list of commentaries. We await the issue of the remaining volumes
with interest." — Weekly Review.
"A very important work in the nature of a Scriptural text-book for
the use of students has been undertaken by the Syndics of the Cam
bridge University Press — namely, the separate issue of the several books
of the Bible, each edited and annotated by some Biblical scholar of high
reputation. Among those who have undertaken to contribute to the
work are Canon Farrar, Professor Robertson Smith, Professor Davidson,
Professor E. H. Plumptre, Archdeacon Perowne, and Dr Maclear. The
whole series is being edited by Canon Perowne. The work is entitled
The Cambridge Bible for Schools, and four instalments of it have already
appeared — the Book of Joshua and the Gospel according to St Mark,
by Dr Maclear; the Gospel according to St Matthew, by the Rev.
A. Carr, M.A.-; and the General Epistle of St James, by Professor
Plumptre. The method pursued in each text-book is the same. There
is first a biographical, historical, and critical introduction ; after which
follows the text, profusely illustrated and explained by notes. The
amount of work expended on each of the four text-books that have
thus far appeared is very great; and it is, moreover, work of excellent
quality, undertaken and performed in a broad and scholarly spirit.
The value of the work as an aid to Biblical study, not merely in schools
but among people of all classes who are desirous to have intelligent
knowledge of the Scriptures, cannot easily be over-estimated."  The
Scotsman. "The Books of Joshua and Mark, by the Rev. G. F. Maclear
D.D.; St Matthew, by the Rev. A. Carr, M.A. ; St James, by E h'
Plumptre, D.D. It is with gratitude to the Syndics of the CambridVe
Umversity Press that we receive the first four specimens of their attempt
to supply an annotated edition of the Bible in handy portions, suitable
for school use, and as a preparation for the University Local Exami
nations, whether in England or Scotland. In selecting the Hulsean
Professor of Divinity, Canon Perowne, as general editor, they have

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

given a guarantee of the combined orthodoxy and scholarship of the
work.. ..Each pretty little volume varies in price from is. 6d. to 2s. 6d.
Older folks than the youths who study for the University examina
tions — even ministers themselves — will be glad to use such helps to
the critical study of the Divine Word. For travellers and holiday-
makers the volumes are most appropriate. To the exiles in the isolated
stations of India, China, and the Colonies, we commend the Cambridge
Bible for Schools." — Daily Review (Edinburgh).
"Among the Commentaries which are in course of publication, the
Cambridge Bible for Schools (Cambridge University Press) deserves
mention. It is issued in conveniently-sized volumes, each containing
a Book of the Old or New Testament. We have just received two of
these volumes — one, on The Book of Joshua, prepared by Dr Maclear,
of the ICing's College School ; the other, by Professor Plumptre, on
The Epistle of St James. That they are designed for the use of schools
sufficiently indicates the scope of the annotations which accompany the
text of each of these books. That on the Book of Joshua is enriched
with notices of the most recent discoveries in Biblical archaeology and
geography. The illustrations, however, are not confined to such notices,
but embrace a wider exegesis. It has, moreover, two maps and a very
good index of the contents of the annotations. The volume on the
Epistle of St James is, independently of a sufficient commentary, en
riched with a useful introduction, in which the authorship of the Epistle
and the time when written are discussed with the fulness which we had
a right to expect from Dr Plumptre. The series will be valuable to
schools; but it will by no means exhaust its usefulness there. More
advanced readers of Holy Scripture than are to be found in our public
schools will derive assistance from these handy volumes, which, when
completed — if completed as those already published give us reason to
expect — will be a welcome addition to our commentaries on Holy
Scripture."— John Bull.
"St Matthew, edited by A. Carr, M.A. The Book of Joshua, edited
by G. F. Maclear, D.D. The General Epistle of St James, edited by
E. H. Plumptre, D.D. (Cambridge University Press). These volumes
are constructed upon the same plan, and exhibit the same features as
that on 'St Mark's Gospel,' of which we gave a full account on its
issue. The introductions and notes are scholarly, and generally such
as young readers need and can appreciate. The maps in both Joshua
and Matthew are very good, and all matters of editing are faultless.
Professor Plumptre's notes on 'The Epistle of St James' are models of
terse, exact, and elegant renderings of the original, which is too often
obscured in the authorised version." — Nonconformist.
"The issue of the Bible in sections, although not an entirely novel
plan, is now, we believe, adopted for the first time with a special view
to school use, each book in this series being intended, as a separate
text-book, complete in itself, with its introduction, notes, and maps.
The system which has always been adopted with the best results in
regard to secular school-books can scarcely fail to be equally valuable
when applied to the sacred volume, and, as the names of the editors
will show, the most eminent scholars and divines of the day are being
employed upon the work. The text adopted in the edition is that of
Scrivener's Cambridge Paragraph Bible, the notes in every case being
printed under the text. When completed, the Bible will form a most

•6 CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS.
valuable work for reference as well as for its more immediate purpose."
- — Publishers' Circular.
"The General Epistle of St James, with Notes and Introduction.
By Professor Plumptre, DiD. (University Press, Cambridge). This is
only a part of the Cambridge Bible for Schools, and may be bought
for a few pence. Nevertheless it is, so far as I know, by far the best
exposition of the Epistle of St James in the English language. _ Not
Schoolboys or Students going in for an examination alone, but Ministers
and Preachers of the Word, may get more real help from it than from
the most costly and elaborate commentaries." — Expositor.
"The system of University Local Examinations has-been fruitful
not only in encouraging education in its higher branches, but it has
been the means of the publication of many valuable helps to candidates
and students generally. No work of this class, however, will, we
think, be found to be more useful to all students of Scripture than that
now being issued by the Cambridge University Press, bearing the title,
"The Cambridge Bible for Schools."... The names of the editors are
sufficient to denote the ability with which these books are prepared.
They each contain a copious introduction, and explanatory notes, which
throw such light upon the passages as few books of their class do.
The maps are well executed." — Christian Signal.
"With Mr Carr's well-edited apparatus to St Matthew's Gospel,
where the text is that of Dr Scrivener's Cambridge Paragraph Bible,
we are sure the young student will need nothing but a good Greek
text. ... We should doubt whether any volume of like dimensions could
be found so sufficient for the needs of a student of the first Gospel, from
whatever point of view he may approach it." — Saturday Review.
"The Cambridge Bible for Schools: St. Matthew, Joshua,
Jonah, Corinthians, and James. We have on a former occasion drawn
the attention of our readers to the first volume of this excellent series —
St Mark. Tbe volumes indicated above have now been published, and
fully maintain the high standard won by the first. They furnish valu
able and precise information in a most convenient form, and will be
highly esteemed by students preparing for examinations, and also by
Sunday-school teachers and others. They are particularly valuable in
furnishing information concerning history, geography, manners and
customs, in illustration of the sacred text." — The Baptist.
"The Cambridge Bible for Schools:— The First Epistle to the
Corinthians. Edited by Professor Lias. Jonah. Edited by Arch
deacon Perowne. (Cambridge University Press. ) Every fresh instal
ment of this annotated edition of the Bible for schools confirms the
favourable opinion we formed of its value from the examination of its
first number. The origin and plan of the Epistle are discussed with its
character and genuineness. The analysis of its contents is very full and
clear, and will be found of great service to the teachers of the more
¦advanced classes in Sunday-schools and to the leaders of Bible-classes.
The notes at the foot of the text are brief, but suggestive. We should
recommend the committee of the City Missions, and all who have
charge of rural evangelization societies, to put this book into the hands
of their agents. The nature of the Book of Jonah is such that it
involves a discussion at the outset as to whether it is fable or fact, or
partly both. And we have, therefore, a portion of the introduction
devoted to that subject. The moral teaching of the book is so valuable

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

and the light it sheds upon the growth of religion amongst the Jews
so interesting, that these elements ought to receive the largest share of
an editor's attention." — The Nonconformist.
"Dr Maclear's commentary for Schools on The Book of Joshua is,
as may be anticipated from him, clear and compendious. The historical
books of the Old Testament are especially adapted for such an exegesis,
elucidating many minute points, which might escape the observation of
a less careful student. Another volume of the same series, The Gospel
of St Matthew, with Mr Carr's annotations, deserves equally high
praise. The commentary is terse and scholarly, without losing its
interest for ordinary readers. The maps, the index, and the tabulated
information in the Appendix all enhance the usefulness of this handy
little volume. The name of the editor, Dr Plumptre, is in itself enough
to recommend the edition of The General Epistle of St James, in
the same series. More copious than the companion volumes, it
contains some lengthy notes in the form of an excursus — e.g. on the
personal relation of St Paul and St James the Less."— Guardian.
" The last part, the Book of Jonah, is from the hand of (The Ven.
T. T.) Perowne, Archdeacon of Norwich. The little work is well clone,
written in a graceful, lucid, and cheerful style, which will be attractive
to young readers. The notes contain information and reflection in a
very just proportion, the great preponderance being given to informa
tion." — The British and Foreign Evangelical Review.
" The Acts of the Apostles. — Edited by J. Rawson Lumby, D.D.,
Norrisian Professor of Divinity.- — We said before, in noticing former
volumes, not only the schoolboy or girl, or the student preparing for
examination, but the general reader and devout Christian will find these
handy books most edifying. The editors have drawn from history,
geography, and the manners and customs of the East, everything that
will illustrate the text and make it clear to the dullest comprehension.
With the help of such books, Divinity is made a most interesting study,
and no one connected with tuition, either in our Sunday or day-schools,
but will here find helpful assistance. Doctrinal teaching is not at
tempted — but, frequently, and especially in The Acts of the Apostles,
great pains are taken to enable the student, ignorant of Greek, to under
stand the varied forces of the tenses of the verbs, the degrees of
comparison of the adjectives, and the more literal interpretation of the
Greek idioms." — Cambridge Chronicle.
"We believe we have already spoken of previous volumes in terms
of praise. Indeed, it would be difficult to speak too highly of the
volumes before us, especially that edited by Professor Lumby. They
carry on the same 'lines' as their predecessors, and are eminently
adapted for the needs of those schools where it is the custom to set
a portion of Scripture to be got up just like a book of Virgil or Homer.
The notes are foot-notes, and explain with clearness and brevity all
the points of interest, geographical, topographical, and archaeological,
touched upon in the text."— Educational Times.
"The Book of Joshua, By the Rev. G. F. Maclear, D.D. Jonah.
By the Ven. T. T. Perowne, B. D. The Gospel according to St Matthew.
By the Rev. A. Carr, M.A. The Gospel according to St Mark. By
the Rev. G. F. Maclear, D.D. The Acts of the Apostles (i — xiv). By
J. Rawson Lumby, D.D. We cannot hive a healthier intellectual
exercise than an impartial examination of the structure and contents
of Scripture, and there are no books more likely to aid such an

8 CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS.
examination than the Manuals issued by the Syndics of the University
Press. Works of more solid worth have not been published. The
text adopted throughout is that of Scrivener's Cambridge Paragraph
Bible. Each part contains a careful and scholarly introduction on the
authorship, the date, the sources, &c, of the book. The notes are
terse and suggestive, giving in few words the gist of elaborate re
searches. They abound in fine textual criticism, no less than in valuable
doctrinal and ethical comments. Dr Maclear is thoroughly at home in
such an historical book as Joshua. He draws illustrations from all
quarters, especially from old English literature, and writes in a style
of great elegance. The volume on Jonah is a literary gem, both on
apologetic and hermeneutical grounds. In Mr Carr's Matthew there is,
in addition to keen verbal criticism and archaeological research, a deter
mined effort to trace the course of thought in the inspired text, to point
out the nexus between the various sections and verses of the Gospel.
Mr Carr has all the qualifications which vigorous and refined scholar
ship can give, and possesses what is of far higher value, clear spiritual
insight. Mr Lumby's manner of work is known to most of our readers
from his papers in the Expositor. His notes on the Acts will certainly
enhance his reputation, and form a valuable commentary on one of the
most important books of the New Testament. Mr Lumby has enriched
his pages with illustrations of singular appropriateness from the Talmud.
He is evidently familiar with 'this great sea' of Jewish literature, and
draws from it for the elucidation of his text treasures of no ordinary
worth. All these books are, in fact, a valuable addition to our Biblical
expositions, original contributions to a subject of transcendant import
ance ; and while they cannot fail to be valued by those for whom they
are expressly designed, we have a shrewd suspicion that they will be
still more highly appreciated by minds of a riper order. The maps
which most of the manuals contain are beautifully executed, and will be
a great aid to the intelligent study of the Scriptures. Canon Perowne,
to whom the general editorship of the series has been entrusted, may be
congratulated on the success which the scheme has so far achieved.
' The Cambridge Bible for Schools ' is one of the most popular and
useful literary enterprises of the nineteenth century." — Baptist Magazine.
"The Cambridge Bible for Schools — The Second Epistle to
the Corinthians. By Professor Lias. The General Epistles of St Peter
and St Jude. By E. H. Plumptre, D.D. We welcome these
additions to the valuable series of the Cambridge Bible. We have
nothing to add to the commendation which we have from the first
publication given to this edition of the Bible. It is enough to say that
Professor Lias has completed his work on the two Epistles to the
Corinthians in the same admirable manner as at first. Dr Plumptre
has also completed the Catholic Epistles." — Nonconformist.
"(i) The Acts of the Apostles. By J. Rawson Lumby, D.D.
(¦2) The Second Epistle of the Corinthians, edited by Professor LlAS.
The introduction is pithy, and contains a mass of carefully-selected
information on the authorship of the Acts, its designs, and its sources.
 The Second Epistle of the Corinthians is a manual beyond all
praise, for the excellence of its pithy and pointed annotations, its
analysis of the contents, and the fulness and value of its introduction."
¦ — Examiner. CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C J. CLAY, M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

University Press, Cambridge,
December, 1879.

THE PITT PRESS SERIES.

ADAPTED TO THE USE OF STUDENTS PREPARING
FOR THE
UNIVERSITY LOCAL EXAMINATIONS,
AND THE HIGHER CLASSES OF SCHOOLS.

I. GREEK.
Luciani Somnium Charon Fiscator et De Luctu. (New
Edition with Appendix.) With English Notes, by W. E. Heitland,
M.A., Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Price 3s. 6d.
The Anabasis of Xenophon, Book VI. With a Map and
English Notes by Alfred Pretor, M.A., Fellow of St Catharine's
College, Editor of Sophocles (Trachinise) and Persius. Price is. 6d.
Books I. III. IV. and V. By the same Editor. Price

2s. each. Book II. Price 2s. 6d.
Agesilaus of Xenophon. The Text revised with Critical
and Explanatory Notes, Introduction, Analysis, and Indices. By
H. Hailstone, M.A., late Scholar of Peterhouse, Cambridge,
Editor of Xenophon's Hellenics, etc. Price 2s. 6d.
Aristophanes— Ranae. With English Notes and Introduc
tion by W. C. Green, M.A., Assistant Master at Rugby School.
Cloth. 3*. 6d.
Aristpphanes— Aves. By the same Editor. New Edition.
Cloth. 3s. 6d.
Euripides. Hercules Furens. With Introduction, Notes
and Analysis. By J. T. Hutchinson, B.A., Christ's College,
and A. /isAY, B. A., Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Price is.
II. LATIN.
M. T. Ciceronis de Amicitia. Edited by J. S. Reid, M.L.,
Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Price 3s.
M. T. Ciceronis de Senectute. Edited by J. S. Reid, M.L.
Price 3s. 6d.
London: Cambridge Warehouse, 17 Paternoster Row.

PUBLICATIONS OF

PITT PRESS SERIES (continued).
P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber VII. Edited with Notes
by A. Sidgwick, M.A., Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Price is. 6d.
Books VI. VIII. X. XI. XII. By the same Editor.

Price is. 6d. each.
— Books VII. VIII. bound in one volume. Price 3J.
Books X. XI. XII. bound in one volume. Price

3s. 6d.
Quintus Curtius. A Portion of the History (Alexander in
India). By W. E. Heitland, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of St
John's College, Cambridge, and T. E. Raven, B.A., Assistant
Master in Sherborne School. With Two Maps. Price 3s. 6d.
Gai luli Caesaris de Eello Gallico Comment. I. II. With
Maps and Notes by A. G. Peskett, M.A. Fellow of Magdalene
College, Cambridge. Price 2s. 6d.
Gai luli Caesaris de Bello Gallico Comment. IV, V.,
and Com. VII. By the same Editor. Price 2s. each.
P. Ovidii Nasonis Fastorum Liber VI. With Notes by
A. Sidgwick, M.A. Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Price is. 6d.
M. T. Ciceronis Oratio pro Archia Poeta. By J. S. Reid,
M.L., Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Price
is. 6d.
M. T. Ciceronis pro L. Cornelio Balbo Oratio. By T. S.
Reid, M.L., Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. Price is. 6d.
Beda's Ecclesiastical History, Books III., IV., printed
from the MS. in the Cambridge University Library. Edited, with
a life, Notes, Glossary, Onomasticon, and Index, bv T E B
Mayor, MA., Professor of Latin, and J. R. Lumby, D.D.',
Nornsian Professor of Divinity. Price p. 6d.
M' \- ^ioe^niVIi \ Caecilium Divinatio et in C. Verrem
Actio. With Notes by W. E. Heitland ma ~„a it »e«ein
M.A., FeUows of St John's CoU.fcambrMg^ Pr^% C°™'
M. T. Ciceronis in Gahim Verrem Actio Prima. With Notes
by H. Cowie, M.A., Fellow of St John's Coll. Price ls.6d.
London: Cambridge Warehouse, 17 Paternoster Row.

THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 3
PITT PRESS SERIES (continued).
M. T. Ciceronis Oratio pro L. Murena, with English Intro
duction and Notes. By W. E. Heitland, M.A., Fellow of
St John's College, Cambridge. Second Edition. Price 3s.
M. T. Ciceronis Oratio pro Tito Annio Milone, with English
Notes, &c, by the Rev. John Smyth Purton, B.D., late Tutor
of St Catharine's College. Price 2s. 6d.
M. Annaei Lucani Pharsaliae Liber Primus, with English
Introduction and Notes by W. E. Heitland, M.A., and C. E.
Haskins, M.A., Fellows of St John's Coll., Cambridge, is. 6d.
III. FRENCH.
Histoire du Siecle de Louis XIV. par Voltaire. Chaps. I.—
XIII. Edited with Notes Philological and Historical, Bio
graphical and Geographical Indices, etc. by Gustave Masson,
B. A. Univ. Gallic, Assistant Master of Harrow School, and G. W.
Prothero, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of King's College, Cam
bridge, Examiner for the Historical Tripos. Price 2s. 6(t.
 Part II. Chaps. XIV— XXIV. By the same Editors.
With Three Maps. Price 2s. 6d.
Le Verre D'Eau. A Comedy, by Scribe. With a Bio
graphical Memoir, and Grammatical, Literary and Historical
Notes, by C. Colbeck, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge; Assistant Master at Harrow School. Price 2s.
M. Daru, par M. C. A. Sainte-Beuve (Causeries du Lundi,
Vol. IX.). With Biographical Sketch of the Author, and Notes
Philological' and Historical. By Gustave Masson, B.A. Univ.
Gallic, Assistant Master and Librarian, Harrow School. Price 2s.
La Suite du Menteur. A Comedy by P. Corneille.
With Notes Philological and Historical by the same. Price 2s.
La Jeune Siberienne. Le Lepreux de la Cite D'Aoste. Tales
by Count Xavier de Maistre. With Biographical Notices,
Critical Appreciations, and Notes, by the same. Price 2s.
Le Directoire. (Considerations sur la Revolution Francaise.
Troisieme et quatrieme parties.) Par Madame la Baronne de
Stael-Holstein. With Notes by the same. Price 2s.

London: Cambridge Warehouse, 17 Paternoster Row.

PUBLICATIONS OF

PITT PRESS SERIES {continued).
Fredegonde et Brunehaut. A Tragedy in Five Acts, by
N. Lemercier. With Notes by the same. Price 2s.
Dix Annees d'Exil. Livre II. Chapitres 1—8- Par Madame
la Baronne de Stael-Holstein. With Notes Historical and
Philological. By the same. Price 2s.
Le Vieux Celibataire. A Comedy, by Collin D'Harleville.
With Notes, by the same. Price 2s.
La Metromanie, A Comedy, by Piron, with Notes, by the
same. Price 2s.
Lascaris, ou Les Grecs du XVE Siecle, Nouvelle Historique,
par A. F. Villemain, with a Selection of Poems on Greece,
and Notes, by the same. Price 2s.

IV. GERMAN.
Hauff, Das Wirthshaus im Spessart, By A. Schlpttmann,
Ph.D. , Assistant Master at Uppingham School. Price 3s. 6d. '
Der Oberhof. A Tale of Westphalian Life, by Karl Im-
mermann. With a Life of Immermann and English Notes, by
Wilhelm Wagner, Ph.D., Professor at the Johanneum, Ham
burg. Price 3s.
A Book of German Dactylic Poetry. Arranged and Anno
tated by Wilhelm Wagner, Ph.D., Professor at the Johanneum,
Hamburg. Price 3s.
Der erste Kreuzzug (1095 — 1099) nach Friedrich von
Raumer. THE FIRST CRUSADE. Arranged and Annotated
by Wilhelm Wagner, Ph.D., Professor at the Johanneum,
Hamburg. Price 2s,
A Book of Ballads on German History. Arranged and
Annotated by Wilhelm Wagner, Ph. D., Professor at the
Johanneum, Hamburg. Price 25.

London: Cambridge Warehouse, 17 Paternoster Row.

THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 5
PITT PRESS SERIES (continued).
Der Staat Friedrichs des Grossen. By G. Freytag. With
Notes. By Wilhelm Wagner, Ph. D. Professor at the Johan
neum, Hamburg. Price 2s.
Goethe's Knabenjahre. (1749— J759-) Goethe's Boyhood: being
the First Three Books of his Autobiography. Arranged and Anno
tated by the same Editor. Price 2s.
Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea. With an Introduction
and Notes. By the same Editor. Price 3s.
Das Jahr 1813 (The Year 1813), by F. Kohlrausch.
With English Notes by the same Editor. Price is.

V. ENGLISH.
The Two Noble Kinsmen, edited with Introduction and
Notes by the Rev. Professor Skeat, M.A., formerly Fellow of
Christ's College, Cambridge. Cloth, extra fcap. 8vo. Price 3s. 6d.
Bacon's History of the Reign of King Henry VII. With
Notes by the Rev. Professor Lumby, D.D., Fellow of St Catha
rine's College, Cambridge. Cloth, extra fcap. 8vo. Price 3s.
Sir Thomas More's Utopia. With Notes by the Rev.
Professor Lumby, D.D. Price 3s. 6d.
Locke on Education. [Preparing.
Other Volumes are in preparation.

London: Cambridge Warehouse, 17 Paternoster Row.

PUBLICATIONS OF

Cfoe Cambrttrg;* 2Si'6Ie for £>rfooote*
General Editor: J. J. S. PEROWNE, D.D., Dean of
Peterborough.
The want of an Annotated Edition of the Bible, in handy portions,
suitable for school use, has long been felt.
In order to provide Text-books for School and Examination pur
poses, the Cambridge University Press has arranged to publish the
several books of the Bible in separate portions, at a moderate, price,
with introductions and explanatory notes.
Some of the books have already been undertaken by the following
gentlemen :
Rev. A. Carr, M.A., late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford.
Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M. A., Fellow ofBalliol College, Oxford.
Rev. S. Cox, Nottingham.
Rev. A. B. Davidson, D.D., Prof, of Hebrew, Free Church Coll. Edinb.
Rev. F. W. Farrar, D.D., Canon of Westminster.
Rev. A. E. Humphreys, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Rev. A. F. Kirkpatrick, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College.
Rev. J. J. Lias, M.A., Professor at St David's College, Lampeter.
Rev. J. R. Lumby, D.D., Norrisian Professor of Divinity.
Rev. G. F. Maclear, D.D., Head Master of King's Coll. School, London.
Rev. H. C. G. Moule, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Rev. W. F. Moulton, D.D., Head Master of the Leys School, Cambridge.
Rev. E. H. Perowne, D.D., Master of Corpus Christi College;
Cambridge, Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of St Asaph. ' -
The Ven. T. T. Perowne, B.D., Archdeacon of Norwich.
Rev. A. Plummer, M.A,, Master of University College, Durham.
Rev. E. H. Plumptre, D.D., Professor of Biblical Exegesis, King's
College, London.
Rev. W. Sanday, D.D., Principal of Bishop Hatfield Hall, Durham.
Rev. W. Simcox, M. A., Rector of Weyhill, Hants.
Rev. Robertson Smith, M.A., Professor of Hebrew, Aberdeen.
Rev. A. W. Streane, M.A., Fellow of Corpus Christi College.
Rev. H. W. Watkins, M.A,, Warden of St Augustine' s Coll. Canterbury.
Rev. G. H. Whitaker, M. A., Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge '¦
Honorary Chancellor of Truro Cathedral. '

London: Cambridge Warehouse, 17 Paternoster Row.

THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 7
Now Ready.
THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. By the Rev. G. F. Maclear, D.D.
With Two Maps. Cloth. 2s. 6d.
THE BOOK OF JONAH. By Archdeacon Perowne.
With Two Maps. Cloth, is. 6d.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST MATTHEW. By the
Rev. A. Carr, M.A. With Two Maps. Cloth. 2s. 6d.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST MARK. By the Rev.
G. F. Maclear, D.D. With Two Maps. Cloth, w. 6d.
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. By the Rev. Professor
Lumby, D.D. Part I., Chaps. I.— XIV. Cloth. 2s.6d.
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. By the Rev. H. C. G.
Moule, M.A. Cloth. 3s. 6d.
THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. By the
Rev. Prof. Lias, M.A. With a Plan and Map. Cloth. 2s.
THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. By
the Rev. Prof. Lias, M.A. With a Plan and Map. Cloth. 2s.
THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF ST JAMES. By the Rev.
E. H. Plumptre, D.D. Cloth, is. 6d.
THE EPISTLES OF ST PETER AND ST JUDE. By the
Rev. E. H. Plumptre, D.D. Cloth. 2s. 6d.
Preparing.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST LUKE. By the Rev.
F. W. Farrar, D.D.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST JOHN. By the Rev.
W. Sanday, D.D., and the Rev. A. Plummer, M.A.
THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH. By the Rev. A. W. Streane,
M.A. [Nearly ready.
THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. By the Rev. A F.
Kirkpatrick, M.A.
In Preparation. THE
CAMBRIDGE GREEK TESTAMENT,
FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES,
with a Revised Text, based on the most recent critical authorities, and
English Notes, prepared under the direction of the General Editor,
the Very Reverend J. J. S. PEROWNE, D.D.,
DEAN OF PETERBOROUGH.
The books will be published separately, as in the
"Cambridge Bible for Schools."
London: Cambridge Warehouse, 17 Paternoster Row.

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE LOCAL
EXAMINATIONS.

EXAMINATION PAPERS,
for various years, with the Regulations for the Examination.
Demy Octavo. 2s. each, or by Post 2s. 2d.
(Tne Regulations for the Examination in 1880 are now ready.)
CLASS LISTS FOR VARIOUS TEARS.
6d. each, by Post id. For 1878, Boys it. Girls 6d.
ANNUAL REPORTS OF THE SYNDICATE,
With Supplementary Tables showing the success and failure of the
Candidates.
is. each, by Post 2s. 2d.
HIGHER LOCAL EXAMINATIONS.
EXAMINATION PAPERS FOR 1879,
to which are added the Regulations for 1880.
Demy Octavo. 2s. each, by Post 2s. 2d. ¦
REPORTS OF THE SYNDICATE.
Demy Octave), is., by Post is. id.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY REPORTER.
Published by Authority.
Containing all the Official Notices of the University, Reports of Dis
cussions in the Schools, and Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical,
Antiquarian, and Philological Societies. 3d. weekly.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY EXAMINATION PAPERS.
These Papers are published in occasional numbers every Term, and
in volumes for the Academical year.
Vol. V. Parts 41 to 55. Papers for the Year 1875—6, 12s. cloth.
Vol. VI. „ 56 to 69. „ „ 1876—7, in. doth.
Vol. VII. „ 70 to 86. „ „ 1877—8, 12s. cloth.
Vol. VIII. „ 87 to 104. „ „ 1878—9, 12s. cloth.
ILonBoti:
CAMBRIDGE WAREHOUSE, 17 PATERNOSTER ROW.
ffiamitfose: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO.
ILelpjffl: F. A. BROCK HAUS.

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 05094 6905