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In transcribing the account of this transaction, we must take leave to substitute the Septuagint rendering, for that in the common version, of the peculiar phrase explained in a note at the beginning of last chapter, and simply notice, by way of information to those who may need it, that what are called booths in Scripture are temporary frames or sheds, hastily run up with slender bits of wood, and presenting many openings, through which either wind or heat may penetrate. “And the Lord God prepared a gourd, (It is of no moment, as to the meaning of the passage, what the particular plant might be which is here denominated gourd, or whether this may be its proper designation. The Hebrew name is kikajon, and seems to be the same with the Egyptian kiki, the common ricinus, or castor-oil plant, sometimes also called palm-crist, the name adopted in the margin of our Bibles. This plant is known to be very common in the East, and, from its broad foliage and the softness of its stem, answers well to the description of the text.) and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might he a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. [Mark here the proof incidentally given of the real affection under which Jonah laboured—grief, not anger.] So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Art thou very much grieved for the gourd? And he said, I am very much grieved, even to death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast 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 I not 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?”
While undergoing this salutary and instructive process, Jonah appears at different stages in two very different, and even opposite, frames of mind. But in both alike it has fared with him according to the proverb, “We have piped to you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned, and ye have not wept.” For in the one he has been represented as a poor sensual creature, “rejoicing in his creature-comforts,” and thinking all was well if he could but enjoy himself a little under the refreshing shade of his temporary gourd; while in the other he is charged with giving way to pettish and malignant humours, having “a bosom that swelled with anger,” and continuing still self-willed, and “so intractable as even to contend with God.” So the author of Jonah’s portraiture; (The Rev. Thomas Jones.) and another, but much older, delineator, handles him a little more roughly still: “Was there ever man under heaven so testy and peevish, to chop thus with his Maker, and still the further he goeth, the more to be out of square?” The author denounces “the rigour of his fury and the cruelty of his stomach,” and holds him up to reprobation as one “so filled with choler that he fretted and chafed with the Lord.” (Abbot’s Exposition upon the Prophet Jonah, vol. ii, lect. xxvii. xxviii.) Matters have not grown better for Jonah as the world has grown older; for a more recent delineator than either of the preceding, the late venerable author of a practical exposition of the book of Jonah, represents the prophet as exhibiting at this time “a proud, sullen, and discontented spirit”—as a person of such rare and desperate malignity, that “he could turn the very goodness of God into a ground of accusation against him”—as presenting a sight so odious that imagination cannot picture to itself one more revolting—and needlessly plunging himself into distress from the violence of his own unhallowed temper. (Dr Peddie’s Lectures on Jonah, ix and x.) But if the case were so with Jonah, we surely must, in consistence, forego his claim to be considered even yet a subject of grace; for he must then be regarded as going off the stage in a most presumptuous opposition to God—not only rebelling against the Divine will, but also “defending his rebellious conduct.” And if the man of whom this could be said in truth—and said, too, at the close of a most remarkable train of providences, fitted, if any thing could be, to cure a perverse spirit of its waywardness—if that man was still a child of God, there must have been a peculiarity in his case, for which we shall look in vain for any parallel in Scripture; and the worst symptoms of nature’s depravity must be held quite compatible with the existence of the life of God.
By much the greater portion of these hard charges against Jonah arise from the mistaken view entertained of his character, as being a man chiefly concerned about his own reputation, coupled with the false translation, which not only ascribes to him the passion of anger, instead of grief, but also gives him the appearance of justifying himself in his anger. Having already removed these grounds of misapprehension, we have the less difficulty in viewing the behaviour of Jonah on the present occasion in a more favourable light, and also in discerning some higher reasons for the treatment of God toward him, than if it aimed merely at the dislodgement of a foolish and fretful humour from his bosom. Jonah was disconcerted and downcast because the example of severity had been withheld, which he thought would operate so beneficially upon the minds of his countrymen, and without which he seemed to have no means of attaining the great end and object of his life. What, in such circumstances, was needed to rectify his mistake and restore him to a better mind? It was plainly something that would turn his thoughts out of that one channel in which they were so determinately running, and presenting to him other ends to be accomplished by the transactions at Nineveh than had yet entered his imagination to conceive.
For this purpose the Lord permitted him to go and construct his frail booth in the neighbourhood of the city, and to experience there for a time great uneasiness from the glowing heat of a vertical sun and a parching wind. He then suddenly brought over him the shadow of a broad foliage, by the extraordinary growth of a little plant, but this only to make him feel more intensely the force of the noxious elements to which he was exposed, by again as suddenly causing the plant to wither, so that Jonah fainted under the distress that came upon him, and would have found death itself a happy release. The instrument through which this overpowering effect was produced may seem very small in itself, and scarcely adequate to the occasion; but it must be viewed in connexion with the attendant circumstances, and especially with the mental depression under which Jonah laboured. It was, besides, precisely such a thing as was fitted to shut his mouth in regard to God’s dealing with Nineveh; and not only to do that, but, at the same time, to let in a flood of light upon his soul respecting the purposes which that dealing was destined to advance. For what room was left for dissatisfaction or complaint when the Lord proceeded to ask him how—since he would so willingly have spared this little gourd, and grieved so much for its loss because its presence had been refreshing to him—he could not much rather justify God in sparing the large city of Nineveh, the dwelling-place of such myriads of living beings, and the subject of so much paternal anxiety and care? Must there not be some unhappy bias in the mind which so keenly felt the destruction of the one, and so ardently longed for the destruction of the other?
Yes; but perhaps it may be thought that this scarcely meets the point mainly at issue. For the matter seems here to be put simply on natural grounds; the appeal is only made from the comparative insignificance of the plant to the gigantic magnitude of the city, and the little concern Jonah had with the one to the great concern God had with the other; and in these respects there was no room even for a moment’s hesitation as to the answer that should be returned to the question addressed to the prophet. But might not Jonah still have rejoined, or at least silently reflected in his mind, that it was not on natural, but on spiritual, grounds he had sought the execution of judgment on Nineveh—that he had desired this merely on account of the vindication it was fitted to give of God’s righteousness, and its tendency to promote the advancement of his kingdom in Israel; while the sparing of the gourd or the city, considered in respect to the littleness of the one and the magnitude and importance of the other, was a thing confined only to the region of nature? No doubt, he might have so rejoined if he had looked to the mere surface of the transaction; but viewing what was said and done—as he could not avoid doing—in the light of a parable, concealing under the outward veil a deep moral import, he would soon discover the entire suitableness of the instruction to the matter in hand. The natural, which is alone in both cases distinctly brought into view, was but a ladder through which the mind of the prophet might rise to corresponding spiritual reflections; and the key to the spiritual lies in the need which Jonah for the time had of the foliage of the gourd. In other circumstances it might have been a matter of entire indifference to him what happened to the plant, whether it had been spared or destroyed; but, situated as he then was, depending for his comfort, and in a sense also for his life, on its ample foliage, its sudden destruction necessarily came upon him as a sore calamity. And such now the Lord would have him to consider was the case in respect to Nineveh, as a city that feared the name and obeyed the voice of the Lord: in the sad degeneracy of the times, God’s cause had need of it, and would suffer damage by its overthrow, much as Jonah’s material wellbeing had suffered by the withering of the gourd.
If Israel had been faithful to his calling, and had fulfilled aright his original destination, to be himself holiness to the Lord, and a light amidst the surrounding heathenism, then, indeed, the Lord might have dispensed with any special service from Nineveh. Or, if there had been any hope of the people in the kingdom of Israel being still brought permanently to a better mind by some great example of severity falling out in their neighbourhood, he might have been less intent on the repentance and preservation of Nineveh. But this hope could no longer be entertained. Every thing had already been tried with them of that description which was likely to tell, with effect on their spiritual condition. Judgments of the most appalling kind had time after time been wrought among themselves, and had once and again reduced them to the brink of absolute and utter ruin, yet never with any thing more than a very partial and transient effect: as soon as prosperity again returned, the evil broke forth anew as foully and flagrantly as before. It was by other means than even the most stunning judgment on such a city as Nineveh that God must now work, if any important result was to he achieved among the profligate subjects of Jeroboam; he must call their jealousy into exercise; and by the example of a great people suddenly reformed and spared as a token of Divine favour and blessing, arouse them, if possible, to the alarming consideration, that the kingdom of heaven was ready to retire from its ancient seat, and be transplanted to another which would more willingly yield its spiritual fruits. Yes, the Lord at this time peculiarly had need of Nineveh in its now reformed condition; the cause of righteousness in the earth could ill afford to spare so singular a witness to the truth; the spiritual good of Israel itself in particular required it; and the tidings which the prophet could now carry back of Nineveh’s repentance and happy rescue from impending destruction, would he found, if properly understood and believed, far more fitted than the news of its overthrow could have been, to operate with power upon the hearts of his countrymen, and recall them to the true worship and service of God.
This was the course of procedure specially adapted to the condition of backsliding Israel; and yet the Lord knew well beforehand, that even this would fail to produce any general and permanent effect upon their minds. He knew that the time must speedily arrive when the seed of Jacob—those of Ephraim first, and then those of Judah—should be cast out of the inheritance, and scattered among the nations. And though the event would necessarily fall as a terrible disaster upon the people at large, yet for the small remnant who feared the Lord, or such as might then be inclined to turn to him, it was not by any means to prove an unmitigated evil; there would be hope for them even in what might seem to the eye of sense to be their latter end; and in the background of this dealing of God with Nineveh there lay a promise of good for the period of exile itself. The thought that, however the things which had happened in Nineveh might tell upon Israel, they must first be viewed in respect to its own people; that in this primary point of view they possessed an inherent importance, and were fitted to conduce most materially to the glory of God—this thought, which the Lord plainly sought from the first to impress upon Jonah, and which was embodied anew in the matter-of-fact parable of the gourd, provided for all the faithful among the coming exiles a sure ground of consolation and hope. They were thus taught beforehand, by a most illustrious example, that something might be done for God beyond the bounds of the land of Canaan, which might greatly tend to spread the knowledge of his name and advance the interests of his kingdom. They had failed, as a people, in Canaan to fulfil their destiny to be witnesses for the truth of God in the world, and a blessing to the nations of the earth; but this destiny, they would now see, might still in great part be accomplished even when they were banished from Canaan and scattered among the nations; the work of Jonah at Nineveh might on a small scale be perpetually repeating itself. And this reflection would lie the nearer to them, as Jonah himself, before he was so highly honoured of God in Nineveh, had also undergone the treatment of an outcast and borne the punishment of his sin; his history stood before them as a palpable proof, that their outcast condition would prove no obstruction to their future usefulness in the service of God. If they would but faithfully apply themselves to what God required at their hands, he would, notwithstanding the evils that befell them, give effect to their testimony and render them a blessing. So that the result of Jonah’s mission to Nineveh, while it rung a solemn warning in the ears of the backsliding and wicked in Israel, proclaiming the certainty of their overthrow if they repented not, opened up at the same time for the good a way to honour and enlargement in the things of God, which the darkest events in providence might not prevent them from occupying with honour and success.
Indeed, we cannot but think that this prospective lesson, furnished by the transactions at Nineveh and the parable of the gourd, though not the most immediate and direct, was still a very prominent object in the divine purposes. There are tides in the history of the world, as well as in the private affairs of men; and matters were now approaching a great crisis in that region of the world, which required to be met by a new turn in the outward destination of his Church. How the course of providence might have been ordered in respect to the nations of the earth, if the Israelites had continued a holy and united people, diffusing light and blessing around, it is not for us now to conjecture. But as it had become too clearly manifest that this was no longer to be expected, the Lord permitted a succession of huge monarchies to arise, over which it was in the nature of things impossible for Israel to obtain a political ascendancy, or, while standing apart, to exert any important influence. Yet Israel must still be, as God had promised to Abraham, the appointed channel of blessing to the nations; and the question was, how could this calling now be best fulfilled? Not simply by maintaining their ancient position in Canaan; they must get somehow nearer the helm of affairs, and have the opportunity of reaching the springs of action in the world; and this they could only do by being broken up and scattered, and to some extent intermingled with the nations. Jonah in Nineveh now, Daniel and his holy comrades in Babylon afterwards, were to serve for signs to Israel of the manner in which the people of God were henceforth to display his banner, and influence for his glory the current of events.
Besides, in process of time the great stream of power and dominion among men was to take a new direction, and flow into other channels than it had hitherto done. Long before the era of redemption, Nineveh and Babylon were to be laid in ruins, and the sceptre which had been wielded by them was to be transferred to entirely different regions of the world. At that era it was not Syria, or the adjacent countries to the north, but Asia Minor, Northern Africa, Greece, Rome, and the southern parts of Europe, which formed the seats of intelligence and power, and from which the influence was to come that should mould the future destinies of the world. Hence, however necessary it may have been for the Jews as a separate people to regain possession of the land of Canaan, and sojourn there till redemption was brought in, it was not less necessary and important, that they should also be found scattered in considerable numbers through the regions referred to, so as to be able to spread abroad the leaven of a living faith and a pure worship. And by this means, much more than by their re-settlement in the land of Canaan, taken by itself, was it in their power to bend the current of men’s views into the right channel, and to prepare the way for the diffusion of Christianity.
That the Jews really employed the power and the opportunities thus placed at their command to the extent they might have done, it is impossible to believe; and yet, that they did so to a very considerable extent, is put beyond a doubt by the records of New Testament Scripture itself. We see plainly enough that it was not so much the people living in Jerusalem or Judea, as those belonging to the regions already mentioned, who chiefly contributed to the establishment of the Christian Church in the world. Wherever Paul and the first heralds of the gospel went, they found at every influential position a nucleus of devout Jews and proselytes from the Gentiles, ready to hail the tidings of salvation, and erect the standard of the cross. Had these preparatory elements been wanting—had the gospel of Jesus been left to make its way through the dense heathenism of the ancient world without the help of such persons in the more important places—it would doubtless have succeeded in the end, but it would probably have taken ages to effect what in less than one was actually accomplished.
For, in the short space of thirty years after the death of Christ, we find that his religion had spread, not only through Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, but also through the numerous districts of Asia Minor, through Greece and the islands of the AEgean Sea, the sea-coast of Africa, and had extended itself to Rome and to Italy. And at the close of little more than a century, Justin Martyr boldly affirms, that “there was not a nation, either Greek or Barbarian, or of any other name, amongst whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the Father and Creator of the universe in the name of the crucified Jesus. (See Paley’s Evidence, Part II., ch. 9, where much more to the same purpose is to be found.)
It is true that the greater portion of the Jews, and some also of the proselytes, every where offered the most determined opposition to Christianity. But it is not the less true, that there was always a spiritual portion who became its zealous adherents, and who, by the diffusion of the knowledge of God as disclosed in Old Testament Scripture, had already, amid the declining influence of heathenism, done much to predispose the minds of men for the blessed realities of the gospel. They had not only witnessed for the truth of God among the idolatrous nations, but had been also so active and successful in the propagation of the truth, as to incur many a taunt from heathens on the subject, as well as to receive the approving testimony of their own historian. (Josephus says in Apion II., c. 36: “We choose not to imitate the institutions of other people, but we willingly embrace all that will follow ours.” In the 20th book of his Antiquities, he gives an account of the conversion of an entire people, those of Adiabene, to the Jewish faith; and in his Wars, vii. c. 3, § 3, he says of the Jews at Antioch, that they were “continually bringing a great number of Greeks to their religion,” and incidentally reports of Damascus, ii. c. 20, § 2, that nearly all the women there were devoted to the Jewish religion. In regard to heathen authors, Horace, for example, Sat. 1. 1:4, alludes to the Jews as the very personification of active and energetic zeal in constraining others to be of their way. Seneca too, as quoted by Augustine, De Civ. Dei, l. vi. c. 11, speaks of the Jewish religion as having been received every where, and adds, “the conquered have given laws to the conquerors” (vioti victoribus legis dederunt); thus partly and in the noblest sense executing the vengeance which, according to Psalms 149, they were to practise among the heathen. This subject, however, has not yet been thoroughly investigated; but what has been said is sufficient for our present purpose.) And as it was by means of their dispersion that they were thus enabled to operate so extensively in the great centres of heathenism, and to break up the fallow-ground for the seed of the gospel, the event itself of the dispersion should not he regarded by any means as an unmingled evil; it was an evil only in the first instance, but was both designed and overruled by God for a higher good than could otherwise have been attained. Their partial separation from Canaan and scattering among the nations, proved but another and more effectual way of securing the grand end for which most of all they had been at first planted in the land of promise.
Surely, when we reflect on all these things—when we see how wonderfully God had planned his operations in providence, contemplating the end from the beginning—how even, when thwarting the desires of his servant Jonah, he was still taking the most effectual method of promoting the objects which Jonah had chiefly at heart—and how he was at the same time lighting the way to operations and results such as Jonah had probably never so much as dreamt of—it well becomes us to exclaim in humble adoration with the apostle, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of him, and through him, and to him are all things, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”