quickly by a foreign preacher and by means of such simple words, without any attendant miraculous signs.
And these Jews were not converted by their own Savior, who preached to them so often and lavished miracles on them. What a shame to hear that now! And what a shame it will be also to see this! But it is of no avail; they are and remain hardened. Therefore we let them go their way, and we take comfort from the prophet and learn our lesson from him as God grants us grace. Amen.
SOME people concur in Jerome's opinion1 that this prophet Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath at Sidon, who fed the prophet Elijah in a time of famine, according to 1 Kings 17 and Luke
4:26. These people base their assumption on the fact that Jonah here calls himself son of Amittai (v. 1), that is, "son of the truthful one." This they relate to the widow's words to Elijah after he had raised her son from the dead: "Now I know that the word of the Lord in your mouth is true" (1 Kings 17:24). Whoever wants to may believe this; I do not. No, his father's name was Amittai; in Latin it would be Verax, in German, Wahrlich. And he came from Gath-hepher, a town within the borders of the tribe of Zebulun, according to Joshua 19:13. For in 2 Kings 14:25 we find recorded: "[King Jeroboam] restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which He spoke by His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher." Moreover, the widow of Zarephath was a Gentile, as Christ also tells us in Luke 4:26; but Jonah confesses here in chapter 1:9 that he is a Hebrew.
I am enlarging on this because I regard it advantageous to know the time of a prophet's life and the country in which he lived. Wherever available, these facts should be mentioned. It contributes to a proper understanding of a man's book if one knows his time, his place of residence, his person, and his background. Of Jonah we know that he lived in the days of King Jeroboam, whose grandfather was King
Jehu, a contemporary of King Uzziah in Judah. The prophets Hosea, Amos, and Joel lived in the kingdom of Israel at the same time, although in different places and towns. From this I suppose we can infer that Jonah was an excellent and estimable man in the kingdom of Israel and that God worked great things through him, for by means of his preaching King Jeroboam was fortunate enough to recover all the land that Hazael, the king of Syria, had taken from the kingdom of Israel. He had inflicted such great injury that also the prophet Elishah had wept over it when he foresaw it, according to 2 Kings 8:11. God bestowed these favors on Israel despite the fact that the kingdom was still idolatrous, worshiping the golden calves in Samaria beside the true God. So great is the mercy when God grants a country one man with His Word and for his sake not only endures the whole country's misdeeds and disobedience but even comes to the aid of that country and showers untold benefits on it. What would God not be willing to do or abstain from doing for a country that contains more than one godly person?
Scripture does not indicate whether these events in Nineveh and in the whale happened to Jonah before he proved so helpful to Jeroboam or later, after his return from Nineveh. It seems credible, however, that he first served and aided Jeroboam in his country until he had reestablished the kingdom of Israel and that thereupon he was sent farther afield, out of his country to Nineveh. In his own country he observed with his own eyes what kindness and mercy God was showing to the idolatrous kingdom of Israel. And from this he very likely gathered that God would be just as kind and gracious to Nineveh, so that his preaching would be useless and unnecessary, as he himself angrily confesses in chapter 4:1–2.
Summary: This was the situation in the world at the time of Jonah. Assyria, with the city of Nineveh, was the foremost kingdom, or empire, in the world, as Babylon and Rome were later on. In addition, we find other countries, such as Syria, Israel, Judah, Edom, Moab, each a kingdom in itself. The kingdom of Israel surely enjoyed its independence because of Jonah, just as the kingdom of Judah did because of King
Uzziah. But that was as it were the last chapter, the final blessing2 God bestowed on the kingdom of Israel.
For after the death of Jeroboam, when the people did not at all repent and desist from their idolatry, moved neither by punishment nor by benefactions, the kingdom disintegrated. One king always murdered the other, until the emperor of Assyria appeared and destroyed both Syria and Israel. He led both away into captivity, from which they have not returned to the present day, as the last chapter of 2 Kings attests. And now when disaster and destruction of the entire kingdom were impending on account of the people's sins,
God first delegated His prophets with His Word to warn the people that they might repent or that at least a few might be saved and preserved.
- 16 For whenever God's wrath is about to be kindled, He usually first sends His Word to save a few. Thus He sent Noah before the deluge came (Gen. 6); He sent Lot before He destroyed Sodom (Gen. 19); and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob before He despoiled Canaan; Joseph and Moses before He afflicted Egypt.
And thus He here also sent Jonah and Hosea before He did away with Israel, and Jonah before He determined to overturn Nineveh. And thus God also sent Christ, His Son, into the world before the appearance of the final wrath at the Last Judgment. After Christ's death not only Jerusalem but also Rome and the whole Roman orbit and empire were shattered. At present we are also enjoying this same mercy, and the bright light of God's Word is shining on us, which is unmistakable evidence of impending disaster. God wants to save a number of us before disaster strikes and destroys us if we do not improve.
But sad to say, we are surely behaving badly, and the punishment has already set in to a large extent.
2. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, etc.
We glean from this that God befriends not only the Jews but also the Gentiles. Thus St. Paul declares in Rom. 3:29: "Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also?" And there is no indication here that the people of Nineveh circumcised themselves and observed or adopted the laws of the Jews: they are commended solely because they believed the Word of God, repented, and became pious people. That strikes a mighty blow against the Jews and is a strong support of our Christian faith. We must note it well. For from this we can definitely conclude that circumcision and the law of Moses are not prerequisites for piety and for pleasing God and that the Jews were mistaken in their claim that all had to become Jews and accept and observe the laws of Moses, assuming that the Jews alone were God's people.
For here stands Jonah with his book and demonstrates that the people of Nineveh please and satisfy God without adherence to laws and customs of the Jews but solely by their faith and good works and that God does not demand more than that from them. If Moses' law had been necessary for the achievement of piety, they, too, would have been obliged to accept it. But that does not happen here. On the other hand, we find that faith and good works are demanded of the Jews and that their circumcision and their various modes of worship do not avail them. Thus Is. 1:11 repudiates them with their sacrifices and their deeds.
And St. Paul's statement in Rom. 2:14 is in perfect agreement here, saying that the Gentiles keep the Law without the Law and that the Jews violate the Law with the Law. Thus we easily perceive that Moses' law was imposed only on the Jews, and that just for a season, to constrain them and to humble them as with a dungeon and a jailer, as St. Paul says in Gal. 3:24; not at all that thereby they might become godly but that they might be made eager for Christ and God's grace. And now Jonah with his prophesy confirms the statement of St. Paul in Rom. 3:20, 28 that no one can become godly before God by the works of the Law but that he must become so through faith, without any works of the Law. And as we here observe in the case of the people of Nineveh, such a person will then do good works. And if the people of Nineveh were not under obligation to keep the law of Moses and to become Jews at a time before the advent of Christ when the Law was still in force and incumbent on the Jews, how much less are we bound by the Law now that Christ has come and has abolished the Law also for the Jews? Therefore the only demand made on us, as once on the people of Nineveh, is that we have a true faith that performs good works, makes people pious, etc.
I am saying this not only for the sake of the Jews and by way of refuting their claims but also for our sakes, who have more than one devil contending against this divine doctrine: first of all, the pope and his followers, who term this an innovation and impose much greater and more laws on us than Moses' law contained and who want to make us pious before God in that way. However, I hold that this doctrine is old enough, since it existed at the time of Jonah, long before Christ's birth, and that it is also sufficient, since it made the people of Nineveh pious without the law of Moses and before anyone would ever have dreamt of the papacy. In the second place, we have the factious spirits and the enthusiasts, who endeavor to encumber us with the law of Moses. They try to be our masters, even though they know neither what
Moses nor what Christ is, nor the limits of Moses' authority nor the purpose he serves. Such the iconoclasts have been and those who believed that the law of Moses comprehended the sword of government and cried loudly: "Here is God's Word, God's Word, God's Word!" As though it sufficed to quote God's Word without discerning to whom it applies. The command to Noah to build the ark, to Abraham to sacrifice his son, and to Solomon to erect the temple were all God's Word; but that does not imply that I should do likewise. No, those words of God were not directed to me. But these words of general import, "Repent and believe!" as here spoken to the people of Nineveh, pertain also to me and to - 17 all other men. Therefore we must not content ourselves to inquire whether a certain word is of God, but we must also ascertain whether or not this word is intended for us and so apply it to ourselves or not, etc.
But notice what an important office God entrusts to Jonah when He orders this one man to preach against the mighty empire of Assyria, against the king and his princes. After all, great lords dislike and resent being chided and being taken to task; they do not want to be rebuked. And now God commands
Jonah here to upbraid them for their wickedness. That surely calls for genuine courage. Jonah has to open his mouth and speak. He has to say to them: "You are evil, and you stand condemned. Your respectable conduct is nothing but sham that is misleading you." For unquestionably there were also good people in such a large kingdom whose outward life was honorable and irreproachable. To reprove these and frighten them with God's wrath is a big job, and it is ill received, especially among the bigwigs. In brief, we are inclined to disparage this story because we view it from afar and because it does not pertain to us.
However, if anything similar were ever to befall us, or if we had participated in this at Jonah's time, we should think that we have never seen or heard of anything more preposterous or impossible than to have one single man attack such an empire. What would people think if you or I were sent to the Turkish emperor to rebuke him and his princes and his realm? How absurd did it often seem when someone ventured to raise his voice against the pope!
Well, God's works usually begin in such an unreasonable and impossible way that reason must despair of them and sneer; but this is done for our good, that we might believe. For God carries out what He says and undertakes, no matter how foolish and impossible this may appear to us. "For the foolishness of God is wiser than men," 1 Cor. 1:25. Jonah proves that nicely and convincingly here.
3. But Jonah rose to flee to the sea, away from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa.
Both the Greek and the Latin texts read "to Tarshish." I translated this aufs Meer, "to the sea." Lest the wiseacres condemn me unduly for this, I will have to adduce some reasons for my translation. They say that Jonah traveled to Tarsus, the city of Cilicia from which St. Paul came, according to Acts 9:11. But there is no basis in Scripture for that assumption. For the text does not read to "Tarsus" but into, or onto,
"Tarshish." The Hebrew tongue has two words for sea, םיָָ and יׁששִׁרְתַַּּ. The former is the expression not only for the great sea but also for the large lakes. Thus Luke calls the sea on which Christ and His disciples sailed near Tiberias and Capernaum and Bethsaida a lake,3 which John 6:17 and the other evangelists call the Galilean Sea.4 And in Gen. 1:10 Moses says: "The waters that were gathered together
God called יםמִִיָָ" , that is, seas, or ocean. But Tarshish is really the term for the large sea which is not a lake, such as the one in which Rhodes, Cyprus, and many other islands lie and on which St. Paul set sail, according to Acts 27 f. At present the Turks, the Venetians, France, and Spain control this body of water.
It reaches from Cilicia to Spain. Also the Red Sea and the other great high seas are called Tarshish.
In Ps. 72:10 we read: "May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles bring tribute," that is, the kings bordering on the great sea and the islands in it. The city of Tarsus is not a kingdom and has never had a king, to say nothing of many kings. Thus Solomon let his ships sail on Tarshish, that is, on the sea toward the East, through the Red Sea, to get gold from India (1 Kings 9:26–28). It was obviously out of the question for ships to sail to the city of Tarsus, unless they traveled on dry land. For between Tarsus and the Red Sea there is nothing but land, as those who travel by land know. Thus Ps. 48:7 declares: "By the east wind Thou didst shatter the ships of Tarshish," that is, the ships of the sea. And in Is. 23:1 we hear:
"Wail, O ships of Tarshish," that is, you ships of the sea. There are many other reasons that support this view, so that St. Jerome himself admits that it might be more reasonable to translate the word with "sea" than with the city of Tarsus.6 For Jonah was not concerned about fleeing to any particular city; he had no special destination, but he was solely bent on running off to the sea to let that lead him wherever it would.
His whole mind was centered on flight, and he did not ask where this might carry him. Therefore the text states here that he "rose to flee from the presence of the Lord." And since he had no particular place in mind, he decided to take to the sea and let the winds blow him whither they might.
פֹויָָ is Joppa, the city where people today land en route to Jerusalem. In German the name means die Schöne ("the Fair One") or die Hübsche ("Beauty"). Joppa is the port for the land of the Jews. So Jonah has now traveled from Jerusalem and from the land of Judah to the sea toward the west. This is also shown by the expression "from the presence of the Lord." Who can flee from the Lord? Is the Lord not everywhere? Thus Ps. 139:7 declares: "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from - 18 Thy presence?" Jonah was not so stupid that he did not know that God is omnipresent. Later on he himself professes that he "fears the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land" (v. 9). Jonah had also heard that God was at Nineveh, since He had proposed to punish the vileness of that city and had wanted to send Jonah there. But this must be understood thus: God has two kinds of essence, or presence
—the one is natural, the other spiritual. He is present everywhere naturally. Is. 66:1 declares: "Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool." Thus God is present also in the midst of hell, death, and sin, as the aforementioned psalm says (Ps. 139:8): "If I make my bed in Sheol, Thou art there." Therefore no one can escape from Him. But God is present spiritually only where He is spiritually known. Wherever His
Word, faith, Spirit, and worship are, there His people are to be found, who alone perceive that God is an almighty and omnipresent God. The ungodly do not feel that; they do not believe and do not know that God is everywhere, even though they hear this said and are able to repeat it. It is therefore possible to flee from God in the sense that we may run off to a place where there is neither Word, faith, and Spirit nor the knowledge of God. In that way Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord, that is, he ran away from the people and the land of Judah, in which God's Word and Spirit and faith and knowledge were present; he fled to the sea among the Gentiles, where there was no faith, Word, and Spirit of God.
Now the question suggests itself whether or not Jonah committed a sin by fleeing from the Lord. The ancient holy fathers were all inclined to make excuses for the prophets, apostles, and great saints. They carried this silly deference to them to such extremes that they even preferred to violate Holy Scripture, to force it and stretch it, before they would admit that the saints were sinners. Although we can bear with their humility, which grew from their hatred of sin and their respect for righteousness, it is nevertheless dangerous to bend Scripture thus and to follow their intrepretation. Christ speaks a different language; in Matt. 5:18 He declares that heaven and earth would have to pass away before an iota or a dot of Holy
Scripture would vanish. It is better to concede the saints too little than too much; it is better to detract from them than to disparage God Himself and His Word. We can be saved without the saints but not without Thus we shall stick rigidly and inflexibly to the Word of God and agree that Jonah here committed a grave and serious sin, which would have damned him eternally, had his name not been recorded in the book of life amid the number of the elect. It is obvious, and no one can deny it, that God here issues an order to Jonah, bidding him to go to Nineveh and preach there. Moreover, it is certain that God did not view this matter lightly but that He was in earnest about this, even as He was in the Garden of Eden at the time when He gave orders to Adam. He says: "The wickedness of the city of Nineveh has come up before Me." This means that He purposed to punish the entire kingdom. In short, God is very angry. Thus it is also evident that Jonah is disobedient to this earnest command of God by fleeing and refusing to execute
God's command. Thereby he sinned as gravely as Adam did in Paradise. Jonah should not merely have accepted the divine will, but he should also have been most happy to carry it out. He should rather have suffered a hundred deaths than to become disobedient to God's Word. For what can be more flagrant and heinous than disobedience to God's will? Behold, what a price Adam, Saul, and the people of Israel paid for this sin! Yes, witness what happened to Jonah here because of his disobedience! It seems to me that the enormous and terrible punishment meted out to his disobedience is an index of the gravity of this sin.
How miserably he evades obedience to God on the sea! I am sure that he wished he could have died three times on land instead. Since he refuses to go to Nineveh, he must sail into the jaws of the whale far out at sea.
All of this is recorded as a warning for us. From it we glean the lesson first of all that he who will not obey God's will willingly must, in the end, bow to His will unwillingly. God's will must prevail. We see here that he who refuses to comply with God's small demands must suffer even graver things because of this. And consequently, there is nothing better for us than that we obey promptly and say: "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10). However, the fact that God seeks out and visits Jonah so soon after his sin is a strong token of His mercy. God does not put this sin to his account, nor does he let
Jonah persist in it long. And Jonah can well join David and sing (Ps. 118:18): "The Lord has chastened me sorely, but He has not given me over to death." In the second place, we must learn to know God's mercy well and not depend on our works, whether good or bad, but know that sin does not condemn us nor good works save us, but that only God's grace preserves us, that both sin and good works condemn us if we despair in our sin or rely on our good works. For here you clearly observe that Jonah does not merit his
- 19 preservation in the fish's belly and his safe return to land with any good works but that he owes this solely to God's mercy, as he professes so beautifully in his song of praise that we will hear later. Again, you see that there is enough grave sin present, and yet Jonah is not condemned or forsaken. This is due to the fact that he does not despond and despair in his sin but clings firmly to God's mercy and willingly submits to His punishment. If he had despaired, he would never have come forth from the whale's belly. His strong faith in the midst of his sin makes it impossible for God to forget him; He must again deliver him. We shall have more to say about this later.
It is also a source of great comfort to us to see that even the greatest and best saints sin grievously against God and that we are not the only poor, miserable sinners. We observe that they, too, were human, that they had flesh and blood as we do, and now we, too, must not despair, even though we fall into sin. If only we do not defect from the kingdom of grace through false doctrine and superstition! For just as there is no sin so great as to be unforgivable in that kingdom, so there is no work so good, no life so holy, as not to be damnable without this grace. However, I declare that to remain in the kingdom of grace implies that we do not sin against grace. Sinning against grace is done in a twofold manner: first, by sinning against God's commandment and then aggravating this by adding the devilish sin to despond and despair, believing and disturbing my conscience with the thought that God will not forgive my sin and that there is no longer any mercy for me. Under those circumstances there is, in fact, no longer any mercy, but God with all His mercy is denied and thwarted. This is no longer a human but a devilish sin, a sin against the Holy Spirit, which is unforgivable so long as it remains, for it directly counteracts the mercy by which sin is to be remitted.
I remain in the kingdom of grace when I do not despair of God's mercy, no matter how great my sin may be, but resolutely pin mind and conscience to the belief that there is still grace and forgiveness for me, even if the wrath of God and that of all creatures would threaten to consume me and even if my conscience would bear out this wrath and say that the supply of mercy is exhausted and that God will not forgive me. That is elevating God's grace above everything else, praising and extolling it and with it defying all anger and judgment, joining in the words of the Epistle of James (2:13): "Mercy triumphs over judgment," that is, mercy asserts itself and proves stronger than all wrath and every sentence and judgment of God. And whoever believes that can therewith defy all the anger and every judgment of God.
He who is unable to do that bids judgment to challenge grace. And grace must perish and judgment hold sway alone to produce death and damnation. Conversely, where grace defies judgment, judgment must vanish and grace alone prevail to produce eternal life and bliss. That is Jonah's experience here. This is no longer human righteousness based on our works and power, but it is an angelic, yes, a divine righteousness based on faith and spirit and devoid of any works. It clings solely to grace, and this no work is able to do. For all of this takes place in the heart and conscience, where there is no work and where no work can enter.
The second manner in which I sin against grace is if I perform good works with the simultaneous devilish thought that I comfort myself with these or rely on them, that I tell my conscience that I can stand before God with these, as if there were no sin here. Thereby I neutralize grace for myself, acting as though grace were neither necessary nor beneficial, since works could do this. That, too, is denying God with all
His mercy, and that is no longer human but devilish righteousness, which cannot be forgiven so long as it remains and is not recognized. If a person becomes so pious in his works and his being that he does not require forgiveness or grace but regards his works in themselves good and pure enough to render grace and forgiveness superfluous, he remains outside the kingdom of grace and sins against grace. Such an attitude reverses the statement of James. It no longer reads: "Mercy triumphs over judgment," but: "Works triumph over judgment," yes, "Works triumph over mercy." This is the sin against the Holy Spirit, which cannot be forgiven, that is, it is a sin that lacks grace, the grace through which it might be pardoned, as all other sins that do not have this devilish addition may be pardoned. For with all other sins the belief in mercy remains intact. They retain the reliance on mercy and forgiveness, believing that these abound more than sin does. This sin and good works, however, lose sight of grace and do not let that triumph remain.
This sin declares: There is no grace, and grace is not willing to forgive. Good works declare: Grace is nothing, and we can dispense with it. Thus both have dropped from the kingdom of grace and sin against grace.
- 20 This, I assume, will clarify Christ's statement recorded in Matt. 12:31 and in Mark 3:29 regarding the sin against the Holy Spirit, which cannot be forgiven, neither in this life nor in the life to come; also
John's statement (1 John 5:16): "There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that." He calls the sin against the Holy Spirit a mortal sin. All of this is tantamount to saying: "Whoever despairs in his sin or relies on good works sins against the Holy Spirit and against grace." Of course, I should intercede for such people and pray that they may be freed from that sin and be converted; but it is impossible that God be gracious to them so long as they are given to that sin, it is impossible that God's grace be of greater effect in their hearts than that sin, as is true of other sins. If I were to pray for that, I would be asking that God's grace be less effective and at the same time more effective than that sin. That is out of the question. No, I must pray against that sin, as Moses did in Num. 16:15, against Korah, saying:
"Do not respect their offering." For Korah, too, aspired to esteem before God by reason of his works, and so he sinned against grace. That is an intolerable sin. All other sins which let grace triumph and reign are forgivable. May this suffice on this subject for the present.
But what led Jonah to this disobedience and bade him to be so averse to go to Nineveh? A number of reasons are intimated here. In the first place, he refused to go on this great, novel, and unheard-of mission because he, singled out from all the prophets, was sent to go all alone to such a mighty king in a foreign land. We do not read of another instance where God delegated a prophet to go so far away from the land of Israel and to such a mighty kingdom. Since this was an unusual and peculiar and unprecedented order, it puzzled and perplexed Jonah that God should select him from all others for this errand. Flesh and blood are naturally disposed to balk at anything extraordinary that God undertakes through us but not through others. Thus we read in John 21:19 ff. that when Jesus said to Peter, "Follow Me," Peter, looking at John, asked, "Lord, what about this man?" We do not perceive that in the end we must all act alone. Jonah experienced this here. He was loath to leave his family and his country. Ultimately he had to go out on the sea all alone, and all alone into the jaws of the whale, where he could not but think that he was alone in heaven and on earth with God. Oh, that is very hard to bear!
In the second place, we might say that Jonah was afraid to face the great king. Some assume that he was also hesitant because he believed that his prophesy would not come true—which, in fact, did happen.
Therefore he was worried that he might be regarded a liar and false prophet, whose words were untrue and not from God. But that reason is unfounded, for Jonah did not know what was to happen. In chapter 4:5 we find him sitting outside the city, waiting to see what would happen to it. We might infer from this that he expected to see the city perish like Sodom and Gomorrah. And he became angry because he was disappointed in his expectations. We might infer that he disobeyed God's command because of his dislike for the city of Nineveh, that he still had a Jewish, a carnal, idea of God, regarding Him as the exclusive
God of the Jews and not also of the Gentiles. Therefore Jonah's heart inclined to the view that the people of Nineveh were not deserving of God's grace and Word because they were not God's people, that is, not Jews, or of the people of Israel. The apostles, too, at first supposed, carnally, that the kingdom of Christ was to be physical; and later, when they recognized that it was spiritual, they still thought that it was to be confined to the Jews. Therefore they preached the Gospel only to the Jews, Acts 8, until God appeared to Peter in a vision from heaven, Acts 10:9 ff., issued a public call to Paul and Barnabas, Acts 13:2–3, and with signs and wonders and at length in a general council, Acts 15:1, convinced them that God had granted grace also to the Gentiles and that He was also their God.
In view of the passages in Scripture that spoke of Israel and Abraham's seed, declaring that only they had God's Word, divine worship, laws, and holy prophets, it was extremely difficult for the Jews to believe that others, too, outside the pale of Israel, could be God's people. That is also the main reason why
St. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans, where he treats this doctrine with the greatest cogency and acumen, that God is the God not only of the Jews but also of the Gentiles (Rom. 3:29). Even today this is the great stumbling block to the Jews. They do not want to believe that the Gentiles are God's people as well as they. Jonah, too, is caught in this delusion. It involves him in such conflicting thoughts that a hard blow is required for him to learn that God regarded also Nineveh as His city and its inhabitants as His people. In addition, the lesson of a wild plant as well as a strong testimony of God from heaven are necessary. As Christ dealt charitably with the carnal thoughts of His disciples regarding the kingdom of God, so God here also makes allowances for Jonah's carnal notions. Just ponder how hard it has been hitherto to believe that there could be Christians not under the pope, although nothing but hypocrisy and - 21 perversion of Scripture is involved there. What would it be like if the institution of the papacy were upheld by Bible verses as clear and distinct as those which prove the establishment of Judaism! How we would shun Turks, Jews, and heathen and cling solely to the papacy! That is how Jonah felt about Judaism and the kingdom of Israel.
This is why, in chapter 4:2, he states that he has fled because he knows how gracious God is, etc. He indicates that he deplores it as it were that God is so kind and extends His grace to the people of Nineveh.
He would rather not preach, yes, he prefers to be dead rather than to see the grace of God, which he regards the exclusive possession of the children of Israel, imparted also to the Gentiles, who have neither the Word of God nor the law of Moses nor divine worship nor the prophets nor anything else but who even contend against God and His Word and His people. That such is Jonah's opinion is clearly reflected by God's displeasure with his words and by the anger with which God reproves Jonah for these words
(4:11), saying: "Should not I pity Nineveh, etc." This implies that Jonah was loath to see God spare the city, that He did not destroy it, as Jonah had preached and as he would have wished. So this story serves us as a comforting illustration of God's mercy. In the first place, we observe that God is no respecter of persons. We learn that we must refrain from judging any person and that we must not despair of him. For Jonah is here deeply involved in respecting persons, regarding the people of Nineveh as nothing before God in comparison with the people of Israel. He straightway judges them and rashly condemns them to death. He views them as damned and considers them beyond the pale of mercy. In fact, he hopes for and expects their perdition, simply thinking: What could such sinners deserve who do not have the Law and divine worship? If they were to be granted grace, why would Israel have so many laws of God and its divine worship? They would have nothing special and no advantage over the Gentiles, and the Gentiles would be accorded this grace without such law and divine worship. That would render the Jews' laws and divine worship forever a useless and unnecessary burden for people "who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat" (Matt. 20:12), and these other people would receive the same "denarius" without carrying that burden. Should that not stir up jealousy and move us to grumble against the housefather? Indeed, should that not be regarded as impossible and as unfair before God?
But Jonah is way off, and he errs with abandon. For when he thinks it is impossible for God's grace to be in operation here and when he looks for nothing but disfavor, then God's grace is present in its prime.
And when he is of the opinion that people will not hear or receive God's Word, then they receive it best of all and in the greatest humility, so that he must learn from his own experience that he must not pass judgment on anyone and must not despair of anyone and that for God's grace he must never set place, goal, time, measure, person, or merit, as the carnal thoughts of the Jews did.
Second, we must learn from this to comply promptly with God's command, to ignore all other considerations, and not ask how this might agree with other matters. We must gladly and willingly become fools for God's sake, accord Him the honor, and concede that He is wise and just in all His words and works, as Abraham did when he sacrificed his son Isaac (Gen. 22:2 ff.). He did not first ask how this would agree with God's prior statement (Gen. 21:12): "Through Isaac shall your descendants be named."
For if he had reflected long on this and debated, he would have become confused and in the end have fallen into disobedience, just as Jonah does here when he compares Nineveh with Israel. He ponders this question for a long time and finally falls into disobedience. If Jonah had but thought with singleness of heart: "Why do you investigate why God provided Israel with laws and divine worship and why He did not do this for the people of Nineveh? Certainly God has the power to grant His grace to both. He does not have to accord Israel special privileges because of its divine worship, and He does not have to withhold these from Nineveh because it does not possess such worship. What is it to you that God enjoins this on Israel and not on others? Let everyone see to his own affairs." Grace extends to all, both to those who engage in performing works and those who do not, as St. Paul teaches in Rom. 4:4–5. If Jonah had observed that, he would have remained obedient as Abraham did.
4. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, etc.
Here many are obliged to suffer for the sin of an individual; for this tempest arose on account of Jonah. But is it fair that one must pay before God for the wrongs of another? God cannot be unjust or commit an injustice, no matter what He does; it is not for us to prescribe laws and rules for Him. And where there is no law, there can also be no sin or wrongdoing. However, though this storm arose because of Jonah, as he himself admits, and as the storm itself demonstrated, the people in the ship were not - 22 without fault or sin either. By reason of this they constantly deserved death and every type of punishment before God. After all, who is sinless and inculpable before God? Therefore God aims this blow at the other people on the ship as well as at Jonah, although the latter with his sin is the direct cause for this tempest. It must have been an unusual and unexpected storm that arose suddenly; for the text states that "the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea." According to the Hebrew text, the Lord as it were hurled or slung this tempest upon the sea. Consequently the people soon detected that there was something unnatural and abnormal about this. And from this they deduce that this must indubitably be due to someone's sin. And Jonah recognized that he himself was responsible for this storm.
5. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god.
Here you find St. Paul's statement in Rom. 1:19 concerning the universal knowledge of God among all the heathen, that is, that the whole world talks about the Godhead and natural reason is aware that this
Godhead is something superior to all other things. This is here shown by the fact that the people in our text called upon a god, heathen though they were. For if they had been ignorant of the existence of God or of a godhead, how could they have called upon him and cried to him? Although they do not have true faith in God, they at least hold that God is a being able to help on the sea and in every need. Such a light and such a perception is innate in the hearts of all men; and this light cannot be subdued or extinguished. There are, to be sure, some people, for instance, the Epicureans, Pliny, and the like, who deny this with their lips. But they do it by force and want to quench this light in their hearts. They are like people who purposely stop their ears or pinch their eyes shut to close out sound and sight. However, they do not succeed in this; their conscience tells them otherwise. For Paul is not lying when he asserts that they know something about God, "because God has shown it to them" (Rom. 1:19).
Let us here also learn from nature and from reason what can be known of God. These people regard God as a being who is able to deliver from every evil. It follows from this that natural reason must concede that all that is good comes from God; for He who can save from every need and misfortune is also able to grant all that is good and that makes for happiness. That is as far as the natural light of reason sheds its rays—it regards God as kind, gracious, merciful, and benevolent. And that is indeed a bright light. However, it manifests two big defects: first, reason does admittedly believe that God is able and competent to help and to bestow; but reason does not know whether He is willing to do this also for us.
That renders the position of reason unstable. Reason believes in God's might and is aware of it, but it is uncertain whether God is willing to employ this in our behalf, because in adversity it so often experiences the opposite to be true. That is very obvious here. These people indeed call upon God and thereby acknowledge that He can help if He is thus inclined; they even believe that He may help others. But that is as far as they can go; they cannot transcend that. They exhaust every means at their command; they try their utmost. Free will cannot go beyond that. But they do not believe that God is disposed to help them.
For if they did, they would not "throw the wares that were in the ship into the sea," nor would they turn to Jonah and urge him to call upon his God. No, they would calmly await the help of God. Moreover, the sea would also have become tranquil as a result of their faith. But this situation calls for a faith that does not doubt but is convinced that God wants to be gracious not only to others but also to me. That is a genuine and a live faith; it is a great and rich and rare gift of the Holy Spirit, and so we shall see it in Jonah.
The second defect is this: Reason is unable to identify God properly; it cannot ascribe the Godhead to the One who is entitled to it exclusively. It knows that there is a God, but it does not know who or which is the true God. It shares the experience of the Jews during Christ's sojourn on earth. When John the Baptist bore witness of His presence in their midst, they were aware that Christ was among them and that He was moving about among them; but they did not know which person it was. It was incredible to them that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ. Thus reason also plays blindman's buff7 with God; it consistently gropes in the dark and misses the mark. It calls that God which is not God and fails to call Him God who really is God. Reason would do neither the one nor the other if it were not conscious of the existence of God or if it really knew who and what God is. Therefore it rushes in clumsily and assigns the name God and ascribes divine honor to its own idea of God. Thus reason never finds the true God, but it finds the devil or its own concept of God, ruled by the devil. So there is a vast difference between knowing that there is a God and knowing who or what God is. Nature knows the former—it is inscribed in everybody's heart; the latter is taught only by the Holy Spirit.
- 23 We shall illustrate this with a few examples. Let us first consider the papists and the religious. These are laboring under the delusion that God is a being who is moved and satisfied by good works. That explains their many vocations, sects, and modes of life, in all of which they presume to serve and please
God. Now tell me, what are these people worshiping as God if there is no God whose mind and will conforms to theirs? Is it not true that they are honoring their own delusion and their own fancy as God?
For in truth there is no God who is of one mind with them. Therefore they go awry with their illusion.
They miss the true God, and nothing remains but their own false notion. That is their god. To him they assign the name and honor of God. Of course, no one but the devil can be behind this delusion, for he inspires and governs these thoughts. Thus their delusion is their idol; it is the image of the devil they hold in their hearts. For the real and the true God is He who is properly served not with works but with the true faith and with sincerity of heart, who gives and bestows mercy and benefactions entirely gratis and without our works and merits. That they do not believe, and therefore they do not know God but are bound to blunder and to miss the mark.
Here you see where all idolatry comes from and why it is rightly called idol (Abgott) and superstition (Abglaube) and idolatry (Abgötterei); undoubtedly because such delusion draws us away from God (AbGott) and alienates us from the true worship of God. Indeed, this is an idol and a superstition that directs us away from God and directs us to the devil in hell. For since everybody proposes to do something which he regards and believes to be pleasing to God and imagines that God is minded as he supposes He is—but in reality God is not pleased by this, and in reality God is not minded as each one supposes—it follows that as many idolatries must arise as there are illusions of that kind. Every idea of pleasing God comes into being except that of faith; this the Holy Ghost must inspire. Thus the idol Baal came to the mind of King
Ahab. Since he knew that there was a God, he imagined that it was God who was pleased with his type of worship. Thus he called God Baal, and Baal God, as is evident from Hos. 2:16.
Furthermore, King Jeroboam supposed that it was God who was pleased with the worship of the golden calves. And therefore calves had to be called the God of Israel, and, again, God had to be called a calf (1 Kings 12:28). That is like calling Christ our Lord a lover of cowls or of tonsures today because people assume that He is a God who is in love with cowls and tonsures and is well pleased with such service. I am sure that monks and priests have that conception of Him in their hearts and also call Him that. But this is an idol and superstition and delusion which falls wide of the mark; it is genuine archidolatry. There are innumerable types of idolatry; in fact, there are as many varieties as there are illusions and self-chosen concepts of pleasing God. All but faith in Christ come into this category. And since there is nowhere a God who is pleased with this service, it follows that they are all serving the devil and not God.
Thus you also note that the people in the ship all know of God, but they have no definite God. For Jonah relates that each one calls on his own god, that is, his concept of God, whatever he conceives of God in his mind. And in that way they all fail to encounter the one true God and have nothing but idols whom they call God and honor as God. Therefore their faith, too, was false; it was superstition and idolatry and of no avail. For their god lets them down in the hour of need; he lets them call in vain, so that they despair and find themselves at a loss to know where to find a god who might help them. They run down to Jonah, arouse him, and command him to call on his God. They are curious to see whether there might be another god beside their own to aid them. There you can see that a false faith will not stand the test of adversity, but that both god and faith, idol and superstition, become engulfed and vanish, and that nothing but despair remains. Therefore only the one living God is entitled to the name and reputation of being a helper in every trouble, Ps. 9:10; Ps. 46:1; for He can rescue from death, Ps. 68:20.
You also perceive how humble these people are now as they turn to Jonah in their distress, whom they had ignored so long as all was safe and tranquil. And if they had known that he was a Jew, they would have despised him still more, since the Gentiles were hostile to the Jews. But now that they are beset by perils and their idol is letting them down, how happy their proud contempt is to call on poor Jonah, expecting more good from him than from all their idols and all their power. That is always the experience of a false and fictitious faith. So long as all goes well, it retains its conceit; it is arrogant even toward God and all that is God; it is obdurate and harder than any anvil ever was. But when such a faith begins to give way and despond, then there is nothing more timid and discouraged in heaven and on earth, and it would
- 24 then like to crawl into a mousehole. The wide world becomes too confining for it, and it gladly seeks and accepts help and counsel from friend and foe, from those it respects and those it despises.
Meanwhile Jonah is sleeping down below in the ship, completely insensible to the tempest. That may indeed be termed a sleep of death, which has come over him shortly before he is doomed to die. That is always the way with sinners. God deals with them as He does here with Jonah. Jonah had sinned grievously against God. But because God remains silent, tarries with His punishment, does not restrain the sin, or does not immediately strike the offender, it is the nature and way of sin to blind and to harden man.
He becomes secure and loses his fear, lies down, goes to sleep, and fails to see the disaster and the great storm gathering over him which will arouse him horribly. Meanwhile God appears to have forgotten the sins, since He delays the punishment. Thus He tests the children of men and waits to see whether they will repent, as Ps. 11:4 says: "His eyelids test the children of men." But nothing comes of this; they do not repent, they do not weigh the consequences. Jonah would probably continue to sleep to the end of his days; if God would forget his sins, he would surely never give them a thought himself. This is indicated by Jonah's deep sleep in the midst of the storm and far down below in the ship besides. It is like saying that he is blinded, obdurate, and submerged in sin, yes, dead, lying in the pit of his unrepentant heart. He would remain there eternally and perish too; for sin would not permit any power for good to bestir itself, free will or no free will, reason or no reason. There he lies and snores in his sin, hears nothing and sees nothing, nor does he feel what God's wrath contemplates doing with him.
But when the captain wakes Jonah and bids him call upon his God, matters change. He becomes aware that God with His punishment is pursuing him and that God has not forgotten his sin. Now conscience raises its voice; now the consciousness of sin is revived; now "sin is the sting of death" (1 Cor. 15:56) and manifests the anger of God. Now not only the ship but the whole world becomes too small for Jonah. The irony of it—he should now call upon God! He is more fear-stricken than all the others on the ship taken together; for he feels and senses, and his conscience also tells him, that this tempest is aimed at him and that God's wrath has overtaken him. Oh, how humble he is now. He absolves all other people on the ship from sin; he does not regard them as sinners. He sees no sin but his own. That is the way of remorse.
When that comes to a person and stings and terrifies the conscience, the entire world looks pious to him, and only he himself is a sinner. Then God appears gracious to all the world but to him; then God's anger strikes none but him alone. He also assumes that there is no other wrath than that felt by him, and he regards himself as the most wretched person. That was also the experience of Adam and Eve after their fall into sin. If God had not come to them in the cool of the day, they would never have paid any attention to their sin. But when He appeared to them, they hid from Him. Peter, too, went his way after he had denied Christ. He felt no sin; he also slept as it were down below in the ship; he was dead until Christ looked at him. Then he again came to and wept bitterly. Thus we behold here how obstinate, callous, and virtually dead sin makes man; he is sensitive neither to himself nor to God and walks along securely and unafraid until God comes and arouses him. Thus the glory of free will is laid low.
Jonah shrinks from calling on his God; he sits there, trembles before God's wrath, and struggles with death, which threatens to devour him any moment. At the same time the other people cry to their gods in vain, doing all they can for their rescue. Jonah surely sees and senses that all this is happening because of him. However, he is not pious enough to come out into the open and confess his sin, but he lets these poor people endure such terror and danger and distress for his sake until he is betrayed by the casting of lots and God wrests a confession of his sin from him. That is also one of the tender virtues of sin: it renders people mute. It conceals itself; it is ashamed; it would like to remain beautiful, like Adam and Eve when they covered their nakedness with an apron and refused to come to confession. Oh, it hurts to uncover your own shame and to turn your glory into disgrace. But in the end this will have to be done, or man will find no rest and peace of mind. As Ps. 32:3 says: "When I declared not my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long." Thus God ordered the children of Israel to strip themselves of their ornaments before Mount Sinai (Ex. 33:5). This is really a time for donning sackcloth and sitting in ashes, for crushing oneself before God and also, if God wants this, before man. Since these people have incurred loss and danger because of Jonah's sin, it is necessary that he, in turn, suffer loss, forfeit his honor, and speak his own shame. He must restore the honor of these people and establish their innocence. He must pronounce his own death sentence, obliging them to drown him. Thus he pays his debt and, with life and limb, with honor and goods, and with all he is and has, atones for the sin with which he has so deeply
- 25 injured his fellowmen. He has jeopardized their life against their will, and now they must take his life, also against their will, but by reason of his own verdict and wish. That, I think, is stern and righteous judgment.
7. And they said to one another: Come, let us cast lots, etc.
Since no one volunteers to confess—they were convinced that someone's sins accounted for such unnatural weather—and since no human judgment is available and no public court of justice can be set up, they take recourse to God's ordeal and judgment. They attempt to find an answer by casting lots. Oh, how tensely Jonah must have sat there! How he must have feared the casting of lots, as a bad conscience will do that cowers even before a rustling leaf.8 Poor Jonah has to suffer many deaths, and yet he cannot escape but must really pay for it later. Behold, to such misfortune and heartache does sin give rise if we try to hide it and refuse to confess it. And yet it must later be confessed at a double price. However, sin prevents us from doing otherwise; it will not and cannot uncover itself—that is quite impossible. Everybody wishes to appear good and pure before his fellowmen, but still he will not desist from sinning secretly. But ultimately he must let others reveal this sin and thus reap shame and harm in the bargain. One cannot heal wounds that he will not uncover. Likewise sin cannot be forgiven unless it is confessed, that is, unless it be made known.
At this juncture the question may be raised whether these people sinned by casting lots. To do this is said to be wrong, since it tempts God. But Jonah was obliged to join in this casting of lots; therefore he, too, was involved in this sin, if it be sin. I reply first of all that the nature of some acts may be either good or evil. For instance, Christ prohibits swearing in Matt. 5:34, and yet there is such a thing as a godly oath.
Thus it is also forbidden to give vent to anger and to kill, and yet it is godly to punish and execute malefactors through the agency of the public court of justice. Therefore it behooves us to look upon the motive of the heart in such acts. Whoever engages in such an act to gratify himself sins, but he who does this in obedience to a command of God or for the welfare of his neighbor is in the right. We renounce him who does this without the command of God or who is not impelled by his neighbor's need but does this wantonly and for self-gratification. Such a one does not do right even if he were to kneel and pray all day, even if he were to fast night and day, yes, even if he performed miracles. Therefore the decision in such a matter is left to each one's conscience; we cannot judge his heart. If casting of lots falls into that category of acts, it does not matter whether these people and Jonah sinned here, since they were unbelieving and thus all their works were displeasing to God. It was a different question later on when they were converted, as we shall hear.
In the second place, I declare that I am not so sure that casting of lots is forbidden. It is, admittedly, forbidden to tempt God; but to cast lots and to tempt God are two radically different things. The apostles cast lots over St. Matthias, as we read in Acts 1:26. Solomon declares (Prov. 16:33): "The lot is cast into the lap, but the decision is wholly from the Lord." God does not denounce casting lots in those instances but rather approves of it. To be sure, some of the fathers say that such examples must not be imitated. But they have no good reason for this view. It is my opinion that casting of lots is in itself a real act of faith, subject, of course, to misuse by idle curiosity and self-gratification, similar to the misuse of sword and oath. That, however, is not the fault of the act but of the person, as we have already said. The fathers give no proof that casting of lots is tempting God. I tempt God when I arbitrarily satisfy my own inquisitiveness, without any pressing need fix a definite goal, hour, place, measure, person, mode, and work for God which He is to fulfill and thus give tangible evidence of His presence, for instance, when the Jews in the wilderness demanded that God supply them with food and drink and specified a definite time for this and did not trust God and leave this to Him. Thus the Jews also demanded a definite sign from heaven, as they thought best, as we hear in Matt. 16:1. But this is different in casting lots. There two, three, or as many as choose, agree to decide a question in this way or in that—for lots are of various kinds.
No individual person decides the question at issue; it is left to God to determine on whom the lot will fall.
They agree in advance that he on whom the lot falls will be regarded the one chosen by God.
To be sure, such casting of lots may be done without God, at random, as the heathen do who do not believe that God controls the lots but that all is determined by blind luck, as happens in dice and other games of chance. It is firing that Christians abstain from casting lots in a spirit of levity. They must believe that God directs the lots and rules our fates with sovereign power; they must not doubt that gain or loss of lot and game is decided by God. In the instance of an oath one also believes that God is present to accept the oath and to judge all concerned in accord with it. But since man does not determine how God is
- 26 to judge the oath but leaves this to Him and is content with His decision, there can be no question there of tempting God. Likewise, since we in casting lots do not determine whom God is to favor but are satisfied to leave this to His judgment, there is also no tempting of God involved; it is a good work in itself, and if performed in faith, it is a godly act done to the honor of God. And that which is assigned to a person by lot is rightly his, and he who would take this from him would thereby oppose God. What else is this but a mutual agreement to decide a matter at issue in favor of the one or the other? There is nothing reprehensible here, only a peaceful and voluntary assent to relinquish something or to acquire something, depending on the favorable or unfavorable outcome of the lots.9 Christians, however, add that as God does and disposes everything, so He also does and disposes this. The heathen do not believe this, or they give it no heed.
But what are we to say about lots in which a person's death is involved, or in which a person's secret sin is to be sought out, as is true here of Jonah, as Saul did with his son Jonathan (1 Sam. 14:42 ff.), and as Joshua did with Achan (Joshua 7:18)? I reply: Let the ungodly cast lots on questions involving life and death, whether in a spirit of levity or of earnestness. What do they who do nothing that is right concern us?
However, the lot per se does not require someone's death. Nor do pious Christians cast lots with death at stake. In our text, too, we find that the people in the ship were not contemplating to kill Jonah, but they wanted to search out and remove the cause of their adversity. They did not want to kill Jonah, although he bade them to; they wanted merely to take him to land. But since this was impossible, they realized that it was God's wish that they comply with Jonah's suggestion. Although they do this unwillingly, praying diligently, they see that it is their duty. Saul, too, did wrong when he wanted to kill his son; he should not have carried lots to that extreme. It was a different story with Joshua, whom God commanded to do as he did. Why should the people in our text not be justified in agreeing that he upon whom the lot fell would be the guilty one? Especially since exigent need impelled them to save others, and since God's justice and fairness will not permit the lot to make an error. Similarly, they, too, are blameless who regard as innocent a person who swears an oath, though in fact he may be guilty and may be perjuring himself. But let this suffiee on this subject for the time being.
9. I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.
Now Jonah's confession is forthcoming; now the sin is brought to the light of day. Now the real struggle between Jonah and death ensues, although the most difficult phase of the conflict is over. For although death and the wrath of God advance on Jonah and furiously attack him, the heavy burden of sin has already been rolled from his heart, his conscience has become lighter through his confession of sin, and his faith begins to catch fire, though only dimly. For Jonah confesses the true God, Greator of heaven and earth, and this is no insignificant beginning of faith and of bliss. A despondent and despairing conscience will not open its lips that far; it grows mute or blasphemes God, and it cannot think, regard, and mention God otherwise than as a horrible tyrant or as a devil. It would only like to flee from Him and put as much distance as possible between itself and God. Indeed, it would prefer it if He were not God, so that it would not have to experience this at His hands. Such a conscience also is unmindful of confession and does not admit its sin. It is so lost in fear and so hardened that it sees and feels nothing but fear and thinks only about ridding itself of this fear, which is impossible, since it keeps on charging itself with sin.
And thus it remains engulfed in sin and in death eternally.
From this let us learn the real art and skill of extricating ourselves from all distress and fear. To do this, we must first of all take note of our sin, forthwith make a clean breast of it, and confess it. That disposes of the most urgent danger and need. For help must first be brought to the heart; this must be lightened and given air to breathe. Then it is easier to aid the whole person. Thus the conscience must first of all be disencumbered and given room to breathe, and then aid can be found for all trouble. Two things are involved when God's anger strikes, sin and fear. Imprudent hearts cope with this situation incorrectly.
They let the sin remain and are intent only on ridding themselves of the fear. That will not profit them, and they must despair. That is the way reason, if not accompanised by grace and spirit, always attacks the problem. But sensible hearts turn their minds away from fear and concentrate mainly on sin, confess this, and free themselves of it; and no matter if they should be haunted by fear forever, they reconcile themselves to this, as Jonah does here. But it is the way of all the ungodly that they fear and heed the punishment but pay no heed to the sin. They would like to continue to sin with impunity; but that is not possible, since punishment regularly follows in the wake of sin. On the other hand, it is in the nature of the - 27 godly to fear and to heed sin and to have less regard for the punishment. They would rather suffer punishment and be delivered of sin than to remain in sin and be free of punishment.
Jonah's words "I fear the Lord, the God of heaven" are a Hebraism, for "to fear God" is the Hebrew way of saying to worship God, as is evident from Is. 29:13, where God says: "Their fear of Me is a commandment of men," that is, "they suppose that they are honoring and serving Me with the commandments of men" (cf. Matt. 15:8). Jonah joins the two together and says: "I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven." He had, to be sure, scorned and disobeyed God up to this hour, but he means to say: "I do not honor and serve strange gods, as you and other heathen do, but I worship the one true God." It magnified Jonah's sin and shame that he, a servant of the true God and a member of the holiest land and nation, should turn out to be the worst and most grievous sinner, worse than the idolatrous heathen, so that on his account the idolatrous heathen had to be exposed to this peril and distress, whereas, as a rule, other sinners are aided by the servants of God, as King Ahab and his descendants were by Elias and Elisha. Here we find the direct opposite. Usually the evil people derive benefit from the pious. Here the evil must expiate for the pious man; the most pious becomes the basest, and the first becomes the last.
And that is why Jonah was ashamed to confess his sins before the people; for he did not wish to appear viler than the heathen, and yet he had to be revealed as such.
12. Throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you;for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.
Let Jonah here serve to demonstrate to us the power and the effect of a pure heart's faith. This presents the fine example of faith to which we referred earlier,10 saying that it is virtually omnipotent, overcoming all obstacles. In the first place, Jonah assumes the sins of the others and confesses that he is the cause of the tempest. Thereby he excuses and absolves all the others. He alone is culpable, and the others are blameless now. Thus he renders satisfaction to love and makes amends to the people for subjecting them to danger. He suffers for all himself Now love again finds a pleasing and grateful abode. For these good people do not demand such a costly expiation but stand ready to forgive him his sin. His public admission and confession suffice them. They bend every effort to take him back to land again and thus to repay love with love. However, this was not to be.
In the second place, Jonah accepts and bears such a burden of sin on his conscience also before God.
He stands disgraced also before God, his heart bearing powerful witness and confessing that he sinned heinously both against God and man. This disgrace, that he must blush with shame before God is a thousand times greater. He finds no nook or corner in all of creation, not even in hell, where he might crawl in; but he must needs expose himself to the gaze of all creatures and stand before them in all his ignominy. So will a bad conscience prick a sinner. For here you must not think of the later Jonah, when he is again delivered and his honor is restored, but you must see him in his shame without any hope of regaining his honor. For if such a heart would know of or detect a way of escape from its shame, it would not be so oppressed by this disgrace and by conscience. But God now strips Jonah of all honor and all consolation. Nothing but shame stares him in the face. And that is what makes him so wretched.
In the third place, punishment in the form of death now follows naturally on the heels of sin. Thus St.
Paul states in 1 Cor. 15:56: "The sting—or cutting edge—of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law."
Jonah fully realizes that nothing but death is in store for him. He reconciles himself to his fate and even pronounces his own verdict, saying: "Throw me into the sea." It is as if he were saying: "I must die, or the sea will never again grow tranquil." Here again you must not view Jonah with his entire story in mind.
Since we are familiar with the end of his narrative and know that he was delivered from it all, this phase of his life seems relatively insignificant to us and fails to move us very much. But you must visualize Jonah's frame of mind in this dilemma. He does not see a spark of life left in him nor any hope of rescue; nothing but death, yes, death, death confronts him, and he must despair of life and surrender to death. If it would please God to let us perceive life in the midst of death,11 or if He showed our soul its ultimate dwelling place and room and the manner and way in which it should maintain itself and reach its goal, death would not appear bitter, but it would seem like a leap across a shallow stream, with safe and solid banks on both sides. But as it is, God does not show any of that to us, and we must leap from the safe shore of life into this abyss without seeing or feeling a sure footing under us. We must leap, as it were, at random, merely trusting to God's supporting and saving hand. That is the way Jonah is thrown out of the ship; he plunges into the sea, feels no bottom, is deserted by all creatures, and looks solely to God's sustaining power.
- 28 In the fourth place, Jonah endures God's wrath in death. For he feels that death comes over him not as a token of grace but of anger and in consequence of his sin. But death would be tolerable and not so acutely painful if it would not result from God's anger, as is true when a person is innocently condemned to death, and when he dies for God's sake, as the holy martyrs do, who know that men are dealing unjustly with them before God. Their death for a good cause before God leaves them confident that God is gracious and not angry, and so they recognize that their death is not due to God's anger but to His mercy and good pleasure. However, where death is brought down on a person's head by sin and where this fate is consequently deserved, there God's wrath accompanies death and makes it unbearable; there nothing but death can be seen and felt.
Behold, each of these four parts is hard to bear by itself, even for the saints, and it is intolerable for the ungodly. For who is so stalwart as to retain a happy frame of mind and peace of heart when he perceives that God's wrath is upon him, even though he does not die? This has already made many ungodly people mad and insane. Or, who is there who does not shrink from death and tremble before it, even if he does not feel or know the wrath of God, as in the case of the heathen, or perceive a gracious God, as in the case of the saints? Thus there is no worse burden on earth than sin and conscience. For who can bear to be in disgrace before God and the world? Who would not prefer death to such a life? But all four of these things fall on poor Jonah at once and drive him to utter despair of God's grace and urge him to depart from faith.
What a battle must have raged in his heart! He, too, might well have sweat blood in his agony. He is compelled to contend simultaneously against his sin, against his own conscience and the feeling of his heart, against death, and against God's wrath. His soul must have been suspended by a silk thread over hell and eternal damnation. Oh, a mighty work was wrought in his heart by the power of God to sustain and to preserve him! His deliverance gives convincing proof that he remained in the faith; for God never rescues an ungodly person from such death and misery. Thus Jonah himself confesses that he is God's servant, and he submits to the punishment, which ungodly people would be unable to do. They would all despair in sin.
But in the, fifth place, still more misfortune awaits Jonah. The sea becomes his deathbed. There he must die all alone, with no one about to comfort him. The people in the ship sail away and leave him to the solitude of the deep, convinced that he has drowned and is lost. In the sixth place, his misery does not even terminate here in the sea. One death does not suffice, and he must pass through the jaws of the whale.
God takes on a glowering mien. It seems that His anger is not appeased by the death and the penalty, to which Jonah is willing to submit, and that He cannot avenge Himself fiercely enough on him. It must have been a horrifying sight to poor, lost, and dying Jonah when the whale opened its mouth wide and he beheld sharp teeth that stood upright all around like pointed pillars or beams and he peered down the wide cellar entrance to the belly. Is that being comforted in the hour of death? Is this the friendly glance in dying, that dying and death are not even sufficient? This is real faith, it seems to me; yes, a battle and struggle of faith. Here we find victory and triumph concealed in the greatest weakness. How mightily God here demonstrates the power of His Word and of faith! No creature is able to rob Him of it, not even
God's anger itself can work it harm, no matter how fiercely and furiously all may rage. But by this, Jonah had to show the whole world the real condition of his heart and the disposition of any believer's heart in like temptation, as we shall see later. For as the tumultuous sea wants to drown Jonah, and as the whale devours him and wants to consume him, so a conscience feels nothing but the tempest of God's wrath and of death, and hell and damnation threaten to make short shrift of the soul and consume it, etc.
17. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Jonah must have thought these the longest days and nights ever lived under the sun. It must have seemed an interminably long time that he sat there in the dark. Yes, I suppose, that he occasionally lay down and stood up. He saw neither sun nor moon and was unable to compute the passage of time. Nor did he know where in the sea he was traveling about with the fish. How often lung and liver must have pained him! How strange his abode must have been among the intestines and the huge ribs! However, death was crowding in upon him, and he paid scant attention to the fish. His one thought was: When, when, when will this come to an end? O God, what a great miracle this is! Who can really comprehend how a man can survive three days and three nights within a fish, in the middle of the sea, all alone, without light and without food, and in the end return to dry land again? That must have been a strange voyage. Who would believe this story and not regard it a lie and a fairy tale if it were not recorded in Scripture?