no moralizing, no reflection; it is simple narrative, verging here and there into poetry, as in the prayer from the fish's belly, and where the subject suits such variation. The tale is told graphically, and has quite a dramatic interest, advancing in regular stages to the conclusion, and leaving an impression upon the mind as though its various scenes had been enacted before the eyes of the reader. There is not a word too much; all that is essential to the understanding of the transaction is said, and nothing more. There is no trace of additions, interpolations, various authorities. The prayer (ch. ii.) bears the stamp of genuineness, being not a cry of repentance or a petition for preservation, which a forger or romancer would have introduced, but a thanksgiving, an expression of hope and trust, which alone suits the prophet's character (Schegg). There is a wonderful simplicity in the narrative, though it deals largely with the supernatural. The miracles of the fish and "the gourd " are introduced naturally. Such interpositions of God need no explanation in Jonah's view; they are the not unusual workings of Providence, such as he had heard of in the case of Elijah, such as happened often to the great Prophet Elisha. All is unforced, uniform, plain; vivid, indeed, and picturesque, but without effort, and effective rather from its truth, reality, and naturalness, than from elevation of language or rhetorical artifice.

The miraculous element in the book has led many critics to doubt its historical character, and to consider it as romance, allegory, or parable. The miracles, they say, are so prodigious, so wanting in sufficient motive, as to be utterly incredible, and to prove that the writer manifestly intends his work to be regarded as a fiction with a didactic purpose, like some of those writings which are preserved in our Apocrypha. Others see in it only a dream; others, again, regard it as a Jewish adaptation of a Greek or Babylonian myth; others explain away the supernatural portion of the story, as e.g. that Jonah was saved by a vessel which was called, or bore as its emblem, a sea-monster. Against all these suggestions we must place the fact that the work comes before us as history; and we need very strong arguments to dislodge us from this position. Such, however, are not produced; and we should have heard nothing of them were it not for the unbelief in the supernatural which underlies all such criticism, or a tendency to reject, primâ facie, all narratives which do not meet the standard of evidence which modern critics set up and worship. Of course, there is in itself nothing repugnant to reverence in considering the book as an inspired allegory intended to set forth certain great spiritual truths, as, for instance, the temporary death of the Jewish nation and its resurrection. anew to a national existence (Wright, 'Biblical Essays,' p. 70); but does the work confirm such view? We think not.

In the first place, it is plain that the Jews themselves regarded the book as historical. Tobit (xiv. 4—6, 15) bases his advice to his son upon the certainty of the fulfilment of Jonah's prediction. Josephus ('Ant.,' ix. 10. 1, 2) recounts the story as containing all that is known of the Prophet

Jonah. The details are quite in keeping with the localities and the date of the narrative. This will appear in the course of the Exposition. The mention of the size of Nineveh and the extent of its population is proved by recent investigations to be perfectly correct. Could our blessed Lord have referred to Jonah's incarceration in the fish's belly as a sign of his own three-days' sojourn in the grave, had the story been an allegory and nothing more? Could he further have used the comparison of the Ninevites' conduct with that of the men of his own time, had the former been an imaginary people existing, for the nonce, only in fiction? Critics may say that Christ was speaking uncritically and merely using an illustration from a well-known allegory (comp. Ladd, 'Doctrine of Scripture,' i. 67, etc.), but they forget the full bearing of this reference. As Perowne puts it forcibly, "The future Judge is speaking words of solemn warning to those who shall hereafter stand convicted at his bar. Intensely real he would make the scene in anticipation to them, as it was real, if then present, to himself. And yet we are to suppose him to say that... the fictitious characters of a parable shall be arraigned at the same bar with the living men of that generation."

Again, if the book is a parable, why is the didactic purpose not presented more prominently and directly? If an allegory, can any example be produced of a sacred canonical writer using prodigious miracles as the vehicle of his teaching? In a narrative of facts the psalm (ch. ii.) is introduced naturally; it is given as composed by Jonah under the circumstances related. In an allegory it is quite out of place, marring the unity of the work, and intruding an element which does not harmonize with the other parts. And if a person had to be selected on whom to hang this fictitious narrative, is it conceivable that the Jewish author should have fixed on an eminent and well-known prophet to represent in so unfavourable a light? Would he have been so wanting in common reverence as to affix to a celebrated man of God these traits of disobedience, waywardness, folly, narrowness, and peevishness? Plainly, the only way to account for the prophet being represented in this light is to consider that he acted in the way mentioned, and that the book is the plain narrative of his conduct, whether in its present form written wholly by himself, or partly by some later editor from his record.

Lastly, the miraculous portion of the story is not dragged in unneces-sarily, and is not unparalleled by other transactions in Holy Scripture.. Jonah's mission was unusual and most important; both the prophet himself and those with whom he was brought into contact needed to be convinced that God's providence was ordering all things, and that the powers of nature and the destinies of men were at his absolute disposal. The storm, the fish, the repentance, the gourd, are parts of this Divine lesson; and where God interferes there must needs be the supernatural. We must doubt the miraculous element in the histories of Elijah and Elisha, if we dispute the reality of the wonders in the biography of Jonah.

That was an age of miracles.

God was manifesting his power against

idolatry, and showing himself as the Guide and Support of his servants. Some prophets proclaimed him by word, some by action. Among the latter Jonah takes his natural place. Assyria had a great future before it. It is not improbable that on its repentance at the preaching of Jonah depended its continued existence and its subsequent pre-eminence. It was ordained that the Semitic people of Assyria should prevail over the children of Ham in Egypt. This would not have been the case had Nineveh's fall not been postponed for a time. Though Jonah saw not the full bearing of his mission, and, regarding it in a narrow, prejudiced spirit, tried to avoid its execution, really it was a factor in the world's history, and momentous issues hung thereon. Hence arose the extraordinary exhibition of supernatural agencies. As in the era of Moses and Elijah, and in the early days of Christianity, a great crisis demanded a baring of the Almighty's arm and evident tokens of his interference in the affairs of men.

§ V. LITERATure.

The Book of Jonah has been published in Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic, with glossaries by Professor W. Wright. Among commentaries on the book may be mentioned those of Ephraem Syrus; Basil; Theophylact; Calvin, Lectures;' J. Brentius; Luther; J. Ferus (1554, often reprinted); Dereser (Bonn, 1786); Kaulen, Lib. Jona Proph.' (1862); Bishop Hooper, Sermons;' Archbishop Abbott, An Exposition' (1600, 1845); Gerhard, Annotationes' (Jena, 1676); Pfeiffer, Prælectiones' (Leipzig, 1686); Leusden, with the commentaries of Jarchi, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and Jophi (Utrecht, 1692); Von der Hardt, Enigmata Prisci Orbis;' Helmstad (1723); Grimm, 'Der Proph. Jon. übersetzt' (Düsseldorf, 1789); H. Martin (London, 1866); W. Drake, 'Notes;' Redford, 'Studies' (1885); Kleinert (Bonn, 1871); Archdeacon Perowne, in The Cambridge Bible for Schools.'

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§ VI. ARRANGEMENT OF THE BOOK IN SECTIONS.

The four chapters into which the book is divided make four natural divisions of the whole work.

Part I. (Ch. i.) The mission of Jonah. His disobedience and punishment.

§ 1. (Ch. i. 1-3.) Jonah is sent to Nineveh; he tries to avoid the mission, and takes ship to Tarshish.

§ 2. (Ch. i. 4—10.) A great storm arises, which the crew discover to have been sent on account of Jonah's sin.

§ 3. (Ch. i. 11-16.) At his own request, Jonah is cast into the sea, which immediately becomes calm.

§ 4. (Ch. i. 17.) He is swallowed alive by a great fish, and remains in its belly three days and three nights.

Part II. (Ch. ii.) Jonah's prayer and deliverance.

§ 1. (Ch. ii. 1-9.) Jonah, in the belly of the fish, offers a prayer of thanksgiving for his rescue from death by drowning, in which he sees a pledge of further deliverance.

§ 2. (Ch. ii. 10.)

Part III. (Ch. iii.)
§ 1. (Ch. iii. 1—3.)
§ 2. (Ch. iii. 4.)

The fish casts him up on the shore.

Jonah's preaching in Nineveh; the repentance of the Ninevites.
Sent again to Nineveh, Jonah obeys the command.
delivers his message.

He

§ 3. (Ch. iii. 5-9.) § 4. (Ch. iii. 10.)

The Ninevites believe God and repent.
The threatened destruction is averted.

Part IV. (Ch. iv.) Jonah's displeasure, and its correction.

§ 1. (Ch. iv. 1-4.) Jonah is grieved at this result, and complains of God's clemency.

§ 2. (Ch. iv. 5.) He makes a hut outside the city, and waits to see the issue. § 3. (Ch. iv. 6, 7.) God causes a plant to spring up in order to shade him from the sun; but it soon withers away, and leaves him exposed to the scorching rays. § 4. (Ch. iv. 8-11.) His grief for the loss of the plant is made the occasion by God of showing his inconsistency and pitilessness in murmuring against God's compassion for Nineveh with its multitude of inhabitants.

THE BOOK OF JONAH.

EXPOSITION.