Obadiah
Ver. 8. “ Does it not come to pass in that day, is the saying of Jehovah, that I destroy the wise men out of Edom, and discernment from the mountains of Esau? Ver. 9. And thy heroes despair, O Teman, that every one may be cut off by murder from ' the mountains of Esau.” In order to give up the Edomites to destruction at that time, the Lord will take away discernment from their wise men, so that even they will not be able to help them. The destruction of the wise men is not to be understood as signifying that the wise men will all be slain, or slain before any others, but simply that they will be destroyed as wise men by the withdrawal or destruction of their wisdom. This meaning is sustained, not only by the fact that in the second clause t’bhandh only is mentioned as that which is to be destroyed, but also by the parallel passages, Jer. xlix. 7, Isa. xix. 11, xxix. 14. Jeremiah mentions here the wisdom of the Temanites in particular. That they were celebrated for their wisdom, is evident not only from this passage, but also from the fact that Eliphaz, the chief opponent of Job in argument, was a Temanite (Job ii. 1, etc.) With this withdrawal of wisdom and discernment, even the brave warriors lose their courage. The heroes are dismayed (chatta), or fall into despair. Témédn, which the Chaldee has rendered incorrectly as an appellative, viz. inhabitant of the south (ddromd), is a proper name of the southern district of Idumeza (see at Amos i. 12), so called from Teman, a son of Eliphaz and grandson of Esau (Gen. xxxvi. 11,15). Gibborekha (thy heroes), with the masculine suffix, the people inhabiting the district being addressed under the name of the district itself. God inflicts this upon Edom with the intention (/’ma‘an, to this end) that all the Edomites should be cut off. Méqqdatel, from the murdering, by murder (compare Gen. ix. 11, where min occurs after yikkdreth in this sense); not “ without conflict,” as Ewald renders it, for getel signifies slaying, and not conflict. The thought of connecting miqgdtel with what follows cannot for a moment be entertained (vid. LXX., Syr., Vulg.). It is opposed not only by the authority of the Masoretic punctuation, but still more decisively by the fact, that the stronger and more special word (getel) cannot precede the weaker and more gene- ral one (chémds), and that the murder of certain fugitives is placed first in the list of crimes committed by Edom upon the Israelites (vers. 10-14).
Vers. 10-16. THe Cause or THE RUIN OF THE EDOMITES. is their wickedness towards the brother nation Jacob (vers. 10 and 11), which is still further exhibited in vers. 12-14 in the form of a warning, accompanied by an announcement of righteous retribution in the day of the Lord upon all nations (vers. 15, 16). Ver. 10. “For the wickedness towards thy brother Jacob shame will cover thee, and thou wilt be cut off for ever. Ver.11. In the day that thow stoodest opposite, in the day when enemies carried away his goods, and strangers came into his gates, and cast the lot upon Jerusalem, then even thou (wast) like one of them.” Chdamas ’dchikhd, wickedness, violent wrong towards (upon) thy brother (genit. obj..as in Joel iii. 19, Gen. xvi. 5, etc.). Drusius has already pointed out the peculiar emphasis on these words. Wrong, or violence, is all the more reprehensible, when it is committed against a brother. The fraternal relation in which Edom stood towards Judah is still more sharply defined by the name Jacob, since Esau and Jacob were twin brothers. The consciousness that the Israelites were their brethren, ought to have impelled the Edomites to render helpful support to the oppressed Judzeans. Instead of this, they not only revelled with scornful and malignant pleasure in the misfortune of the brother nation, but endeavoured to increase it still further by rendering active support to the enemy. ‘This hostile behaviour of Edom arose from envy at the election of Israel, like the hatred of Esau towards Jacob (Gen, xxvii. 41), which was transmitted to his descendants, and came out openly in the time of Moses, in the unbrotherly refusal to allow the Israelites to pass in a peaceable manner through their land (Num. xx.). On the other hand, the Israelites are always commanded in the law to preserve a friendly and brotherly attitude towards Edom (Deut. ii. 4, 5); and in Deut. xxiii. 7 it is enjoined upon them not to abhor the Edomite, because he is their brother, v2 yHIA (as in Mic. vii. 10), shame will cover thee, z.e. come upon thee in full measure,— namely, the shame of everlasting destruction, as the following explanatory clause clearly shows. 1732) with Vav consec., but with the tone upon the penultima, contrary to the rule (cf. Ges. § 49, 3; Ewald, § 234, 6 and). In the more precise account of Edom’s sins given in ver. 11, the last clause does not answer exactly to the first. After the words “in the day that thou stoodest opposite,” we should expect the apodosis “thou didst this or that.” But Obadiah is led away from the sentence which he has already begun, by the enumeration of hostilities displayed towards Judah by its enemies, so that he observes with regard to Edom’s behaviour: Then even thou wast as one of them, that is to say, thou didst act just like the enemy. 72319 TY, to stand opposite (compare Ps. xxxvili. 12), used here to denote a hostile intention, as in 2 Sam. xviii. 18. They showed this at first by looking on with pleasure at the misfortunes of the Judeans (ver. 12), still more by stretching out their hand after their possessions (ver. 13), but most of all by taking part in the conflict with Judah (ver. 14). In the clauses which follow, the day when Edom acted thus is described as a day on which Judah had fallen into the power of hostile nations, who carried off its possessions, and disposed of Jerusalem as their booty. Zdrim and nokhrim are synonymous epithets applied to heathen foes. 2Y generally denotes the carrying away of captives; but it is sometimes applied to booty in cattle and goods, or treasures (1 Chron. v. 21; 2 Chron. xiv. 14, xxi. 17). bn is not used here either for the army, or for the strength, ze. the kernel of the nation, but, as in in ver. 13 clearly shows, for its possessions, as in Isa. vill. 4, x. 14, Ezek. xxvi. 12, ete. ‘WY, his (Judah's) gates, used rhetorically for his cities. Lastly, Jerusalem is also mentioned as the capital, upon which the enemies cast lots. The three clauses form a climax: first, the carrying away of Judah’s possessions, that is to say, probably those of the open country; then the forcing of a way into the cities; and lastly, arbitrary proceedings both in and with the capital. 737. (perf. kal of IV=HNT, not piel for 11%, because the Yod pref. of the imperfect piel is never dropped in verbs 5), to cast the lot upon booty (things) and prisoners, to divide them among them (compare Joel iii. 3 and Nah. iii. 10). Caspari, Hitzig, and others understand it here as in Joel iil. 3, as denoting the distribution of the captive inhabitants of Jerusalem, and found upon this one of their leading arguments, that the description given here refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, which Obadiah either foresaw in the Spirit, or depicts as something already experienced. But this by no means follows from the fact that in Joel we have "®Y instead of powin, since it is generally acknowledged that, when the prophets made use of their predecessors, oe frequently modified their expressions, or gave them a different turn. But if we look at our passage simply as it stands, there is not the slightest indication that Jerusalem is mentioned in the place of the people. As ibn niaw does not express the carrying away of the inhabitants, there is not a single syllable which refers to the carrying away captive of either the whole nation or the whole of the population of Jerusalem. On the contrary, in ver. 13 we read of the perishing of the children of Judah, and in ver. 14 of fugitives of Judah, and those that have escaped. From this it is very obvious that Obadiah had simply a conquest of Jerusalem in his eye, when part of the population was slain in battle and part taken captive, and the possessions of the city were plundered; so that the casting of the lot upon Jerusalem has reference not only to the prisoners, but also to the things taken as plunder in the city, which the conquerors divided among them. 8 03, even thou, the brother of Jacob, art like one of them, makest common cause with the enemy. The verb 1, thou wast, is omitted, to bring the event before the mind as something even then occurring. For this reason Obadiah also clothes the further description of the hostilities of the Edomites in the form of a warning against such conduct.
Ver. 12. “ And look not at the day of thy brother on the day of his misfortune; and rejoice not over the sons of Judah in the day of their perishing, and do not enlarge thy mouth in the day of the distress. Ver. 18. Come not into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; thow also look not at his misfortune én the day of his calamity, and stretch not out thy hand to his possession in the day of his calamity: Ver. 14. Nor stand in the cross-road, to destroy his fugitives, nor deliver up his escaped ones in the day of distress.” This warning cannot be satisfactorily explained either “on the assumption that the prophet is here foretelling the future destruction of Judah and Jerusalem ” (Caspari), or “on the supposition that he is merely depicting an event that has already past” (Hitzig). If the taking and plundering of Jerusalem were an accomplished fact, whether in idea or in reality, as it is shown to be by the perfects 3832 and 1) in ver. 11, Obadiah could not in that case warn the Edomites against rejoicing over it, or even taking part therein. Hence Drusius, Rosenmiiller, and others, take the verbs in vers. 12-14 as futures of the past: “Thou shouldest not have seen, shouldest not have rejoiced,” etc. But this is opposed to the grammar. bye followed by the so-called fut. apoc. is jussive, and cannot stand for the pluperf. conjunct. And Maurer’s suggestion is just as untenable, namely, that yom in ver. 11 denotes the day of the capture of J erusalem, and in vers. 12, 13 the ae after this day; since the identity of Ty Of (the day of thy standing) in ver. 11 with 778 D1 in ver. 12 strikes the eye at once. The warning in vers. 12-14 is only intelligible on the supposition, that Obadiah has not any particular conquest and plundering of Jerusalem in his mind, whether a future one or one that has already occurred, but regards this as an event that not only has already taken place, but will take place again: that is to say, on the assumption that he rises from the particular historical event to the idea which it embodied, and that, starting from this, he sees in the existing case all subsequent cases of a similar kind. From this ideal standpoint he could warn Edom of what it had already done, and designate the disastrous day which had come upon Judah and Jerusalem by different expressions as a day of the greatest calamity; for what Edom had done, and what had ila! Judah, were types of the future development of the fate of Judah aiid of the attitude of Edom towards it, which go on fulfilling themselves more and more until the day of the Lord upon all nations, upon the near approach of which Obadiah founds his warning in ver. 15. The warning proceeds in vers. 12-14 from the general to the particular, or from the lower to the higher. Obadiah warns the Edomites, as Hitzig says, “not to rejoice in Judah’s troubles (ver. 12), nor to make common cause with the conquerors (ver. 13), nor to outdo and complete the work of the enemy (ver. 14).” By the cop. Vav, which stands at the head of all the three clauses in ver. 12, the warning addressed to the Edomites, against such conduct as this, is linked on to what they had already done. The three clauses of ver. 12 contain a warning in a graduated form against malicious pleasure. O87 with 3, to look at anything with pleasure, to take delight in it, Se less than 2 NY, to rejoice, to proclaim one’s joy npihowe reserve, 13 bana, to ake the mouth large, is stronger still, like 753 ban, to ieee to do great things with the mroutle equivalent to by m2 33, to TOES the month broad, to stretel it open, over (against) a person (Ps. xxxv. 21; Test lvii. 4), a gesture indicating contempt and derision. T ie object of their inalicious pleasure mentioned in the first clause is yom ’achikhd, the day of thy brother, i.e. the day upon which something strange happened to him, namely, what is mentioned in ver. 11. Yom does not of itself signify the disastrous day, or day of ruin, either here or anywhere else; but it always receives: the more precise definition from the context. If we were to adopt the rendering “ disastrous day,” it would give rise to a pure tautology when taken in connection with what follows. The expression "achikhd (of thy brother) justifies the warning. 1732 D2 is not in apposition to JTS OF2, but, according to he parallelism of the clauses, it is a Hatentone of time. 123, dz. Ney. = 122 (Job xxxi. 3), fortuna aliena, a strange, i.e. hostile fate, not “rejection” (Hitzig, Caspari, and others). The expression avs OF, the day of their (Judah’s sons) perishing, is stronger still; although the perishing (abhdd) of the sons of Judah cannot denote the destruction of the whole nation, since the following word tsdrah, calamity, is much too weak to admit of this. Even the word 78, which occurs three times in ver. 13, does not signify destruction, but (from the root “hx, to fall heavily, to load) simply pressure, a burden, then weight of suffering, distress, misfortune (see Delitzsch on Job xviii. 12). In ver. 13 Obadiah warns against taking part in the plundering of Jerusalem. The gate of my people: for the city in which the people dwell, the capital (see Mic. 1.9). Look not thou also, a brother nation, upon his calamity, as enemies do, z.e. do not delight thyself theses nor snatch at his possessions. The form tishlachnah, for which we should expect tishlach, is not yet satisfactorily explained (for the different attempts that have been made to explain it, see Caspari). The passages in which ndh is appended to the third pers. fem. sing., to distinguish it from the second person, do not help us to explain it. Ewald and Olshausen would therefore alter the text, and read 7 novi, But 7) is not absolutely necessary, since it is omitted in % % Sam.
vi. 6, xxii. 17, or Ps. xviii. 17, where shdlach occurs in the sense of stretching out the hand. 42, his possessions. On the fact itself, compare Joel iv. 5. The prominence given to the day of misfortune at the end of every sentence is very emphatic; “inasmuch as the selection of the time of a brother's calamity, as that in which to rage against him with such cunning and malicious pleasure, was doubly culpable” (Ewald). In ver. 14 the warning proceeds to the worst crime of all, their seizing upon the Judean fugitives, for the purpose of murdering them or delivering them up to the enemy. ereq signifies here the place where the roads break or divide, the cross-road. In Nah. il. 1, the only other place in which it occurs, it signifies tearing in pieces, violence. JZisgir, to deliver up (lit. concludendum tradidit), is generally construed with 58 (Deut. xxiii. 16) or Wa(Ps. xxxi.9; 1 Sam. xxiii. 11). Here it is written absolutely evith the same meaning: not “to apprehend, or so overpower that there is no escape left” (Hitzig). This would affirm too little after the preceding 25, and cannot be demonstrated from Job xi. 10, where hisgir means to keep in custody.
This warning is supported in ver. 15 by an announcement of the day of the Lord, in which Edom and all the enemies of Israel will receive just retribution for their sins against Israel. Ver. 15. “For the day of Jehovah 1s near upon all nations. As thou hast done, it will be done to thee; what thow hast performed returns upon thy head. Ver. 16. For as ye have drunken upon my holy mountain, all nations will drink continually, and drink and swallow, and will be as those that were not.’ °3 (for) connects what follows with the warnings in vers. 12-14, but not also, or exclusively, with vers. 10, 11, as Rosenmiiller and others suppose, for vers. 12-14 are not inserted parenthetically. “The day of Jehovah” has been explained at Joel i. 15. The expression was first formed by Obadiah, not by Joel; and Joel, Isaiah, and the prophets that follow, adopted it from Obadiah. The primary meaning is not the day of judgment, but the day on which Jehovah reveals His majesty and omnipotence in a glorious manner, to overthrow all ungodly powers, and to complete His kingdom. It was this which gave rise to the idea of the day of judgment and retribution which predominates in the prophetic announcements, but which simply forms one side of the revelation of the glory of God, as our passage at once shows;
inasmuch as it describes Jehovah as not only judging all nations and rewarding them according to their deeds (cf. vers. 158, 16), but as providing deliverance upon Zion (ver. 17), and setting up His kingdom (ver. 21). The retribution will correspond to the actions of Edom and of the nations. For 720, compare Joel ili. 4, 7, where (vers. 2-7) the evil deeds of the nations, what they hats done against the people of God, are described. In ver. 16 Obadiah simply mentions as the greatest crime the desecration of the holy mountain by drinking carousals, for which all nations are to drink the intoxicating cup of the wrath of God till they are utterly destroyed. In sh*thithem (ye have drunk) it is not the Judeeans who are addressed, as many commentators, from Ab. Ezra to Ewald and Meier, suppose, but the Edomites. This is required not only by the parallelism of pnny wa (as ye have drunk) and MWY Wz (as thou hast done), but also by the actual wording and context. Onn WD 33 -Y cannot es “as ye who are upon my holy mountain have drunk;” and in the announcement of the retribution which all nations will receive for the evil they have done to Judah, it is impossible that either the Judzeans should be addressed, or a parallel drawn between their conduct and that of the nations. Moreover, throughout the whole of the prophecy Edom only is addressed, and never Judah. Mount Zion is called “my holy mountain,” because Jehovah was there enthroned in His sanctuary. The verb shdthdéh is used in the two clauses in different senses: viz. sh’thithem, of the drinking carousals which the Edomites held upon Zion, like yishtw in Joel iii. 3; and shatha, in the apodosis, of the drinking of the intoxicating goblet (cf. Isa. i. 17; Jer. xxv. 15, xlix. 12, etc.), as the expression “ they shall be as though her had not be clearly shows. At the same time, we cannot infer from the words “all nations will drink,” that all nations would succeed in taking Zion and abusing it, but that they would have to taste all the bitterness of their crime; for it is not stated that they are to drink upon Mount Zion. The fact that the antithesis to ONY is not AWA (“ye will drink”) but pyan-PD IAW, does not compel us to generalize sh*thithem, and regard all nations as addressed saith ictte in the Edomites. The diffculty arising from this antithesis cannot be satisfactorily removed by the remark of Caspari, that in consequence of the allusion to the day of the Lord upon all nations in ver. 15, the judgment upon all nations and that upon the Edomites were thought of as inseparably connected, or that this induced Obadiah to place opposite to the sins of the Edomites, not their own punishment, but the punishment of all nations, more especially as, according to ver. 11, it must necessarily be assumed that the foreign nations participated in the sin of Edom. For this leaves the question unanswered, how Obadiah came to speak at all (ver. 15) of the day of the Lord upon allnations. The circumstance that, according to ver. 11, heathen nations had plundered Jerusalem, and committed crimes like those for which Edom is condemned in vers. 12-14, does not lead directly to the day of judgment upon ail nations, but simply to a judgment upon Edom and the nations which had committed like sins. The difficulty is only removed by the assumption that Obadiah regarded Edom as a type of the nations that had risen up in hostility to the Lord and His people, and were judged by the Lord in consequence, so that what he says of Edom applies to all nations which assume the same or a similar attitude towards the people of God. From this point of view he could, without reserve, extend to all nations the retribution which would fal! upon Edom for its sins. They should drink témid, i.e. not at once, as Ewald has rendered it in opposition to the usage of the language, but “continually.” This does not mean, however, that “there will be no time in which there will not be one of the nations drinking the intoxicating cup, and being destroyed by drinking thereof; or that the nations will come in turn, and therefore in a long immeasurable series, one after the other, to drink the cup of intoxication,” as Caspari supposes, but “ continually, so that the turn never passes from the heathen to Judah, Isa. li. 22, 23” (Hitzig). This drinking is more precisely defined as drinking and swallowing (sn, in Syriac, to devour or swallow, hence 3, a throat, so called from the act of swallowing, Prov. xxiii. 2), i.e. drinking in full draughts; and the effect, “they will be like such as have not been, have never existed” (cf. Job x. 19), i.e. they will be utterly destroyed as nations.
Vers. 17-21. Tue Kinepom or JEHOVAH ESTABLISHED upon Zion.—The prophecy advances from the judgment upon all the heathen to the completion of the kingdom of God by the raising up of Israel to world-wide dominion. While the judgment is falling upon all the heathen nations, Mount Zion will be an asylum for those who are delivered. Judah and Israel will capture the possessions of the nations, destroy Edom, and extend its borders on every side (vers. 17-19). The Israelites scattered among the nations will return into their enlarged inheritances, and upon Zion will saviours arise, to judge Edom, and the kingdom will then be the Lord’s (vers. 20, 21). This promise is appended as an antithesis to the proclamation of judgment in ver. 16. Ver. 17. “ But upon Mount Zion will be that which has been saved, and it will be a sanctuary, and the house of Jacob will take possession of their possessions.” Upon Mount Zion, which the Edomites have now desecrated by drinking carousals, there will then, when the nations are obliged to drink the cup of intoxication even to their utter destruction, be p*letéh, that which has escaped, ze. the multitude of those who have been rescued and preserved throughout the judgment. See the explanation of this at Joel ii. 32, where this thought is still further expounded. Mount Zion is the seat of the kingdom of Jehovah (cf. ver. 21). There the Lord is enthroned (Joel ii. 17), and His rescued people with Him. And it (Mount Zion) will be godesh, a sanctuary, z.c. inviolable; the heathen will no more dare to tread it and defile it (Joel iii. 17). It follows from this, that the rescued crowd upon it will also be a holy people (“a holy seed,” Isa. vi. 13). This sanctified people of the Lord, the house of Jacob, will capture the possessions of their foes. The suflix attached to DTW is supposed by many to refer to 2p” Ma: those of the house of Jacob, ie. the rescued Israelites, will take their former possessions once more. ‘This view cannot be overthrown by the simple remark that ydrash cannot mean to take possession again; for that meaning might be given to it by the context, as, for example, in Deut. xxx. 5. But it is a decisive objection to it, that neither in what precedes nor in what follows is there any reference to Israel as having been carried away. The penetration of foes into the gates of Jerusalem, the plundering of the city, and the casting of lots upon the booty and the prisoners (ver. 11), do not involve the carrying away of the whole nation into exile; and the galuth of the sons of Israel and Jerusalem in ver. 20 is clearly distinguished from the “house of Jacob” in ver. 18. And since we have first of all (vers. 18, 19) an announcement of the conquest of Edom by the house of Jacob, and the capture of the mountains of Esau, of Philistia, etc., by the inhabitants of the south-land, i.e. by Judeans; and then in ver. 20 the possession of the south-land is promised to the galuth (captivity); this géluth can only have been a small fragment of the nation, and therefore the carrying away can only have extended to a number of prisoners of war, whilst the kernel of the nation had remained in the land, z.e. in its own possessions. The objection offered to this, namely, that if we refer the suffix in mordshéhem (their possessions) to kol-haggoyim (all nations), Judah would have to take possession of all nations, which is quite incredible and even at variance with vers. 19, 20, inasmuch as the only enemies’ land mentioned there (ver. 19) is the territory of the Edomites and Philistines, whilst the other ‘countries or portions of country mentioned there are not enemies’ land at all. For there is no incredibility in the taking of the land of all nations by Judah, except on the assumption that Judah merely denotes the posterity or remnant of the citizens of the earthly kingdom of Judah. But this is not what Obadiah says. He does not mention Judah, but the house of Jacob, and means thereby not the natural Israel, but the people of God, who are eventually to obtain the dominion of the world. The discrepancy between ver. 17) and ver. 19 is not greater than that between Onn’ in ver. 16a and 3Av* pian “by in ver. 164, and disappears if we only recognise the fact that Edom and the Philistines are simply Hern in ver. 19 as types of the heathen world in its hostility to God. We therefore regard the application of the expression mordshéhem to the possessions of the heathen nations as the only correct one, and that all the more because the 7 in ver. 19 is very clearly seen to be a more exact explanation of the wa" in ver. 17. In ver. 17 Obadiah gives, in a few brief words, the sum and substance of the salvation which awaits the people of the Lord in the future. This salvation is unfolded still further in what follows, and first of all in vers. 18,19, by a fuller exposition of the thought expressed in ver. 170.
Ver. 18. “ And the house of Jacob will be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble. And they will burn among them, and consume them, and there will noé be one left to the house of Esau, for Jehovah hath spoken.” This verse not only resumes the discussion of the retribution, so that it corresponds to ver. 15, but it also affirms, as an appendix to ver. 17, that Edom is to be utterly destroyed. By the “house of Jacob” Judah is intended, as the co-ordination of the house of Joseph, ic. of the ten tribes, clearly shows. The assumption that “house of Jacob” signifies all Israel, in connection with which that portion is also especially mentioned, which might be supposed to be excluded (Rosenmiiller, Hengstenberg, and others), is at variance with such passages as Isa. xlvi. 3, “the house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel,’ where the reason assigned for the co-ordination is not applicable. Obadiah uses the name Jacob for Judah, because ever since the division of the kingdoms Judah alone has represented the people of God, the ten tribes having fallen away from the kingdom of God for atime. In the future, however, Judah and Israel are to be united again (vid. Hos. ii. 2; Ezek. xxxvii. 16; Jer. xxxi. 18), and unitedly to attack and overcome their foes (Isa. xi. 13, 14). Obadiah distinctly mentions the house ‘of Joseph, ze. of the ten tribes, in this passage and in this alone, for the purpose of guarding against the idea that the ten tribes are to be shut out from the future salvation. For the figure of the flame of fire which consumes stubble, see Isa. v. 24 andx.17. For the expression, “for Jehovah hath spoken,” compare Joel ili. 8.
After the destruction of its foes the nation of God will take possession of their land, and extend its territory to every region under heaven. Ver. 19. “And those towards the south will take possession of the mountains of Esau; and those in the lowland, of the Philistines: and they will take possession of the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria; and Benjamin (will take possession) of Gilead. Ver. 20. And the captives of this army of the sons of Israel (will take possession) of what Canaanites there are as far as Zarephath; and the prisoners of Jerusalem that are in Sepharad will take possession of the cities of the south.” In "0 309% the expression ” M2 307 in ver. 176 is more precisely defined, and the house of Jacob, 1.6. the kingdom of Judah, is divided into the Negeb, the chem and Benjamin, to each of which a special district is assigned, of which it will take possession, the countries being mentioned in the place of their inhabitants. The negebh, or southern land of Judah (see the comm. on Josh. xv. 21), ze. the inhabitants thereof, will take possession of the mountains of Esau, and therefore extend their territory eastwards; whilst those of the lowland (sh’phélah; see at Josh. xv. 83), on the Mediterranean, will seize upon the Philistines, that is to say, upon their land, and therefore spread out towards the west. The subject to the second 3/1" is not mentioned, and must be determined from the context: viz. the men of J ndal with the exception of the inha~ bitants of the Negeb and Shephelah already mentioned, that is to say, strictly speaking, those of the mountains of J udeh, the original stock of the land of Judah (Josh. xv. 48-60). Others would leave hannegebh and hassh*phélah still in force as subjects; so that the thought expressed would be this: The inhabitants of the south land and of the lowland will also take possession in addition to this of the fields of Ephraim and Samaria. But not only is the parallelism of the clauses, according to which one particular portion of territory is assigned to each part, utterly destroyed, but according to this view the principal part of Judah is entirely passed over without any perceptible reason. Sddeh, fields, used rhetorically for land or territory. Along with Ephraim the land, Samaria the capital is especially mentioned, just as we frequently find Jerusalem along with Judah. In the last clause 307 (shall take possession of) is to be repeated after Benjamin. From the taking of the territories of the kingdom of the ten tribes by Judah and Benjamin, we are not to infer that the territory of the ten tribes was either compared to an enemy's land, or thought of as depopulated; but the thought is simply this: Judah and Benjamin, the two tribes, which formed the kingdom of God in the time of Obadiah, will extend their territory to all the four quarters of the globe, and take possession of all Canaan beyond its former boundaries. Hengstenberg has rightly shown that we have here simply an individualizing description of the promise in Gen. xxviii. 14, “thy seed will be as the dust of the ground; and thou breakest out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south,” ete. ze. that on the ground of this promise Obadiah predicts the future restoration of the kingdom of God, and its extension beyond the borders of Canaan. In this he looks away from the ten tribes, because in his esteem the kingdom of Judah alone constituted the kingdom or people of God. But he has shown clearly enough in ver. 18 that he does not regard them as enemies of Judah, or as separated from the kingdom of God, but as being once more united to Judah as the people of God. And being thus incorporated again into the people of God, he thinks of them as dwelling with them upon the soil of Judah, so that they are included in the population of the four districts of this kingdom. For this reason, no other places of abode are assigned to the Ephraimites and Gileadites. The idea that they are to be transplanted altogether to heathen territory, rests upon a misapprehension of the true facts of the case, and has no support whatever in ver. 20. “The sons of Israel” in ver. 20 cannot be the ten tribes, as Hengstenberg supposes, because the other portion of the covenant nation mentioned along with them would in that case be described as Judah, not as Jerusalem. “The sons of Israel” answer to the “ Jacob” in ver. 10, and the “ house of Jacob” in ver. 17, in connection with which special prominence is given to Jerusalem in ver. 11, and to Mount Zion in ver. 17; so that it is the Judeeans who are referred to,—not, however, as distinguished from the ten tribes, but as the people of God, with whom the house of Jacob is once more united. In connection with the gdéluth (captivity) of the sons of Israel, the géluth of Jerusalem is also mentioned, like the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem in Joel iii. 6, of whom Joel affirms, with a glance at Obadiah, that the Pheenicians and Philistines have sold them to the sons of Javan. These citizens of Judah and Jerusalem, who have been taken prisoners in war, are called by Obadiah the gdluth of the sons of Israel and Jerusalem, the people of God being here designated by the name of their tribe-father Jacob or Israel. That we should understand by the “sons of Israel” Judah, as the tribe or kernel of the covenant nation, is required by the actual progress apparent in ver. 20 in relation to ver. 19. After Obadiah had foretold to the house of Jacob in vers. 176-19 that it would take possession of the land of their enemies, and spread beyond the borders of Canaan, the question still remained to be answered, What would become of the prisoners, and those who had been carried away captive, according to vers. 11 and 14? This is explained in ver. 20. The carrying away of the sons of Israel is restricted to a portion of the nation by the words, “the captivity of this host” (hachélhazzeh); no such carrying away of the nation as such had taken place at that time as that which afterwards occurred at the destruction of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The enemies who had conquered Jerusalem had contented themselves with carrying away those who fell into their hands. The expression hachél-hazech points to this host which had been carried away captive. °n, which the LX X. and some of the Rabbins have taken as a verbal noun, % dpy7, initium, is a defective form of °°, an army (2 Kings xviii. 7; Isa. xxxvi. 2), like PM for P'M in Prov. v. 20, xvii. 23, xxi. 14, and is not to be identified with °m, the trench of a fortification. The two clauses in ver. 20 have only one verb, which renders the meaning of naw.../3 ws ambiguous. The Chaldee (according to our editions, though not according to Kimchi’s account) and the Masoretes (by placing athnach under s*phdrdd), also Rashi and others, take 0°2¥23 WW as in apposition to the subject: those prisoners of the sons ‘of Israel who are among the Canaanites to Zarephath. And the parallelism to TEDa TW appears to favour this; but it is decidedly negatived by the absence of 2 before ny39. ‘33 WW can only mean, “who are Canaanites.” But this, when taken as in apposition to ‘WY °23, gives no sustainable meaning. For the sons of Israel ae only be called Canaanites when they had adopted the nature of Canaan. And any who had done this could look for no share in the salvation of the Lord, and no return to the land of the Lord. We must therefore take DyI3 ws as the object, and supply the verb 1 from the first clauses of the preceding verse. Obadiah first of all expresses the verb twice, then omits it in the next two clauses (ver. 19d and 20a), and inserts it again in the last clause (ver. 206). The meaning is, that the army of these sons of Israel, who have been carried away captive, will take possession of what Canaanites there are as far as Zarephath, i.e. the Pheenician city of Sarepta, the present Surafend, between Tyre and Sidon on the sca-coast (see comm. on 1 Kings xvii. 9). The capture of the land of the enemy presupposes a return to the fatherland. The exiles of Jerusalem shall take possession of the south country, the inhabitants of which have pushed forward into Edom. 77222 (in Sepharad) is difficult, and has never yet been satisfactorily explained, as the word does not occur again. The rendering Spain, which we find in the Chaldee and Syriac, is probably only an inference drawn from Joel ili. 6; and the Jewish rendering Bosphorus, which is cited by Jerome, is simply founded upon the similarity in the name. The supposed connection between this name and the CPakaD, or Cparda, mentioned in the great arrow-headed inscription of Nakshi Rustam in a list of names of tribes between Katpadhuka (Cappadocia) and Yund (Ionia), in which Sylv. de Sacy imagined that he had found our Sepharad, has apparently more to favour it, since the resemblance is very great. But if Cparda is the Persian form for Sardis (Sdpsdis or Sapdevs), which was written Cvarda in the native (Lydian) tongue, as Lassen maintains, Sepharad cannot be the same as Cparda, inasmuch as the Hebrews did not receive the name 2D through the Persians; and the native Cvarda, apart from the fact that it is merely postulated, would be written 7D in Hebrew. To this we may add, that the impossibility of proving that Sardis was ever used for Lydia, precludes our rendering Cparda by Sardis. It is much more natural to connect the name with Saaptn (Sparta) and Saapridrat (1 Macc. xiv. 16, 20, 23, xii. 2, 5, 6), and assume that the Hebrews had heard the name from the Phenicians in connection with Javan, as the name of a land in the far west.’ The cities of the south country stand in antithesis to the Canaanites as far as Zarephath in the north; and these two regions are mentioned synecdochically for all the countries round about Canaan, like “the breaking forth of Israel on the right hand and on the left, that its seed may inherit the Gentiles,” which is promised in Isa. liv. 3. The description is rounded off by the closing reference to the south country, in which it returns to the point whence it started.
With the taking of the lands of the Gentiles, the full dis-
1 The appellative rendering éy Oseeomope (Hendewerk and Maurer) is certainly to be rejected; and Ewald’s conjecture, piap, ‘a place three hours’ journey from Acco,” in support of which he refers to Niebuhr, 2. iti. p. 269, is a very thoughtless one. For Niebuhr there mentions the village of Serfati as the abode of the prophet Elijah, and refers to Maundrell, who calls the village Sarphan, Serephat, and Serepta, in which every thoughtful reader must recognise the biblical Zarephath, and the present village of Surafend.
play of salvation begins in Zion. Ver. 21. “ And saviours go up on Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau; and the kingdom will be Jehovah's.” nby followed by 2 does not mean to go up to a place, but to climb to the top of (Deut. v. 5; Ps. xxiv. 3; Jer.iv. 29, v.10), or into (Jer. ix. 20). Consequently there is no allusion in y to the return from exile. Going up to the top of Mount Zion simply means, that at the time when Israel captures the possessions of the heathen, Mount Zion will receive and have saviours who will judge Edom. And as the mountains of Esau represent the heathen world, so Mount Zion, as the seat of the Old Testament kingdom of God, is the type of the kingdom of God in its fully developed form. Dy win, which is written defectively yw in some of the ancient Mss., and has consequently been rendered incorrectly cecwopévos and dvacwfouevor by the LXX., Aq., Theod., and the Syriac, signifies salvatores, deliverers, saviours. The expression is selected with an allusion to the olden time, in which Jehovah saved His people by judges out of the power of their enemies (Judg. ii. 16, iii. 9, 15, ete.). “The D'YWid are heroes, resembling the judges, who are to defend and deliver Mount Zion and its inhabitants, when they are threatened and oppressed by enemies” (Caspari). The object of their activity, however, is not Israel, but Edom, the representative of all the enemies of Israel. The mountains of Esau are mentioned instead of the people, partly on account of the antithesis to the mountain of Zion, and partly also to express the thought of supremacy not only over the people, but over the land of the heathen also. Shaphat is not to be restricted in this case to the judging or settling of disputes, but includes the conduct of the government, the exercise of dominion in its fullest extent, so that the “ judging of the mountains of Hsau” expresses the dominion of the people of God over the heathen world. Under the saviours, as Hengstenberg has correctly observed, the Saviour par excellence is concealed. This is not brought prominently out, nor is it even distinctly affirmed; but it is assumed as selfevident, from the history of the olden time, that the saviours are raised up by Jehovah for His people. The following and concluding thought, that the kingdom will be Jehovah's, de. that Jehovah will show Himself to the whole world as King of the world, and Ruler in His kingdom, and will be acknowledged by the nations of the earth, either voluntarily or by constraint, rests upon this assumption. God was indeed King already, not as the Almighty Ruler of the universe, for this is not referred to here, but as King in Israel, over which His kingdom did extend. But this His royal sway was not acknowledged by the heathen world, and could not be, more especially when He had to deliver Israel up to the power of its enemies, on account of its sins. This acknowledgment, however, He would secure for Himself, by the destruction of the heathen power in the overthrow of Edom, and by the exaltation of His people to dominion over all nations. Through this mighty saving act He will establish His kingdom over the whole earth (cf. Joel iii. 21; Mic. iv. 7; Isa. xxiv. 23). “ The coming of this kingdom began with Christ, and looks for its complete fulfilment in Him” (Hengstenberg).
If now, in conclusion, we cast another glance at the fulfilment of our whole prophecy; the fulfilment of that destruction by the nations, with which the Edomites are threatened (vers. 1-9), commenced in the Chaldean period. For although no express historical evidence exists as to the subjugation of the Edomites by Nebuchadnezzar, since Josephus (Ané. x. 9, 7) says nothing about the Edomites, who dwelt between the Moabites and Egypt, in the account which he gives of Nebuchadnezzar’s expedition against Egypt, five years after the destruction of Jerusalem, in which he subdued the Ammonites and Moabites; the devastation of Edom by the Chaldeans may unquestionably be inferred from Jer. xlix. 7 sqq. and Ezek. xxxv., when compared with Jer. xxv. 9, 21, and Mal.i.3. In Jer. xxv. 21 the Edomites are mentioned among the nations round about Judah, whom the Lord would deliver up into the hand of His servant Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxv. 9), and to whom Jeremiah was to present the cup of the wine of wrath from the hand of Jehovah; and they are placed between the Philistines and the Moabites. And according to Mal. i. 3, Jehovah made the mountains of Esau into a wilderness; and this can only refer to the desolation of the land of Edom by the Chaldeans (see at Mal.i. 3). It is true, that at that time the Edomites could still think of rebuilding their ruins; but the threat of Malachi, “ If they build, I shall pull down, saith the Lord,” was subsequently fulfilled, although no accounts have been handed down as to the fate of Edom in the time of Alexander the Great and his successors. The destruction of the Edomites as a nation was commenced by the Maccabees. After Judas Maccabeeus had defeated them several times (1 Mace. v. 3 and 65; Jos. Ant. xii. 18, 1), John Hyrcanus subdued them entirely about 129 B.c., and compelled them to submit to circumcision, and observe the Mosaic law (Jos. Ant. xiii. 9, 1), whilst Alexander Jannzus also subjugated the last of the Edomites (xiii. 15, 4). And the loss of their national independence, which they thereby sustained, was followed by utter destruction at the hands of the Romans. To punish them for the cruelties which they had practised in Jerusalem in connection with the Zelots, immediately before the siege of that city by the Romans (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, iv. 5, 1, 2), Simon the Gerasene devastated their land in a fearful manner (Wars of the Jews, iv. 9,7); whilst the Idumzans in Jerusalem, who took the side of Simon (vy. 6, 1), were slain by the Romans along with the Jews. The few Edomites who still remained were lost among the Arabs; so that the Edomitish people was “ cut off for ever” (ver. 10) by the Romans, and its very name disappeared from the earth. Passing on to the rest of the prophecy, Edom filled up the measure of its sins against its brother nation Israel, against which Obadiah warns it in vers. 12-14, at the taking and destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans (wid. Ezek. xxxv. 5,10; Ps. exxxvil. 7; Lam. iv. 22). The fulfilment of the threat in ver. 18 we cannot find, however, in the subjugation of the Edomites by the Maccabeeans, and the devastating expedition of Simon the Gerasene, as Caspari and others do, although it is apparently favoured by the statement in Ezek. xxv. 14, that Jehovah would fulfil His vengeance upon Edom by the hand of His people Israel. For even if this prophecy of Ezekicl may have been fulfilled in the events just mentioned, we are precluded from understanding Ob. 18, and the parallel passages, Amos ix. 11, 12, and Num. xxiv. 18, as referring to the same events, by the fact that the destruction of Edom, and the capture of Seir by Israel, are to proceed, according to Num. xxiv. 18, from the Ruler to arise out of Jacob (the Messiah), and that they were to take place, according to Amos ix. 11, 12, in connection with the raising up of the fallen hut of David, and according to
Obadiah, in the day of Jehovah, along with and after the judgment upon all nations. Consequently the fulfilment of vers. 17-21 can only belong to the Messianic times, and that in such a way that it commenced with the founding of the kingdom of Christ on the earth, advances with its extension among all nations, and will terminate in a complete fulfilment at the second coming of our Lord.
SeHE Prornet.—We know from 2 Kings xiv. 25 that Jonah the son of Amittai was born in Gath-Hepher, in the tribe of Zebulon, which was, according to Jewish tradition as given by Jerome, “haud grandis viculus Geth,’ to the north of Nazareth, on the road from Sephoris to Tiberias, on the site of the present village of Meshad (see at Josh. xix. 18); that he lived in the reign of Jeroboam 11., and foretold to this king the success of his arms in his war with the Syrians, for the restoration of the ancient boundaries of the kingdom; and that this prophecy was fulfilled. From the book before us we learn that the same Jonah (for this is evident from the fact that the name of the father is also the same) received a command from the Lord to go to Nineveh, and announce the destruction of that city on account of its sins. This mission to Nineveh evidently falls later than the prophecy in favour of Jeroboam; but although it is quite possible that it is to be assigned to the time of Menahem, during the period of the first invasion of Israel by the Assyrians, this is by no means so probable as many have assumed. For, inasmuch as Menahem began to reign fiftythree years after the commencement of the reign of Jeroboam, and the war between Jeroboam and the Syrians took place not in the closing years, but in the very first years of his reign, since it was only the continuation and conclusion of the successful struggle which his father had already begun with these enemies of Israel; Jonah must have been a very old man when he was entrusted with his mission to Nineveh, if it did not take place till after the invasion of Israel by Pul. Nothing is known of the circumstances of Jonah’s life apart from these biblical notices. The Jewish tradition mentioned by Jerome in the Proem. to Jonah, to the effect that Jonah was the son of the widow at Zarephath, whom Elijah restored to life (1 Kings xvii. 17-24), which has been still further expounded by Ps. Epiph. and Ps. Doroth. (see Carpzov, Introd. ii. pp. 346-7), is proved to be nothing more than a Jewish Hagada, founded upon the name “son of Amittai” (LX X. vicd ’Auaic), and has just as much historical evidence to support it as the tradition concerning the prophet’s grave, which is pointed out in Meshad of Galilee, and also in Nineveh in Assyria, for the simple reason adduced by Jerome (l.c.): matre postea dicente ad eum: nunc cognovi, quia vir Dei es tu, et verbum Dei in ore tuo est veritas; et ob hane causam etiam ipsum puerum sie vocatun, Amathi enim in nostra lingua veritatem sonat.
2. THe Book or Jonad resembles, in contents and form, the narratives concerning the prophets in the historical books of the Old Testament, e.g. the history of Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings xvii—xix.; 2 Kings ii. 4-6), rather than the writings of the minor prophets. It contains no prophetic words concerning Nineveh, but relates in simple prose the sending of Jonah to that city to foretel its destruction; the behaviour of the prophet on receiving this divine command; his attempt to escape from it by flight to Tarshish; the way in which this sin was expiated; and lastly, when the command of God had been obeyed, not only the successful result of his preaching of repentance, but also his murmuring at the sparing of Nineveh in consequence of ‘the repentance of its inhabitants, and the reproof administered by God to the murmuring prophet. If, then, notwithstanding this, the compilers of the canon have placed the book among the minor prophets, this can only have been done because they were firmly convinced that the prophet Jonah was the author. And, indeed, the objections offered to the genuineness of the book, apart from doctrinal reasons for disputing its historical truth and credibility, and the proofs adduced of its having a much later origin, are extremely trivial, and destitute of any conclusive force. It is said that, apart from the miraculous portion, the narrative is wanting in clearness and perspicuity. ‘The author,” says Hitzig, “leaps over
the long and wearisome journey to Nineveh, says nothing about Jonah’s subsequent fate, or about his previous abode, or the spot where he was cast upon the land, or the name of the Assyrian king; in brief, he omits all the more minute details which are necessarily connected with a true history.” But the
assertion that completeness in all external circumstances, which would serve to gratify curiosity rather than to help to an understanding of the main facts of the case, is indispensable to the truth of any historical narrative, is one which might expose the whole of the historical writings of antiquity to criticism, but can never shake their truth. There is not a single one of the ancient historians in whose works such completeness as this can be found: and still less do the biblical historians aim at communicating such things as have no close connection with the main object of their narrative, or with the religious significance of the facts themselves. Proofs of the later origin of the book have also been sought for in the language employed, and in the circumstance that Jonah’s prayer in ch. ii. 8-10 contains so many reminiscences from the Psalms, that. Ph. D. Burk has called it prestantissimum exemplum psalterti recte applicati. But the so-called Aramaisms, such as 285 to throw (ch. 1. 4, 5, 12, etc.), the interchange of 735D with 78 (ch. i. 5), 732 to determine, to appoint (ch. ii. 1, iv. 6 sqq.), 7n in the supposed sense of rowing (ch. i. 13), nyynn to remember (ch. i. 6), and the forms bwa (ch. a. 4), *buia (ch. i. 12), and w for WW (ch. iv. 10), belong either to the speech of Galilee or the language of ordinary intercourse, and are very far from being proofs of a later age, since it cannot be proved with certainty that any one of these words was unknown in the early Hebrew usage, and w for WW occurs as early as. Judg. v. 7, vi. 17, and even a) in Song of Sol. i. 6, vii. 12, whilst in the book before us it is only in the sayings of the persons acting (ch. i. 7, 12), or of God (ch. iv. 10), that it is used. The only non-Hebraic word, viz. DY%, which is used in the sense of command, and applied to the edict of the king of Assyria, was heard oy Jonah in Nineveh, where it was used as a technical term, and was transferred by him. The reminiscences which occur in Jonah’s prayer are all taken from the Psalms of David or his contemporaries, which were generally known in Israel long before the prophet’s day.’ Lastly, the statement in ch. iii. 3, that
“Nineveh was an excceding great city,’ neither proves that Nineveh had already been destroyed at the time when this was written, nor that the greatness of Nineveh was unknown to the contemporaries of Jonah, though there would be nothing surprising in the latter, as in all probability very few Israelites had seen Nineveh at that time. 0% is the synchronistic imperfect, just as in Gen. i. 2. Nineveh was a great city of three days’ journey when Jonah reached it, z.¢. he found it so, as Staeudlin observes, and even De Wette admits.
The doctrinal objections to the miraculous contents of the book appear to be much more weighty; since it is undeniable that, if they were of the character represented by the opponents, this would entirely preclude the possibility of its having been composed by the prophet Jonah, and prove that it had originated ina mythical legend. “The whole narrative,’ says Hitzig in his prolegomena to the book of Jonah, “is miraculous and
fabulous. But nothing is impossible with God. Hence Jonah lives in the belly of the fish without being suffocated; hence the Qiqayon springs up during the night to such a height that it overshadows a man in a sitting posture. As Jehovah bends everything in the world to His owa purposes at pleasure, the marvellous coincidences had nothing in them to astonish the author. The lot falls upon the right man; the tempest rises most opportunely, and is allayed at the proper time; and the fish is ready at hand to swallow Jonah, and vomit him out again. So, again, the tree is ready to sprout up, the worm to kill it, and the burning wind to make its loss perceptible.” But the
coarse view of God and of divine providence apparent in all this, which borders very closely upon atheism, by no means proves that the contents of the book are fabulous, but simply that the history of Jonah cannot be vindicated, still less understood, without the acknowledgment of a living God, and of His activity in the sphere of natural and human life. The book of Jonah
1 The offence taken at the miracles in the book originated with the heathen. Even to Lucian they apparently presented an occasion for ridicule (see Vere lustor. lib. i. § 30 sq., ed. Bipont). With regard to the three records miraculous occurrences; but even the two most striking miracles, the three days’ imprisonment in the belly of the seafish, and the growth of a Qiqaydn to a sufficient height to overshadow a sitting man, have analogies in nature, which make the possibility of these miracles at least conceivable (see the comm. on ch. ii. 1 and iv. 6). The repentance of the Ninevites in consequence of the prophet’s preaching, although an unusual and extraordinary occurrence, was not a miracle in the strict sense of the word. At the same time, the possibility of this miracle by no means proves its reality or historical truth. This can only be correctly discerned and rightly estimated, from the important bearing of Jonah’s mission to Nineveh and of his conduct in relation to this mission upon the position of Israel in the divine plan of salvation in relation to the Gentile world. The mission of Jonah was a fact of symbolical and typical importance, which was intended not only to enlighten Israel as to the position of the Gentile world in relation to the kingdom of God, but also to typify the future adoption of such of the heathen, as should observe the word of God, into the fellowship of the salvation prepared in Israel for all nations.
As the time drew nigh when Israel was to be given up into the power of the Gentiles, and trodden down by them, on account of its stiff-necked apostasy from the Lord its God, it was very natural for the self-righteous mind of Israel to regard the Gentiles as simply enemies of the people and kingdom of God, and not only to deny their capacity for salvation, but also to interpret the prophetic announcement of the judgment coming upon days’ imprisonment in the belly of the fish, and on the Qiqdyon, Augustine in his Epist. 102 says, ‘‘I have heard this kind of inquiry ridiculed by pagans with great laughter;” and Theophylact also says, ‘t Jonah is therefore swallowed by a whale, and the prophet remains in it three days and the same number of nights; which appears to be beyond the power of the hearers to believe, chiefly of those who come to this history fresh from the schools of the Greeks and their wise teaching.” This ridicule first found admission into the Christian church, when the rise of deism, naturalism, and rationalism caused a denial of the miracles and inspiration of the Scriptures to be exalted into an axiom of free inquiry. From this time forward a multitude of marvellous hypotheses and trivial ideas concerning the book of Jonah have been brought out, which P. Friedrichsen has collected and discussed in a most unspizitual manner in his Kritische Uebersicht der verschiedenen Ansichten von dem Buche Jona.
the Gentiles as signifying that they were destined to utter destruction. The object of Jonah’s mission to Nineveh was to combat in the most energetic manner, and practically to overthrow, a delusion which had a seeming support in the election of Israel to be the vehicle of salvation, and which stimulated the inclination to pharisaical reliance upon an outward connection with the chosen nation and a lineal descent from Abraham. Whereas other prophets proclaimed in words the position of the Gentiles with regard to Israel in the nearer and more remote future, and predicted not only the surrender of Israel to the power of the Gentiles, but also the future conversion of the heathen to the living God, and their reception into the kingdom of God, the prophet Jonah was entrusted with the commission to proclaim the position of Israel in relation to the Gentile world in a symbolico-typical manner, and to exhibit both figuratively and typically not only the susceptibility of the heathen for divine grace, but also the conduct of Israel with regard to the design of God to show favour to the Gentiles, and the consequences of their conduct. The susceptibility of the Gentiles for the salvation revealed in Israel is clearly and visibly depicted in the behaviour of the Gentile sailors, viz. in the fact that they fear the God of heaven and earth, call upon Him, present sacrifice to Him, and make vows; and still more in the deep impression produced by the préaching of Jonah in Nineveh, and the fact that the whole population of the great city, with the king at their head, repent in sackcloth and ashes. The attitude of Israel towards the desion of God to show mercy to the Gentiles and grant them salvation, is depicted in the way in which Jonah acts, when he receives the divine command, and when he goes to carry it out. Jonah tries to escape from the command to proclaim the word of God in Nineveh by flight to Tarshish, because he is displeased with the display of divine mercy to the great heathen world, and because, according to ch. iv. 2, he is afraid lest the preaching of repentance should avert from Nineveh the destruction with which it is threatened. In this state of mind on the part of the prophet, there are reflected the feelings and the general state of mind of the Israelitish nation towards the Gentiles. According to his natural man, Jonah shares in this, and is thereby fitted to be the representative of Israel in its pride at its own election. At thesame time, it is only in this state of mind that the old man, which rebels against the divine command, comes sharply out, whereas his better J hears the word of God, and is moved within; so that we cannot place him in the category of the false prophets, who prophesy from their own hearts. When the captain wakes him up in the storm upon the sea, and the lot shows that he is guilty, he confesses his fault, and directs the sailors to cast him into the sea, because it is on his account that the great storm has come upon them (ch. i. 10-12). The infliction of this punishment, which falls upon him on account of his obstinate resistance to the will of God, typifies that rejection and banishment from the face of God which Israel will assuredly bring upon itself by its obstinate resistance to the divine call. But Jonah, when cast into the sea, is swallowed up by a great fish; and when he prays to the Lord in the fish’s belly, he is vomited upon the land unhurt. This miracle has also a symbolical meaning for Israel. It shows that if the carnal nation, with its ungodly mind, should turn to the Lord even in the last extremity, it will be raised up again by a divine miracle from destruction to newness of life. And lastly, the manner in which God reproves the prophet, when he is angry because Nineveh has been spared (ch. iv.), is intended to set forth as in a mirror before all Israel the greatness of the divine compassion, which embraces all mankind, in order that it may reflect upon it and lay it to heart.
But this by no means exhausts the deeper meaning of the history of Jonah. It extends still further, and culminates in the typical character of Jonah’s three days’ imprisonment in the belly of the fish, upon which Christ threw some light when He said, “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. xii. 40). The clue to the meaning of this type, i.e. to the divinely-appointed connection between the typical occurrence and its antitype, is to be found in the answer which Jesus gave to Philip and Andrew when they told Him, a short time before His death, that there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast who desired to see Jesus. This answer consists of two distinct statements, viz. (John xii. 23, 24): ‘The time is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily,
T say unto you, Except the grain of wheat fall into the earth, and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much _ fruit;” and (ver. 32), “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” This answer of Jesus intimates that the time to admit the Gentiles has not yet come; but the words, “the hour is come,” etc., also contain the explanation, that “the Gentiles have only to wait patiently a little longer, since their union with Christ, with which the address concludes (ver. 32), is directly connected with the glorification of the Son of man” (Hengstenberg on John xii. 20). This assertion of the Lord, that His death and glorification are necessary in order that He may draw all men, even the heathen, to Himself, or that by His death He may abolish the wall of partition by which the Gentiles were shut out of the kingdom of God, at which He had already hinted in John x. 15, 16, teaches us that the history of Jonah is to be regarded as an important and significant link in the chain of development of the divine plan of salvation. When Assyria was assuming the form of a world-conquering power, and the giving up of ‘israel into the hands of the Gentiles was about to commence, Jehovah sent His prophet to Nineveh, to preach to this great capital of the imperial kingdom His omnipotence, righteousness, and grace. For although the giving up of Israel was inflicted upon it as a punishment for its idolatry, yet, according to the purpose of God, it was also intended to prepare the way for the spread of the kingdom of God over all nations. The Gentiles were to learn to fear the living God of heaven and earth, not only as a preparation for the deliverance of Israel out of their hands after it had been refined by the punishment, but also that they might themselves be convinced of the worthlessness of their idols,: <a learn to seek salvation from the God of Israel. But whilst this brings out distinctly to the light the deep inward connection between the mission of Jonah to Nineveh and the divine plan of salvation, the typical character of that connection is first made perfectly clear from what Jonah himself passed through. For whereas the punishment, which he brought upon himself through his resistance to the divine command, contained this lesson, that Israel in its natural nationality must perish in order that out of the old sinful nature there may arise a new people of God, which, being dead to the law, may serve the Lord in the willingness of the spirit, God also appointed the mortal anguish and the deliverance of Jonah as a type of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the whole world. As Jonah the servant of God is given up to death that he may successfully accomplish the work committed to him, namely, to proclaim to the Ninevites the judgment and mercy of the God of heaven and earth; so must the Son of God be buried in the earth like a grain of wheat, that He may bring forth fruit for the whole world. The resemblance between the two is apparent in this. But Jonah deserved the punishment of death; Christ, on the contrary, suffered as the innocent One for the sins of mankind, and went voluntarily to death as One who had life in Himself to accomplish His Father’s will. In this difference the inequality appears; and in this the type falls back behind the antitype, and typifies the reality but imperfectly. But even in this difference we may perceive a certain resemblance between Jonah and Christ which must not be overlooked. Jonah died according to his natural man on account of the sin, which was common to himself and his nation; Christ died for the sin of His people, which He had taken upon Himself, to make expiation for it; but He also died as a member of the nation, from which He had sprung according to the flesh, when He was made under the law, that We might rise again as the Saviour of all nations.
This symbolical and typical significance of the mission of the prophet Jonah precludes the assumption that the account in his book is a myth or a parabolical fiction, or simply the description of a symbolical transaction which the prophet experienced in spirit only. And the contents of the book are at variance with all these assumptions, even with the last. When the prophets are commanded to carry out symbolical transactions, they do so without repugnance. But Jonah seeks to avoid executing the command of God by flight, and is punished in consequence. This is at variance with the character of a purely symbolical action, and proves that the book relates historical facts. It is true that the sending of Jonah to Nineveh had not its real purpose within itself; that is to say, that it was not intended to effect the conversion of the Ninevites to the living God, but simply to bring to light the truth that even the Gentiles were capable of receiving divine truth, and to exhibit the possibility of their eventual reception into the kingdom of God. But this truth could not have been brought to the consciousness of the Israelites in a more impressive manner than by Jonah’s really travelling to Nineveh to proclaim the destruction of that city on account of its wickedness, and seeing the proclamation followed by the results recorded in our book. Still less could the importance of this truth, so far as Israel was concerned, be exhibited in a merely symbolical transaction. If the intended flight of the prophet to Tarshish and his misfortune upon the sea were not historical facts, they could only be mythical or parabolical fictions. But though myths may very well embody religious ideas, and parables set forth prophetical truths, they cannot be types of future facts in the history of salvation. If the three days’ confinement of Jonah in the belly of the fish really had the typical significance which Christ attributes to it in Matt. xii. 39 sqq. and Luke xi. 29 sqq., it can neither be a myth or dream, nor a parable, nor merely a visionary occurrence experienced by the prophet; but must have had as much objective reality as the facts of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.’
But if it follows from what has been said, that our book contains facts of a symbohico-typical meaning from the life of the prophet Jonah, there is no tenable ground left for disputing the authorship of the prophet himself. At the same time, the fact that Jonah was the author is not in itself enough to explain the admission of the book among the writings of the minor prophets. his place the book received, not because it related historical events that had happened to the prophet Jonah, but because these events were practical prophecies. Marck saw this, and has the following apt remark upon this point: “The writing is to a great extent historical, but so that in the history itself there is hidden the mystery of a very great prophecy; and he proves himself to be a true
1 Compare also the critical examination of the more recent views that have been published against the historical character of the book of Jonah, and the negative and positive vindication of the historical view, in Havernick’s Handbuch der Binleitung in d. A. T. ii. 2, p. 326.sqq.; and the discussions on the symbolical character of the book by Hengstenberg (Christology, vol.1. p. 404 sqq. translation), and K. H. Sack in his Chriséliche Apologetik, p. 843 sqq., ed. 2.
prophet quite as much by his own fate as he does by his prophecies.”
For the exegetical literature on the book of Jonah, see my Lehrbuch der Einleitung, p. 291.
Jonah tries to avoid fulfilling the command of God, to preach repentance to the great city Nineveh, by a rapid flight to the sea, for the purpose of sailing to Tarshish (vers. 1-3); but a terrible storm, which threatens to destroy the ship, brings his sin to light (vers. 4-10); and when the lot singles him out as the culprit, he confesses that he is guilty; and in accordance with the sentence which he pronounces upon himself, is cast into the sea (vers. 11-16).