'Assyria had been laying her hand for some generations upon the nations

on the Mediterranean coast, and it was a hand of fierce and ferocious

mastery.  No considerations of pity were permitted to stand in the way

of Assyrian policy ... the kings seem to gloat in their descriptions

over the spectacle presented by the field of battle ... this carnage

was followed up by fiendish inflictions upon individual cities.  The

leading men, as at Lachish when Sennacherib had conquered the city,

were led forth, seized upon by their executioners, and subjected to

various punishments, all of them filled to the brim with horror ... No

man in Israel was ignorant of these things.  Jonah may have witnessed

them ... Nineveh's cup then was full.  The Judge had ascended the

tribunal ... sentence was about to be pronounced ... If Nineveh

perished, Israel was saved, there was only one thing to be feared.

God's mercy might arrest the smiting of God's justice ... What if

Nineveh were left without warning ... it was a choice between vengeance

on him, a rebellious prophet, and vengeance on his people.  He would

sacrifice himself, but let Nineveh perish, and so save Israel ... when

he is cast overboard, there is no prayer, no cry to the Lord, from the

prophet's lips.  He has himself counted the cost.  He has put himself

outside God's mercy.  He has made himself a curse for his people's

sake' (Urquhart).

In the New Testament the name Jonah is used nine times of the Old

Testament prophet, four times of Peter under the name Simon 'son of Jonas',

and once of Peter retaining the Aramaic 'Bar -Jonas'.  Once, Jonah may have

been in mind, when we read in John 7:52, 'Art thou also of Galilee?  Search,

and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet'.  Yet Gath -Hepher, the

birthplace of Jonah, is in Galilee, and it may have been prejudice that

denied Jonah a place among the prophets, and not ignorance of geography;

because Jonah went to the Gentiles.

Every one of the references to the prophet Jonah in the New Testament

deals with either 'the sign' of the three days and three nights, or 'the

preaching' which he made to the men of Nineveh.  Jonah was not only a type of

the resurrection of Christ, but he was a 'sign unto the Ninevites' (Luke

The prophetic import of the book of Jonah seems to be gathered up in

the words of the first verse of chapter 3, 'the second time', as in Isaiah

11:11 which speak of Israel's restoration, or as in Acts 7:13 where 'the

second time, Joseph was made known unto his brethren', foreshadowing the day

that is fast approaching when Israel shall look on Him Whom they have

pierced, or as in Hebrews 9:28 when it is promised that the Saviour shall

appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

Something of the dispensational teaching of the book of Jonah can be

gathered by a reference to that other follower of the Lord, Simon son of

Jonas, who at the selfsame place 'Joppa' (Acts 10:5; Jonah 1:3) hesitated and

argued when warned by God at the sending of Cornelius the Gentile with a

request that he might tell him words, whereby both he and all his house

should be saved (Acts 11:14).  Jonah, when questioned by the mariners, said

'I am an Hebrew' (1:9).  Peter, when he met Cornelius, said 'Ye know how that

it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto

one of another nation' (Acts 10:28) a sentiment shared by the church at

Jerusalem (11:1 -3).  Peter confessed that he had at length become convinced

that 'In every nation he that feareth Him (God) and worketh righteousness, is

accepted with Him' (10:35), and Jonah reveals that his disobedience was