against it". The word `cry' has the sense of making a general proclamation: some one

has suggested he was told to "thunder forth". He was to make his message widely

known.  We discover the content of his proclamation, when he eventually reached

Nineveh, from chapter 3: 4, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown". It is

not recorded that his message included the need to repent, although in the event this was

the result. It may be that his prejudice prevented him from appealing to the Ninevites to

repent, and that while he was pleased to pronounce God's judgment upon his people's

enemies, he did not look favourably on God showing them any mercy. Whether so or

not, the thought itself is a sufficient warning to those who have the responsibility of

preaching, to beware of letting their own ideas and prejudices influence their message.

Arise, go to Nineveh: but Jonah rose up to flee . . . . . from the presence of the Lord.

It is clear, however, that he realized he could never escape from God from his words to

the sailors:

"I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and

the dry land" (1: 9).

He reverenced Jehovah, yet he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord. He was

fleeing from Jerusalem and the Temple, for it is clear, for example, from Solomon's

prayer at the dedication of the Temple he had built, that, although it was recognized

Jehovah did not dwell in the Temple, it was nevertheless His Presence Chamber. In

Jonah's psalm, after his deliverance from the belly of the great fish, he says:

"I am cast out of Thy sight; yet I will look again toward Thy holy temple" (2: 4).

It was the meeting place, the place of fellowship with God. In fleeing he knew he was

doing wrong, and he could not "face" fellowship with Jehovah as a result.

But why did Jonah wish to avoid the fulfillment of his commission? He knew that

Assyria was to be the "rod" of Jehovah's anger against Israel (Isa. 10: 5). Yet he had

himself prophesied to the effect that the Lord had said he would not blot out the name of

Israel from under heaven (II Kings 14: 25, 27). How could Jonah reconcile the two

prophecies? How could he act in a way which would invalidate his own prophecy? How

could he, a true patriot, do anything to bring about the downfall of his own nation? So he

rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord. He prophesied about B.C.690, but it was

not for about a further 60 years before Isaiah confirmed the judgment of God upon Israel

through Assyria. Meanwhile it was a day of salvation for both Israel and Assyria. But

Jonah did not realize this, and in the vain hope of averting the judgment of God upon

Israel, he hoped for God's judgment upon Nineveh, and, from the human viewpoint

understandably, he did not wish to be the means of preserving the nation destined to be

"the rod of mine anger". Neither of the two nations availed themselves permanently of

the time for repentance. We need to heed the lesson presented to us by Jonah, and to

avoid trying to bring our own ideas of what God ought, or will do into our own life and