The historical character of the man Jonah is vouched for by Jesus Christ (Matthew 12:39-41), as also that his preservation in the great fish was a "sign" or type of our Lord's own entombment and resurrection.

Both are miraculous and both are equally credible.

2 Kings 14:25 records the fulfilment of a prophecy by Jonah. The man himself was a bigoted Jew, unwilling to testify to a Gentile city, and angry that God had then spared that city. Typically he foreshadows the nation of Israel out of its own land; a trouble to the Gentiles, yet witnessing to them; cast out by them, but miraculously preserved; in their future deepest distress calling upon Jehovah-Saviour, and finding deliverance, and then becoming missionaries to the Gentiles (Zechariah 8:7-23).

Jonah typifies Christ as the sent One, raised from the dead, and carrying salvation to the Gentiles.

The chapter divisions indicate the analysis of Jonah.

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943_a; Jonah 1:2, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city

• Nahum 1:1;
• Ref. Note Page 952_1.

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943_b; Jonah 1:2, that great city, and cry against it

• Cf. Jonah 3:2-3;
  Jonah 4:11;
  Genesis 10:11-12.

  • Ref. Genesis 10:11, 12.

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943_c; Jonah 1:3, with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD

• Genesis 4:16;
• Job 1:12;
• Job 2:7.

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943_d; Jonah 1:9, I fear the LORD, the God of heaven

• Psalm 19:9;

  • Ref. Note Page 607_1.

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943_e; Jonah 1:9b, which hath made the sea and the dry land

• Psalm 146:6;
• Acts 17:24.

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944_1; Jonah 1:17, the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah

No miracle of Scripture has called forth so much unbelief.

The issue is not between the doubter and this ancient record, but between the doubter and the Lord Jesus Christ

• Matthew 12:39, 40).

Science, "falsely so called"

• 1 Timothy 6:20,

failing to take account of the fact that it deals only with the outward phenomena of a fallen race, and of an earth under a curse

• Genesis 3:17-19,

is intolerant of miracle.

To faith, and to true science, miracle is what might be expected of divine love, interposing for good in a physically and morally disordered universe

• Romans 8:19-23.

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944_a; Jonah 1:17, the LORD had prepared a great fish

Four prepared things.

• Jonah 1:17;
  Jonah 4:6, 7, 8.

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952_1; Nahum 1:1, The burden of Nineveh

The burden of Nineveh.

The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

Nineveh stands in Scripture as the representative of apostate religious Gentiledom, as Babylon represents the confusion into which the Gentile political world- system has fallen (Daniel. 2:41-43). See Isaiah 13:1, note.

Under the preaching of Jonah, b.c. 862, the city and king had turned to God (Elohim), Jonah 3:3-10.

But in the time of Nahum, more than a century later, the city had wholly apostatized from God. It is this which distinguishes Nineveh from all the other ancient Gentile cities, and which makes her the suited symbol of the present religious Gentile world-system in the last days. Morally, Nineveh is described in Romans 1:21-23. The chief deity of apostate Nineveh was the bull-god, with the face of a man and the wings of a bird: "an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts."

The message of Nahum, uttered about one hundred years before the destruction of Nineveh, is, therefore, not a call to repentance, but an unrelieved warning of judgment: "He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time," verse 9; see, also, Nah. 3. 10.

There is no remedy for apostasy but utter judgment, and a new beginning.

• Ref. Isaiah 1:4-5,
• Isaiah 1:24-28;
• Hebrews 6:4-8;

  • Cf. Isaiah 1:4-5, 24-28;
    Hebrews 6:4-8;
    Proverbs 29:1.

It is the way of God;

• apostasy is punished by catastrophic destruction. Of this the flood and the destruction of Nineveh are witnesses.
• The coming destruction of apostate Christendom is foreshadowed by these.

  • Ref. Daniel 2:34-35;
  • Luke 17:26-27;
  • Revelation 19:17-21;

    • Cf. Daniel 2:34-35;
      Luke 17:26-27;
      Rev. 19:17-21.

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607_1; Psalm 19:9, the fear of the LORD is clean

Fear Of The Lord

The "fear of the Lord," a phrase of the Old Testament piety, meaning reverential trust, with hatred of evil.

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