to perish, even if we are in the midst of death and in hell.12 And here he prescribes for us the manner in which we must be saved from temptation, as if to say: "If someone is knocked down, if he feels the horror of death and is in hell, let him call on the Lord, just as also I have called on Him. Think on the Lord, call on Him confidently, and immediately He who has been called will be present." Many psalms pertain to this subject.
7. When my soul fainted within me. This has also been taken from a psalm, Ps. 43:5: "Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why, etc."
8. Those who pay regard to vain idols. Here the Spirit is immediately at work, so that the same person who has learned from his own experience also teaches others and condemns whatever it is we trust in when we are safe from temptation. The only completely true worship of God is for us in trouble to flee to Him as to a father in hope of receiving help. All our own works, desires, and efforts with which we want to help ourselves are nothing. They can help us in no way. They all collapse in temptation, for they are vain idols, as Jonah says about them here. Not only that, but people are worthless when they guard and keep vain idols. Thus worry or concern is vanity, and those very Works with which they worry themselves sick are vanity.
Forsake their mercy, that is, the mercy of God, the only thing they should have hoped for. For this is God's mercy on us, since it is the only thing for which we ought to hope and the only thing through which we are saved in all troubles. All other things by which we want to help ourselves are vanity. We do not learn to hold on to the mercy of God except in temptation when we think that we are done for, when not only God but also all creatures seem to be against us, when we cannot be healed from misfortune by our own plans, wisdom, reason, and all our own efforts.
9. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to Thee. This is the proper sacrifice of saints; this alone the Lord requires from them. These are the calves of their lips, this is their giving of thanks. Look at all of Ps. 50: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise" (v. 14). Likewise: "He who brings a sacrifice of praise honors Me" (v. 23), namely, when we credit to God all the things we have received, and nothing to ourselves, etc.
What I have vowed I will pay. The expression "to repay vows" which occurs here and there in the Psalms means "to give thanks," for to repay a vow is to confess and proclaim that the Lord alone is our
God, who is the only one who is both able and willing to save us from every temptation and trouble. We would be done for unless He Himself would save us, etc.
10. It vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. In this way death and sin are an opportunity for life and righteousness for the saints; shame becomes an opportunity for glory. Truly "all things work together for good for them" (Rom. 8:28), as we have said at the beginning of this chapter. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall hunger? Shall persecution? etc." (Rom. 8:35).
ABOUT the magnitude of Jonah's task we have already said enough, and more than enough, in the first chapter.
3. Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. What we read in our Latin Bible, "of a journey (itinere) of three days," a more accurate translation from the Hebrew would render as "of a traversal (transitu) of three days." The assertion that the size of the city was remarkable does not convince me that the city could scarcely be crossed in three days. Jerome says that the city was that large in circumference. Lyra thought that such a measurement was the region surrounded by the walls. I am firmly convinced that it did not approach Cologne or Erfurt in size. And this is the reason for my thinking this way. There is a passage in the fourth chapter which influences me (4:11): "In which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons, etc." This is certainly a small number of inhabitants for a city as large as they wish to make it. And so I come to the conclusion that this is the meaning: "Of a traversal of three days" means the distance someone could traverse step by step through all the neighborhoods, etc. Furthermore, it is also a serious mistake in the Latin Bible that the name of God has been omitted. It ought to read this way: "It was a great city of God (or to God)." All the Hebrew copies are in perfect agreement and contain this name, and Jerome did not omit it in his Latin translation. And in this passage all the interpreters go far astray. For it is certain that the city is not called God's city because it was built by God, for Asshur built it, a fact that is very evident from Genesis, chapter 10.1 Furthermore, the city was not called God's city because it was founded on God's laws. Therefore I think that the meaning is that God was concerned
- 10 about this city, that God planned that the city should not perish. This is why He sent prophets to the people there, that they might be turned from their evil way and be saved. And this is the point about which I have spoken at great length at the beginning of this prophet, that God is the God not only of the Jews but also of the Gentiles.
4. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey, that is, he finished one-third of his proclamation.
And he cried. More correctly it would be translated, "And he preached."
Yet forty days. With very few words he describes the main point and the content of his preaching, but he undoubtedly explained it with very many words. When he preached, he used his own passages to prove that God's wrath was coming against the people of Nineveh. He explained to them that God had sent him, and he set forth and declared to them their sin and the cause of God's wrath, etc.
5. They proclaimed a fast, etc. The enemies of faith regularly throw this passage up to us because they think they have found something worthy of the palm against us. Blindly they read the words "God respected the works of the people of Nineveh" and from their own judgment bring forth a witness against justification by faith. Since our eyes have been opened, let us not be blind like these men, but let us look at the words of the Holy Spirit and more thoroughly understand that it is no accident that the first thing that is stated is that the people of Nineveh believed God. This is the standard and rule with which all things that are added concerning works must be harmonized. For if faith in the heart is sincere, it does not have need for any teacher of good works; it knows in itself what must be done. Thus the prophet Jonah speaks a mere word (this is what he had been sent for), commanding nothing at all about works. But since the people of Nineveh believed the Word of God, of their own free will and with their faith as the leader and originator they did these works by which they gave external proof of their internal faith. In plain words, faith alone justifies a person, Rom. 3–5. After a man has been justified by faith, it is inevitable that the fruits of justification follow, since a good tree is not able not to bear good fruits, and a bad tree bad fruits, as Christ says (Matt. 7:18). We see the same thing here in every respect, for he says, "They believed, etc." The works therefore did not make the faith, but the faith performed the works. And so this passage is not against us at all, but it supports us.
And put on sackcloth. This is a Hebraism, just as it is to say "to eat bread and to drink water," where we Germans say, "He has eaten and has drunk." And so this "to be clothed with sackcloth" is to lay aside clean and splendid clothes and to put on dirty ones. This is very plain from many Bible passages. Is. 20:2:
"Loose the sackcloth from your loins"; Is. 50:3: "I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering," that is, "I make heaven sad, cloudy, and obscure." And in this very prophet we see this
Hebraism, for he says later (v. 8): "But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth." Sackcloth is a strange clothing for beasts of burden.
6. Then tidings reached the king. Here we see what I mentioned before about the power and effectiveness of the Word preached by Jonah. Although this king had not heard Jonah preach in his presence, nevertheless, after he had been informed about Jonah's preaching, he also preached and converted one-third of his own city by his own preaching. He arose from his royal throne, laid aside his purple finery, and clothed himself instead in sackcloth, a lowly and mournful garb. By doing these things along with the other citizens, he proved his internal grief.
And sat in ashes. This is also a Hebraism, for a lowly place to sit goes along with lowly attire. He sat in some lowly place where, under other circumstances, it was not fitting for a king to sit.
7. From the mouth of the king and his nobles. It would be more correct to translate "By an edict of the king and his princes."
Neither man nor beast, herd nor flock. The excellent and most high God does not look at the works of the beasts, nor are they pleasing to Him, but the things which are done by faith cannot fail to please God exceedingly. In this way faith does all the things that are very pleasing to God. For the things that are done from faith are right and pleasing in God's sight. On the other hand, Rom. 14:23: "Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." In this sense also the fasting of the beasts pleased God, but it would not have pleased Him less if the king had fed the beasts.
8. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, that is, let them prove the sorrow and penitence for their grief over sin; let them not dress in fine clothes. Thus whatever a contrite heart does by faith is very pleasing to God—no matter how ridiculous it may look.