THIS

book of Jonah, though it be placed here in the midst of the prophetical

books of scripture, is yet rather a history than a prophecy; one line

of prediction there is in it, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be

overthrown; the rest of the book is a narrative of the preface to

and the consequences of that prediction. In the midst of the obscure

prophecies before and after this book, wherein are many things dark and

hard to be understood, which are puzzling to the learned, and are

strong meat for strong men, comes in this plain and pleasant

story, which is entertaining to the weakest, and milk for babes.

Probably Jonah was himself the penman of this book, and he, as Moses

and other inspired penmen, records his own faults, which is an evidence

that in these writings they designed God’s glory and not their own. We

read of this same Jonah

2 Kings xiv. 25,

where we find that he was of Gath-hepher in Galilee, a city that

belonged to the tribe of Zebulun, in a remote corner of the land of

Israel; for the Spirit, which like the wind, blows where it

listeth, will as easily find out Jonah in Galilee as Isaiah at

Jerusalem. We find also that he was a messenger of mercy to Israel in

the reign of Jeroboam the second; for the success of his arms, in the

restoring of the coast of Israel, is said to be according to

the prophet. Those prophecies were not committed to writing, but

this against Nineveh was, chiefly for the sake of the story that

depends upon it, and that is recorded chiefly for the sake of Christ,

of whom Jonah was a type; it contains also very remarkable instances of

human infirmity in Jonah, and of God’s mercy both in pardoning

repenting sinners, witness Nineveh, and in bearing with repining

saints, witness Jonah.