Jonah 1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish… Jonah was unwilling to execute his commission; — not under a humble sense of unworthiness and insufficiency; — this would have made him earnest in prayer to God for the courage and strength in which he felt himself to be deficient. This would, in fact, have been the very best qualification for the work assigned him: such feelings and such qualifications we find in Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, but he shrunk from it, through a distrust of God, and a dread of the consequences. His faith in God failed; and then, what did he foresee at Nineveh, but ridicule, and bonds, and death? Perhaps, too, he was living in the enjoyment of comforts, which he must forego, for the chance only of returning from his perilous expedition. It seems, too, that he was apprehensive that the labour and peril might be encountered by him for nothing; for that, after all, the mercy of God would spare the Ninevites, and then some might pour contempt on his predictions. His motives were probably mixed: some of them might not be known to himself; for, having resolved to disobey God, he yielded himself to the power of Satan, who would pour darkness and perplexity into his mind, and would probably succeed at last in persuading him that his offence was far from heinous, and that the severity of the trial would almost excuse his sinning. Possibly he set against this act of disobedience his former zealous exertions in the cause of God; he excused his present cowardice by his former boldness — his present love of ease, by his former self-denial and endurance of injuries. Thus, while he regarded his own credit and ease and safety more than the honour of God and the deliverance of the Ninevites, he deserted his post. Let us not condemn him; but ask ourselves, before God, how we should have acted in the same circumstances. (Matthew M. Preston, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. |
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