Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/6_500.lzh/6_535.TXT

Text File | 1994-11-02 | 7KB | 130 lines

that laelaps or storm of wind. which' came down into
the sea when the disciples of Christ were on it in a
ship; or like the Euroclydon, in which the Apostle
Paul was: so that the ship was like to be broken; it was
i,n danger of it; it seemed as if it would, the waves of
the sea were so strong, and beat so hard upon it. It is.
in the original text. the ship thouhgt it should be broken {z};
that is, the men in it; they that had the management of
it thought nothing less but that it would be dashed to
pieces, and all their goods and lives lbst; so great was
the hurricane occasioned by the wind the Lord sent.
It may be rendered, that ship {a}q was like, &c. The
Jews {b} have a notion that other ships passed to and fro
in great tranquillily, and this only was in distress.
Ver. 5. Then the mariners were afraid, &c.] Per-
ceiving that the storm was not an ordinary, but a pr.e-
ternatural one; and that the ship and all in it were m
extreme danger, and no probability of being saved.
This shews that the storm must be very violent, to
frighten such men who were used to the sea, and to
storms, and were naturally bold and intrepid. The word
used signifies salters, so called from the salt sea they used,
as they are by us mariners, from mare, the sea; though
R. Japhet in Aben Ezra thinks the commodity they
carried in their vessel was salt: and cried every man to
hisgod: to .help them, and save them out of their dis-
tress. In the ship it seems weremen ofdifferent nations,
and who worshipped different gods. It was-a notion of
the Jews, and which Jarcbi mentions as his own, that
there were men of the seventy nations of the earth in it;
and as each of them had adifferent god, they separately
called upon them. The polytheism of the Pagans is
to be condemned, and shews the great uncertainty of
their religion; yet this appears to be agreeable to the
light of nature that there is a God, and that God
is to be prayed unto, and called upon, especially in
time of trouble: and cast forth the wares that were
in the ship into the sea, to lighten it ef them ; or, the
vessels {}, a word the Hebrews use for all sorts of goods,
utensils, &c.: it includes, with others, their military
weapons they had to defend themselves, their pro-
visions, the ship's stores or goods it was freighted with;
finding their prayers .to their gods were ineffectual,
they betook themselves to this prudential method to
lighten the ship, that they might be able to keep its
head above water. So the Targum, "when they saw
"there was no profit in them ;" that is. in the gods
they called upon, then they did this; the other was a
matter of religion. this a point of prudence; such a
step the mariners took that belonged to the ship in
which the Apostle Paul was, Acts xxvii. ,18, 19, 38:
but Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; into
one of its sides, into a cabin there; the lowest side,
as the Targum: and he lay, and was fast asleep;
even snored, as some versions have it: it may seem
strange he should. when the wind was so strong and
boisterous; the sea roaring; the waves beating; the
ship rolling about; the mariners hurrying from place to
place, and calling to each other to do their duty; and
the passengers crying; and, above all, that he should
fall into so sound a sleep, and continue in it, when he
had such a guilty conscience. 'fhis shews that he was
asleep in a spiritual as well as in a corporeal sense.
Ver. 6. So the shipmaster came to him, &c.] The
master of the vessel, who had the command of it; or the
governor of it, as Jarchi; though Josephus d distin-
guishes .between the governor and the shipmaster: the
master of the ropers {}, as it may be rendered; of the
sailors, whose business it was to draw the ropes, to
loose or gather the sails, at his command: missing
him, very probably, he sought after him, and found
him in the hold, in the bottom of the ship, on one side
of it, fast asleep: and said unto him, what meanest thou,
0 sleeper? this is not a time to sleep, when the ship is
like to be broke to pieces, all lives lost, and thine own
too: thus the prophet, who was sent to rebuke the
greatest monarch in the world, is himself rebuked by a
shipmaster, and a Heathen man. Such an expostu-
lation as this is proper enough to be used with profes-
sors of religion that are gotten in a spiritual sense into
a sleepy and drawsy frame of spirit; it being an aggra-
vation of it, especially when the nation they are of, the
church of Chris% they belong to, and their own persons
also, are in danger; see Rom. xiii. 11. Ephes. v. 14:
arise, call upon thy God; the gods of this shipmaster
and his men were insnfficicnt to help them; they had
ears, but they heard not; nor could they answer them,
or relieve them; he is therefore desirous the prophet
would pray to his God, though he was unknown to
him; or at least it suggests that it would better
come him to awake, and be up, and praying to his
God, than to lie sleeping there; and the manner in
which the words are expressed, without a copulative,
shew the hurry of his spirit, the ardour of his mind,
and the haste he was in to have that done he advises
to: every good man has a God to pray unto, a cove-
nant God and Father, and who is a prayer-hearing God;
is able to help in time of need, and willing to do it;
and it is the duty and interest of such to call upon him
in a time of trouble; yea, they should arise and stir up
themselves to this service; and it may be observed,
that the best 6f men may sometimes be in such a con-
dition and circumstances as to need to be stirred up to
it by others; see Luke xxii. 46: if So be that God will
think upon us, that we perish not; the supreme God;
tbr the gods they had prayed to they looked upon as
mediators with the true-God they knew not. The
shipmaster saw, that, to all human probability, they
were all lost men, just ready to perish; that if they
were saved, (as who knew but they might, upon Jonah's
praying to his God ?) it must be owing to the kind
thoughts 9f God towards them; to the serenity of his
countenance, and gracious acceptance of prayer, and
his being propitious and merciful through that means;
all which seems to be the import of the word used : so
the saving of sinners in a lost and perishing condition,
in which all men are, though all are not sensible of it,
is owing to God's thoughts of peace, to his good will,


{z} \^hbvx\^ putabat, Montanus; cogitavit, Vatablus, Burkius; cogi-
tabat, Drusius, Cocceius.
{a} \^hynah\^ navem illam, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
{b} Pirke Eliezer, c. 10. fol. 10. 1. So Aben Ezra, Jarchi, Kimchi, and
Abendana in loc.
{c} \^Mylkh ta\^ vasa, Vulg. Lat. Vatablus, Grotius.
{d} Ut supra.
{e} \^lbxh br\^ magister funalis, Munster; magister funiculariorum---
so some in Mercer; magister funis, Calvin.