Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/6_500.lzh/6_543.TXT

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rod, he acts according to the word; he's now' made
willing to go on the Lord's errand, and do his btlsiuess,
under the influence of his power and grace; he stands
not consulting with the flesh, but immediately arises
and sets forward on .his journey, as directed and coln-
manded, being rid of that timorous spirit, and those
fears, he was before possessed of; his afflictions bad
been greatly sanctified to him, to restore his straying
soul, and cause him to keep and observe the word of
the Lord; and his going to Nineveh, and preaching to
a Heathen people, after his deliverance out of the
fish's belly, was a type of the preaching of the Gospel
to the Gentiles by .the. apostles, according to the com-
mission of Christ renewed unto them, after his resur-
rection from the dead, Acts xxvi. 23. ahd after many
failings of theirs. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great
city: or a city great to God {m} ; not dear t0' him, for it
was full of wickedness; not great in his esteem, with
whom the whole earth is as nothing; but known by
him to be what it was; and the name of God is often
used of things, to express the superlative nature and
greatness of them, as trees of God, mountains of God,
the flame of God, &c. PsaI. xxxvi. 7- and lxxx. 10.
Cant. viii. 6. it was a greater city than Babylon, of
which see the note on ch..i. 2: of three days'journey;
in compass, being sixty miles, as Diodorus Siculus {n}
relates; and allowing twenty miles for a day's journey
on foot, as this was, and which is as much as a man can
ordinarily do to hold it, was just three days journey;
and so Herodotus* reckons a day,s journey at 150
furlongs, which make about nineteen miles; but, ac-
cording to the Jewish writers, a middling day's journey
is ten parsas {p}, and every parsa makes four miles, so
that with them it is forty miles: or else it was three
days' journey in the length of it, as Kimchi thinks,
from end to end. This is observed to show the great-
ness of the city, which was the greatesf in the whole
world, as well as to !end on to the following account.
Ver. 4. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's
journey, &c.] As soon as he came to it, he did not go
into an inn, to refiesh himself after his wearisome
journey; or spend his time in gazing upon the city,
and to observe its .structure, and the curiosities of it;
but immediately sets about his work, and proclaims
wha.t he was bid to do; and before he could finish one
day's journey, he had no need to proceed any further, the
whole city was alarmed with his preaching, was terri-
fled with it, awl brought to repentance by it: and he
cried; as tie went along; he lifted up his voice like a
trumpet, that every one might hear; he did not mutter
it out, as if afraid to deliver his message, but cried
aloud in the hearing of all; and very probably now and
then made a stop in the streets, where there was a
concourse of people, or where more streets met, and
there, as a herald, procla:n,ed what he had to say:
and said, yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown ;
not by a foreign army besit-ging and taking it, which
was not probable to be done in such a space oftline,
but by the immediate power of God; either by fire
from heaven, as he overthrow Sodom and Gomorrah,
their works being like theirs, as Kimchi and Ben
MeleCh observe, or by an earthquake; that is, within
tbrty days, or at the end of forty days, as the Targum ;.
not. exceeding such a space, which was granted
for their repentance, which is implied, though not
expressed; and must be understood with this pro-
viso, except it repented, for otherwise why is any
time fixed? and why have they warning given them,
or the prophet sent to them ? and why were they not
.'testroyed at once, as Sodore and Gomorrah, without
any notice ? doubtless, so it would have been, had not
this been the case. The Septuagint version very
wrongly reads, yet three days, &c.; and as wrongly doe,t
Josephus {q} make Jonah to say, that in a short time they
would lose the empire of Asia, when only the destruc-
tion of Nineveh is threatened; though, indeed, that
loss followed upon it.
Vet. 5. So the people of Nineveh believed God',' &c.]
Or in God {r} : in the word of the Lord, as the Targum;
they believed there was a God, and that he, in Whose
name Jonah came, was the true God; they believed the
word the prophet spake was not the word of man, but,
the word of God; faith came by hearing the word, which
is the spring of true repentance, and-the root of all good
works. Kimchi and R. Jeshuah, in Aben Ezra, sup-
pose that the men of the ship, in which Jonah had
been, ivere at Nineveh; and these testified that they
had cast him into the sea, and declared the whole af-
fair concerning him; and this served greatly to engage
their attention to him, and believe what he said :. but
this is no/certain; and, besides, their hith was the
effect of the divine power that went along with the.
preaching of Jonah, and not owing to the persuasion
of men. Andproclaimed a fast; not of themselves, but
by the order of their king, as follows; though Kimchi
thinks this was before that: and put on sackcloth, from.
the greatest of them even to the least .of them; both.
with respect to rank and age, so universal were their
fasting and mourning; in token of which they stripped
themselves.of their common and rich apparel, and
clothed themselves with sackcloth; as was usual in ex-
traordinary cases of mourning, not only with tb.e Jews,
but other nations.
Ver. 6. For word' came unto the king of Nineveh, &c.]
Who was not Sarda, napalus, a very dissolute prince,
and abaudoned to his lusts; but rather Pul, the same
that came against Menahem king of israel, 2 Kings
xv. 19. as Bishop Usher {} thinks ;. to him" news were
brought that there was such a prophet cotne into the
city, and published such and such things, which met
with credit among the people; and that these, of all
ranks and d'egrees, age and sex,., were afli, cted' with it,
and thrown into the utmost concern about it; so very
swiftly did the ministry of Jonah spread in the city;
and what he delivered was so quickly carried from one
to another, tha4 in one day's time it reached the palace,
and the royal ear: and he arose fi,om his throne; where
he sat in great majesty and splendour, encircled by his

{m} \^Myhlal hlwdg\^ magna Deo, Montanus, Vatablus, Tigurine ver-
sion, Mercerus, Drusius, Cocceius.
{n} Biblioth. l. 2. p. 92.
{o} Terpsichore, sive l. 5. c. 53.
{p} T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 94. 3.
{q} Antiqu. l. 9. c. 10. sect. 2.
{r} \^Myhlab\^ in Deum, V. L.
{s} Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3233. Vid Rollin's Ancient History, vol.
2. p. 30.