Verse 6
"So the shipmaster came unto him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not."
"Shipmaster ..." This officer was actually "the captain," or as the literal import of the word implies, "the chief of the rope-men." The nautical terms used in this book were doubtless well known to the inhabitants of Galilee who lived in close proximity to the Phoenicians, who were a sea-faring people, and from whom the inhabitants of the northern kingdom would have adopted many words, due to their contact with the Phoenicians who carried the burden of Israel's foreign trade. Criticism of Jonah based upon the appearance of a few such nautical terms is petty and irresponsible quibbling.
How sin degrades and reduces God's servant. Behold Jonah, who, had he been doing his duty, might have been reproving the king of Nineveh, is instead himself here upbraided by a heathen shipmaster!
"Call upon thy God ..." Jonah had evidently mentioned the God of Israel at the time he boarded the ship; and, as many ancient nations had heard of Jehovah's power, there seems here to be some hope on the part of the shipmaster that the feared God of the Israelites might be enlisted to aid them in their extremity.
"If so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not ..." These words vividly recall Psalms 40:17, "The Lord thinketh upon me," which has the meaning that God succours and defends those who call upon him.
Be the first to react on this!
