8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a "vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die,

for the singular noun in the Hebrew) denotes the class of creatures employed, and not an individual worm. The palmcrist was in all probability "smitten" by a host of caterpillars suddenly appearing upon its leaves.

smote the gourd] smote the palmcrist. The verbsmote" is chosen to express the suddenness of the effect wrought by the caterpillars. Niebuhr in his' Beschreibung Arabiens' (p. 148) observes that the leaf of the palmcrist, when torn off, or even subjected to a slight lesion, withers away in a few minutes. Rumph, moreover, in his Herbarium Amboinense' (IV. P. 94, cited by Rosenmüller, Winer, and Dr Pusey), writes, "On warm days when a small rain falls, black caterpillars are generated in great numbers on this plant, which in one night so often and so suddenly cut off its leaves, that only their bare ribs remain; which I have often observed with much wonder, as though it were a copy of that destruction of old at Nineveh." Dr Pusey adds, upon the indication of Sir W. Hooker, that the Ricinus of India and Assyria furnishes food to a different caterpillar from that of Amboyna, but that the account still illustrates the rapidity of the destruction.

8. prepared] appointed.

a vehement east wind] Or rather, "a sultry east wind." The meaning of the Hebrew word rendered "vehement" or "sultry (in the margin of A. V. "silent"), is extremely uncertain, and several other senses have been given to it. The preponderance of critical authority is in favour of rendering it "silent or "sultry." So Targum, Mercer, Grotius, Rosenmüller, Maurer, Keil, Gesenius, Fürst. See Note below.

beat upon the head] smote the head, as in Ps. cxxi. 6; Isai. xlix. 10.

and avished in himself to die] asked that his soul might die; lit. "asked for his soul to die." So Rosenmüller, Maurer, Ewald, (Lehrbuch,' § 336 b), Vulg., Luther, Pusey. The LXX. has "renounced his soul." "Soul" here means the principle of animal existence shared with all animate creatures.

Cp. Judg. xvi. 30, "Let my soul die with the Philistines" (margin A.V.). In 1 K. xix. 4 we have the very same expression as here, followed by the prayer which explains it, "now, O Lord, take away my soul” (A.V. life"). This coincidence in the two narra

66

Art thru

9 And God said to Jonah, 'Doest Or, thou well to be angry for the gourd ? greatly And he said, 'I do well to be angry, for, even unto death.

10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast

angry!

greatly

angry.

tives favours the belief, that the precedent of Elijah's impatience was at all events before the mind of the writer of this book, and may even have been present to Jonah's own recollection at the time; the stumbling of one prophet proving the stumbling of the other. This fresh outbreak of impatience on the part of Jonah is to be ascribed to his renewed sense of vexation at the sparing of Nineveh; this had for a while been somewhat allayed by the comfort, both bodily and spiritual, brought to him by the palmcrist; but now it rose up afresh, heightened by the destruction of the goodly tree and by the distressing heat of the sun. The impulsive vehemence of his temper is betrayed, alike in the pleasure which he took in the palmcrist's beauty, and in his vexation at its loss.

9. Doest thou sell to be angry...I do well to be angry] Or rather, as in margin, "Art thou greatly angry?"..." I am greatly angry." See note on v. 4.

nigh kills me. even unto death] That is, so that it wellSo Judg. xvi. 16; Ecclus. xxxvii. 2; Matt. xxvi. 38. The reply betrays a strange degree of wilfulness: it shews the prophet in the attitude of a sullen child towards a loving father who is remonstrating with it. His behaviour is in the highest degree irrational and unjustifiable; yet the description is quite true to nature; it is exactly thus that even persons in the main pious too often allow themselves to act. We must bear in mind that the interlocution between Jehovah and his servant was no doubt transacted in

Jonah's own soul; the suggestions of the Holy Spirit within him being met by the outcomings of the prophet's inward feeling, in some such way (though we dare not affirm in precisely the same way) as the dictates of conscience are within ourselves met by those of our own evil passions.

10. Thou hast had pity on the gourd] Thou on thy part hast spared (or "hast been loth to lose ") the palmerist. "Thou on thy part" represents the emphatic introduction in the Hebrew of the personal pronoun, The verb is the same as in the frequently recurring phrase of one's eye "pitying" or "sparing," as Deut. vii. 16, xiii. 8; Isai. xiii. 18; Ezek. v. 11, &c.; but it is here used with the same turn of meaning as in Gen. xlv. 20,"regard not your stuff” (Heb. "let not

your eye spare your stuff"). It denotes the clinging fondness one feels for a dearly prized possession.

madest it grow] madest it great, broughtest it to that fine degree of development which this particular plant displayed. The finely developed palmcrist which Jonah lamented, is compared with the Nineveh, which Jehovah had made so "great."

which came up in a night, and perished in a night] This is no doubt the right translation of the words, and not, as in the margin, "was the son of the night." The Hebrew is literally, "which the son of a night came into being, and the son of a night perished." There appears to be an Aramaism in this use of the phrase "son of -;" this at least, in the absence of any parallel instance in the Hebrew Scriptures (for Exod. xii. 5 is not exactly alike), we may infer from the fact noted by Gesenius (Thes.' p. 217) that the PeshitoSyriac version, in Deut. xxiv. 15, for "at his day" (A. V.) has "the son of the day," and in Prov. xii. 16 ["a fool's wrath is presently known" (A. V.)] has "the son of the hour."

11. spare] Or, "be loth to lose." Jehovah speaks in the character of Owner, Aeonórns, as well as in that of Maker and Preserver.

more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left band] It has been suggested that this description indicates the whole population of Nineveh, viewed as destitute of moral discernment; but the history of ch. iii. shews that such a description of the Ninevites in general would have been altogether out of place. That infants are meant, is shewn by the comparison of Deut. i. 39 and Isai. vii. 15, 16, and by the subjoined reference to the "much cattle." The limit of the age to which this description would properly apply has been differently assigned, some taking that of three years, others, as Niebuhr (quoted with approval by Keil), seven. It is stated that this last is among orientals a favourite period to give to childhood; it also better suits the passage as designing to express the period of irresponsibleness than the shorter period would do. It is calculated that children under seven average one-fifth of the whole

veh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

population, and that we thus are brought to six hundred thousand as the number of the inhabitants of Nineveh. There is no reason for thinking the computation extravagant, supposing the place so called to have comprised together with Nineveh proper other large masses of population in its immediate vicinity. See above on ch. iii. 3. The purpose of the mention of these 120,000 children is at once to indicate how large the city was, as appears from its immediately following the words "that great city," and also to present a plea for shewing mercy to a population so many_of whom had not themselves deserved to suffer.

The argument of these last two verses comprises a number of very striking thoughts. Some of them are the following: Any vegetable growth is of small account compared with a human being, much more compared with a large city: The mushroom-like, frail, existence of a palmcrist shews as nothing by the side of the ancient city of Nineveh (Gen. x. 11): God's works are a dearly-prized possession in His eyes, with which He is loth to part, especially when He has "laboured" for them and brought them to great magnitude by a long process of care (compare Job x. 3, 8, 9; Jer. xlv. 4; the "lost sheep" and the "lost piece of silver" in Luke xv.): While no reference is here made to the repentance of the Ninevites, a consideration of vast weight, and one which would have been of itself amply sufficient, which however at present stands in the background,—stress is ex abundanti laid upon the 120,000 innocents which Nineveh contained, mighty though unconscious intercessors! nay, even upon the "much cattle" which was there, shewing that God does "care for oxen." Altogether, a glimpse is here afforded us into the Heart of God whose tender mercies are over all His works, which not only marks the passage as one of remarkable beauty, but also fits it to be through all ages a standing reproof of every form of bigotry.

The narrative closes abruptly without stating the impression left upon the prophet's own mind. See Introduction, p. 580. But this the narrator deems unnecessary. It suffices him, Jonah (as we suppose) himself, that the prophet's narrow-mindedness is exposed and rebuked, and that God's mercy is justified.

"A vehement ast wind." The rendering "vehement " preferred by Dr Pusey seems at first sight to be countenanced by the fact, established by the concurrent testimony of travellers (as Morier, Rich and Layard), that the neighbourhood of Nineveh is subject to extremely violent storms or whirlwinds of hot wind coming from the east, very partial in their extent, carrying along dense clouds of dust and sand, by which the air is darkened and under which all vegetation is burnt up and even swept away. The east wind is in fact in those countries the most violent of all winds. See e.g. Layard's 'Nineveh and its Remains' (abridgement, 1851), p. 82; "The heat was now almost intolerable. Violent whirlwinds occasionally swept over the face of the country. They could be seen as they advanced from the desert, carrying along with them clouds of sand and dust. Almost utter darkness prevailed during their passage, which lasted generally about an hour, and nothing could resist their fury. On returning home one afternoon after a tempest of this kind, I found no traces of my dwellings; they had been completely carried away. Ponderous wooden frame-works had been borne over the bank, and hurled some hundred yards distant;

the tents had disappeared, and my furniture was scattered over the plain.' But there are serious objections to this rendering of the word: there is no mention made of any such effects as would follow a gale of the kind supposed, which would have utterly swept away the frail booth of the prophet; such a hot whirlwind would have sufficed of itself for the destruction of the palmcrist without the agency of the "worm;" the sun's rays, instead of beating upon the prophet's head during the prevalence of the east wind, would have been rather allayed by the clouds of dust which a violent gale would have brought with it. In fact, no other effect appears to be ascribed to the east wind here spoken of than that of making the air extremely hot. It seems therefore more probable that some such sense as "sultry" is the one intended, though what the word precisely means it seems impossible to determine in the absence of any other example of its use, or of any certain guidance furnished by its etymology. Its root, meaning " engrave," "fabricate," "plough," "be deaf," or "be mute," has supplied material for a number of ingenious conjectures as to its meaning, both to Rabbinical and to modern critics. See Gill, Dr Pusey, and Gesenius.

Si. THE 'HE word Micah (?) is the shortened form of Micaiah' () which literally means, Who is like Jehovah? The name was in common use among the Israelites. In one or other of its forms it is found in Judg. xvii. 1; 1 K. xxii. 8; 1 Chro. viii. 34, xxiii. 20; 2 Chro. xviii. 7; Jer. xxxvi. II. It is applied, in a single instance, to a female, the wife of Rehoboam, but probably, by the mistake of a copyist, for Maachah. See 2 Chro. xiii. 2.

The author of this book was called "the Morasthite" (Micah i. 1; Jer. xxvi. 18), most likely to distinguish him from his namesake Micaiah, the son of Imlah, the prophet of the time of Ahab, 1 K. xxii. 8. The designation implies that he was a native, or an inhabitant, of Moresheth, a village in the neighbourhood of Gath (Micah i. 14) in the Shephelah, or maritime plain of the kingdom of Judah. The place is described by Jerome as, in his time, viculus haud grandis. Nothing is known of Micah's parentage. His ministry was coeval with that of Isaiah, but it did not begin so early, nor continue so late. He tells us, in the inscription of his book, that he prophesied in the days of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. Isaiah began to prophesy under Uzziah, the predecessor of Jotham, and perhaps outlived the reign. of Hezekiah. Micah appears to have died in the earlier part of Hezekiah's

1 In several places of the A.V. spelt Michaiah. VOL. VI.

book

reign. See § ii. The time of his ministry may thus have lain between A. C. 756 and A. C. 710.

We can glean but very little regarding the circumstances of his life. It would seem that he continued to reside in his native region, or at least to regard it as the centre of his interest, from the fact that the nine places mentioned in his first chapter (vv. 10-15), the fate of which he saw as the result of the Assyrian invasion, appear to have been situated within a small area in the south part of the Shephelah. His habitual residence at Moresheth would, of course, be quite compatible with his paying frequent visits to the capital, the object of love, reverence and hope, to every genuine Israelite. It was probably on one of these occasions, it may have been at one of the great festivals soon after the accession of Hezekiah, that he awoke with effect the slumbering conscience of his countrymen with the startling announcement, "Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest." This utterance, as the prophecy of "Micah the Morasthite," with the circumstances attending it, lived long in the minds of his devout countrymen. See Jer. xxvi. 18, 19.

2 The attempt of Keil and others to identify some of these names with spots in the immediate neighbourhood, or to the north of Jerusalem, seems to fail utterly.

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§ ii. His prophetic visions and, in some places, his style of recording them, have a strong resemblance to those of Isaiah. He foresaw what would be the issue of the Assyrian invasion, which Isaiah lived to record as historical fact. He foretold the destruction of Samaria, the approach of the enemy, in a later. invasion, to the very gates of Jerusalem, with the laying waste of the fenced cities of Judah. Cp. Micah i. 9 with Isai. xxxvi., xxxvii. It was revealed to him that a time of grace would yet be granted to Jerusalem, but that a day would come when the whole race of Judah should be swept out of their own land into captivity. He saw, with not less clearness, that a day would come when the remnant of Israel would be restored.

He never lets his people forget that their sufferings were the proper fruit of their evil deeds. They had become debased and dishonest in their common dealings with each other: mutual confidence had perished in the nearest relationships of human life; the magistrates were open to bribes; the nobles were recklessly cruel and rapacious; the priests had become hirelings; the prophets were greedy traitors to their sacred calling: idols and witchcraft had usurped the worship of Jehovah. He deals less than Isaiah with the sins of the national government. His references to the social condition of the people would fit the state of things under Ahaz, and under Hezekiah at the very beginning of his reign, before his reforms had taken effect.

But in contemplating this utterly poisoned condition of society, he was never permitted to lose sight of the Divine promises. Again and again he abruptly turns to take a glance at the vision of good things to come. The promises made to Abraham and Jacob (vii. 20) were safely treasured in his heart as his ever ready source of com

fort.

§ iii. But he also never fails to keep us in mind that the restoration of the old chosen race is but a type of the reign of the Messiah. What he says of the temporal kingdom is ever connecting itself with the kingdom to come which is not of this world. In no one of the prophets is this peculiarity more marked. But he

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and Isaiah stand alone in the distinctness with which they bring forth the facts of our Saviour's life on earth. It was given to Micah to see that He, Whose goings forth were from everlasting, was to come into the world, in a village as humble as Moresheth, his own birthplace. Note after chap. v. Still it was Jerusalem, "the Flock-town" (see on iv. 8), which was to be the centre from which the divine teaching was to stream forth to cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. And it was thither the "many nations" were to rush, and Judah and Israel were to return again to become one people, the nucleus of the Universal Church of God. Chap. ii. 12, 13, iv. 2,

&c.

iv. When speaking of their great common subject, the sublime eloquence of Micah may well be compared with that of Isaiah, except that its flights are less sustained. It is a striking point in the relation in which the two prophets stood to each other, that one notable passage is common to them, Isai. ii. 2, 3, 4; Micah iv. 1, 2, 3. A great weight of authority ascribes the original authorship of the passage to Micah. But the question is not satisfactorily settled. See the notes in each place.

§ v. Perhaps no one of the prophets, not even excepting Jeremiah and Hosea, affords us such a marked impression of his own temper and disposition, little as he expressly tells of himself. When he is not rapt into the glories of the Messiah's kingdom, his style in almost every line is full of character. He shews himself to be tenderly affectionate, sympathetic and excitable. Something of the warm familiarity, with which he regarded his own neighbourhood, seems to be exemplified in the very peculiar style of the passage in which he predicts the fate of the nine cities of the Shephelah, with a play on the name of each one of them, i. 10-15. His fervid sympathy prompts him to put himself into the guise of a captive waiting for the strokes which were to fall upon Israel (i. 8); to roll himself in dust on account of the woe to come upon Beth-aphrah (i. 10); to see with the intense excitement of an eyewitness the progress of "the Breaker" who was to force a way for the crowd of His people to escape from their captivity