In the series Book of Books we continue to study and discuss the Holy Book. And this time our emphasis, first of all, is on the Book of Jonah.
Nowhere in the text is there any statement that Jonah himself wrote the book that bears his name, although the prayer in chapter 2 is in the first person singular. However, Jewish and Christian tradition has steadfastly maintained that Jonah himself is the author, In recent years many have held the position that the book is about Jonah rather than by him. There are several reasons why this view is held (1) chapters 1, 3, and 4 are written in the third person; (2) there are supposedly late Aramaic and Hebrew expressions in the book; (3) the emphasis upon God’s mercy toward foreign people indicates a postexilic date (much after the time of Jonah). Each of these objections has been refuted by conservative scholars.
The prophet Jonah (whose name means “dove”) lived during the days of Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Obadiah. Jeroboam II (782-753 B.C.) was the king in Israel. Jonah predicted Jeroboam’s restoration of Israel’s border back to the glorious days of David and Solomon (2 Kings 14:25). He was the son of Amittai and came from Gath-hepher, a small village three miles northeast of Nazareth, the secluded place where Jesus grew up.
Jonah most likely preached in Nineveh during the reign of Ashurdan III (771-754 B.C.), king of Assyria. Ashur-dan had been unsuccessful in reversing the deterioration of foreign affairs which had begun around 785 B.C. He also had to contend with plagues and internal revolt. These lean years in Assyria’s history may have played a major role in the preparation of Nineveh for Jonah’s ministry.
The Book of Jonah reveals the omnipotent and sovereign God: (1) he “hurls” a storm upon the sea; (2) he causes the lot to fall on Jonah; (3) he calms the storm when Jonah hits the water; (4) he prepares a large fish to swallow Jonah; (5) he causes the fish to deposit Jonah upon dry land; (6) he saves the Ninevites; (7) he prepares a vine overnight; (8) he prepares a worm to eat the vine; (9) he prepares a scorching east wind to cause Jonah discomfort.
Love to one another, what is that in our everyday life?
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34).These words derive impressiveness from having been spoken immediately before the last Supper, and on the eve of the great Sacrifice: the commandment of Love issued appropriately at the time of the Feast of Love, and not long before the great Act of Love. For the love of Christ was no fine saying: it cost Him His life to say these words with meaning, “As I have loved you.”
There is a difficulty in the attempt to grasp the meaning of this command, arising from the fact that words change their meaning. Our Lord affixed a new significance to the word Love: it had been in use, of course, before, but the new sense in which He used it made it a new Word His law is not adequately represented by the word Love: because love is, by conventional usage, appropriated to one species of human affection, which, in the commoner men, is the most selfish of all our feelings: and in the best is too exclusive and individual to represent that Charity which is universal. Nor is Charity a perfect symbol of His meaning: for charity by use is identified with another form of love which is but a portion of it, almsgiving; and too saturated with that meaning to be entirely disengaged from it, even when we use it most accurately.Benevolence or Philanthropy, in derivation, come nearer to the idea: but yet you feel at once that these words fall short: they are too tame and cool; too merely passive, as states of feeling rather than forms of life.
We have no sufficient word. There is therefore no help for it, but patiently to strive to master the meaning of this mighty word Love, in the only light that is left us, the light of the Savior’s life: “As I have loved you”; that alone expounds it. We will dispossess our minds of all preconceived notions; remove all low associations, all partial and conventional ones. If we would understand this law, it must be ever a “new commandment, ever receiving fresh light and meaning from His life.
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