[1493] See Robertson Smith, Old Test. in the Jewish Church, pp. 140, 154.
[1494] See above, pp. [499] f.
[1495] Cf. Smend, A. T. Religionsgeschichte, p. 409, n. 1.
[1496] Matt. xii. 40—For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights—is not repeated in Luke xi. 29, 30, which confines the sign to the preaching of repentance, and is suspected as an intrusion both for this and other reasons, e.g. that ver. 40 is superfluous and does not fit in with ver. 41, which gives the proper explanation of the sign; that Jonah, who came by his burial in the fish through neglect of his duty and not by martyrdom, could not therefore in this respect be a type of our Lord. On the other hand, ver. 40 is not unlike another reference of our Lord to His resurrection, John ii. 19 ff. Yet, even if ver. 40 be genuine, the vagueness of the parallel drawn in it between Jonah and our Lord surely makes for the opinion that in quoting Jonah our Lord was not concerned about quoting facts, but simply gave an illustration from a well-known tale. Matt. xvi. 4, where the sign of Jonah is again mentioned, does not explain the sign.
[1497] Take a case. Suppose we tell slothful people that theirs will be the fate of the man who buried his talent, is this to commit us to the belief that the personages of Christ’s parables actually existed? Or take the homiletic use of Shakespeare’s dramas—“as Macbeth did,” or “as Hamlet said.” Does it commit us to the historical reality of Macbeth or Hamlet? Any preacher among us would resent being bound by such an inference. And if we resent this for ourselves, how chary we should be about seeking to bind our Lord by it.
[1498] Eng. trans. of The Twelve Minor Prophets, p. 172. Consult also Farrar’s judicious paragraphs on the subject: Minor Prophets, 234 f.
[1499] The two attempts which have been made to divide the Book of Jonah are those by Köhler in the Theol. Rev., XVI. 139 ff., and by Böhme in the Z.A.T.W., VII. 224 ff. Köhler first insists on traits of an earlier age (rude conception of God, no sharp boundary drawn between heathens and the Hebrews, etc.), and then finds traces of a late revision: lacuna in i. 2; hesitation in iii. 1, in the giving of the prophet’s commission, which is not pure Hebrew; change of three days to forty (cf. LXX.); mention of unnamed king and his edict, which is superfluous after the popular movement; beasts sharing in mourning; also in i. 5, 8, 9, 14, ii. 2, דָּגָה, iii. 9, iv. 1–4, as disturbing context; also the building of a booth is superfluous, and only invented to account for Jonah remaining forty days instead of the original three; iv. 6, להיות צל על ראשׁו for an original לְהַּצִּל לוֹ = to offer him shade; 7, the worm, תולעת, due to a copyist’s change of the following בעלות. Withdrawing these, Köhler gets an account of the sparing of Niniveh on repentance following a sentence of doom, which, he says, reflects the position of the city of God in Jeremiah’s time, and was due to Jeremiah’s opponents, who said in answer to his sentence of doom: If Niniveh could avert her fate, why not Jerusalem? Böhme’s conclusion, starting from the alleged contradictions in the story, is that no fewer than four hands have had to deal with it. A sufficient answer is given by Kuenen (Einl., 426 ff.), who, after analysing the dissection, says that its “improbability is immediately evident.” With regard to the inconsistencies which Böhme alleges to exist in chap. iii. between ver. 5 and vv. 6–9, Kuenen remarks that “all that is needed for their explanation is a little good-will”—a phrase applicable to many other difficulties raised with regard to other Old Testament books by critical attempts even more rational than those of Böhme. Cornill characterises Böhme’s hypothesis as absurd.
[1500] To Thy holy temple, vv. 5 and 8: cf. Psalm v. 8, etc. The waters have come round me to my very soul, ver. 6: cf. Psalm lxix. 2. And Thou broughtest up my life, ver. 7: cf. Psalm xxx. 4. When my soul fainted upon me, ver. 8: cf. Psalm cxlii. 4, etc. With the voice of thanksgiving, ver. 10: cf. Psalm xlii. 5. The reff. are to the Heb. text.
[1501] Cf. ver. 3 with Psalm xviii. 7; ver. 4 with Psalm xlii. 8; ver. 5 with Psalm xxxi. 23; ver. 9 with Psalm xxxi. 7, and ver. 10 with Psalm l. 14.
[1502] Budde, as above, p. 42.