[1503] De Wette, Knobel, Kuenen.
[1504] Budde.
[1505] E.g. Hitzig.
[1506] Luther says of Jonah’s prayer, that “he did not speak with these exact words in the belly of the fish, nor placed them so orderly, but he shows how he took courage, and what sort of thoughts his heart had, when he stood in such a battle with death.” We recognise in this Psalm “the recollection of the confidence with which Jonah hoped towards God, that since he had been rescued in so wonderful a way from death in the waves, He would also bring him out of the night of his grave into the light of day.”
[1507] ii. 5, B has λαόν for ναόν; i. 9, for עברי it reads עבדי, and takes the י to be abbreviation for יהוה; ii. 7, for בעדי it reads בעלי and translates κάτοχοι; iv. 11, for ישׁ־בהּ it reads ישׁבו, and translates κατοικοῦσι.
[1508] i. 4, גדולה, perhaps rightly omitted before following גדול; i. 8, B omits the clause באשר to לנו, probably rightly, for it is needless, though supplied by Codd. A, Q; iii. 9, one verb, μετανοήσει, for ישוב ונחם, probably correctly, see below.
[1509] i. 2, ἡ κραυγὴ τῆς κακίας for רעתם; ii. 3, τὸν θεόν μου after יהוה; ii. 10, in obedience to another reading; iii. 2, τὸ ἔμπροσθεν after קראיה; iii. 8, לאמר.
[1510] iii. 4, 8.
[1511] iv. 2.
[1512] For the grace of God had been the most formative influence in the early religion of Israel (see Vol. I., p. [19]), and Amos, only thirty years after Jonah, emphasised the moral equality of Israel and the Gentiles before the one God of righteousness. Given these two premisses of God’s essential grace and the moral responsibility of the heathen to Him, and the conclusion could never have been far away that in the end His essential grace must reach the heathen too. Indeed in sayings not later than the eighth century it is foretold that Israel shall become a blessing to the whole world. Our author, then, may have been guilty of no anachronism in imputing such a foreboding to Jonah.