Chapter 17

of the fifth century. We are probably not far from the truth in dating Obadiah 1-14 about 500 B.C. The memory of Edom's cruelty would still rankle a generation after the return.

But in _vv_. 15_a_, 16-21 the literary and religious colouring is different; _vv_. 1-14 is marked by a certain graphic vigour, _vv_. 15-21 is diffuse. The judgment of Edom in _vv_. 1-14 is in _vv_. 15-21 made only an episode in a great world-judgment. Above all, in _v_. 1 the nations are to execute this judgment, in _v_. 15 they are to be the victims of it. Further, _vv_. 19, 20 seem to imply an extensive dispersion of the Jews. Probably, therefore, this passage expresses the bold eschatological hopes of a later time, when Judah was to be finally redeemed and the heathen annihilated. The section may be later than the oracle in Jeremiah xlix, as no use is made of it there.

JONAH

The book of Jonah is, in some ways, the greatest in the Old Testament: there is no other which so bravely claims the whole world for the love of God, or presents its noble lessons with so winning or subtle an art. Jonah, a Hebrew prophet, is divinely commanded to preach to Nineveh, the capital of the great Assyrian empire of his day. To escape the unwelcome task of preaching to a heathen people, he takes ship for the distant west, only to be overtaken by a storm, and thrown into the sea, when, by the lot, it is discovered that he is the cause of the storm. He is immediately swallowed by a fish, in the belly of which he remains three days and nights (i.). Then follows a prayer: after which the prophet is thrown up by the fish upon the land (ii.). This time he obeys the divine command, and his preaching is followed by a general repentance, which causes God to spare the wicked city (iii.), whereat Jonah is greatly displeased; but, by a new and miraculous experience, he is taught the shame and folly of his anger, and the infinite greatness of the divine love (iv.).

On the face of it, the narrative is not meant to be strictly historical. Its place among the prophetic books shows that its importance lies, not in its facts, but in the truths for which it pleads. Much detail is wanting which we should expect to find were the narrative pure history, e.g. the name of the Assyrian king, the results of Jonah's mission, etc. Other circumstances stamp it as unhistorical: considering the poor success the Hebrew prophets had in their own land, such a wholesale conversion of a foreign city, even if such a visit as Jonah's were likely, must be regarded as extremely improbable, to say nothing of the impossibility of the animals fasting and wearing sackcloth, iii. 7, 8. The miraculous fish and the miraculous tree which grew up in a single night forbid us to look for history in the book. Nineveh's fame is a thing of the past, iii. 3; the book is written after, probably long after, its fall in 606 B.C. The lateness of the book and its remoteness from the events it records, are proved in other ways. Its language has the Aramaic flavour of the later books, and such a phrase as "the God of heaven," i. 9, only occurs in post-exilic literature. It contains several reminiscences of late books[1] (e.g. Joel?), and its ideas are most intelligible as the product of post-exilic times, especially if it be regarded as a protest against a loveless and narrow-hearted type of Judaism. All the conditions point to a date not much, if at all, earlier than 300 B.C. [Footnote 1: There are many points of contact between the prayer in Jonah ii. and the Psalter; but the prayer must be later than the original book of Jonah. It is in reality not a prayer but a psalm of gratitude, and is quite inappropriate to Jonah's horrible situation in the belly of the fish. Even if the metaphors from the sea were interpreted literally, they would not be applicable to Jonah's case; e.g., "the weeds were wrapped about my head," _v_. 5. The Psalm, which is partly, but not altogether, a compilation, must have been inserted here by a later hand, hardly by the author of the book, who would have noticed the impropriety of it.]

Jonah is himself a historical character; there is no reason to doubt that the prophet, in whose time Nineveh is standing, i. 2, is contemporary with the Jonah mentioned in 2 Kings xiv. 25 as living in the reign of Jeroboam II, and prophesying the restoration of Israel to its ancient boundaries. It may have been as the representative of an intense and exclusive nationalism that he was chosen as the hero of this book. Here and there the story trenches on Babylonian and Greek legend, but the spirit, if not also the form, is altogether the author's own.

The book abounds in religious suggestion; even its incidental touches are illuminating. It suggests that man cannot escape his divinely appointed destiny, and that God's will must be done. It suggests that prophecy is conditional; a threatened destruction can be averted by repentance. It is peculiarly interesting to find so generous an attitude towards the religious susceptibilities and capacities of foreigners: in this we are reminded of Jesus' parable of the good Samaritan. The foreign sailors cry, in their perplexity, to their gods, and end by acknowledging the God of Israel; the people of Nineveh repent at the prophet's preaching. All this forms a splendid foil to the smallness and obstinacy of Jonah. With his mean views of God, he would not only exclude the heathen from the divine mercy, but rejoice in their destruction. In this the prophet is typical of later Judaism, with its longing for the annihilation of the nations as the obverse of the redemption of Zion. This attitude was greatly encouraged by the rigorous legislation of Ezra; and Jonah, like Ruth, may be a protest against it, or at least against the bigotry which it engendered. If Israel is, in any sense, an elect people, she is but elected to carry the message of repentance to the heathen; and the book of Jonah is indirectly, though not perhaps in the intention of the author, a plea for foreign missions.

The greatest lesson of the book is skilfully reserved to the end, iv, 2, 10, 11. It is that God is patient and merciful, that He loves all the world which He created, that His love stretches not only beyond the Jews and away to distant Nineveh, but even down to the animal creation. He hears the prayer of the foreign sailors, He delights in the repentance of Nineveh, He cares for the cattle, iv. 11. This book is the Old Testament counterpart to "God so loved the world."

MICAH

Micah must have been a very striking personality. Like Amos, he was a native of the country--somewhere in the neighbourhood of Gath; and he denounces with fiery earnestness the sins of the capital cities, Samaria in the northern kingdom, and Jerusalem in the southern. To him these cities seem to incarnate the sins of their respective kingdoms, i. 5; and for both ruin and desolation are predicted, i. 6, iii. 12. Micah expresses with peculiar distinctness the sense of his inspiration and the object for which it is given; he is conscious of being filled with the spirit of Jehovah to declare unto Jacob his transgression and unto Israel his sin, iii. 8. In his ringing sincerity, he must have formed a strange contrast to the prophets who regulated their message by their income, iii. 5, and preached to a people whose conscience was slumbering, a welcome gospel of materialism, ii. 11.

The words of Micah must have burned themselves into the memories, if not the consciences, of his generation; for more than a hundred years after--though doubtless by this time the prophecy was written--we find his unfulfilled prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem alluded to by the elders who pled for the life of Jeremiah, xxvi. 17ff. It is certain from this reference that he prophesied during the reign of Hezekiah; whether also under Jotham and Ahaz (Mic. i. 1) is not so certain, and depends upon whether his prophecy of the destruction of Samaria, i. 6, was made before, or as seems equally possible, after the capture of that city in 721 B.C. At any rate his message was addressed to Judah, and must have fallen (at least i.-iii.) before 701 B.C.--the year in which the city was saved beyond all expectation from an attack by Sennacherib, iii. 12.

Micah begins by describing the coming of Jehovah. He is coming in judgment upon Samaria and Jerusalem, the wicked capitals of wicked kingdoms, i. 1-9; and in the difficult verses, i. 10-16, the devastating march of the enemy through Judah is allusively described. The judgment is thoroughly justified--it is due to the violent and grasping spirit of the wealthy, who do not scruple to crush the poor and defenceless, ii. 1-11. The prophet then[1] brings his charge in detail against the leaders of the people--officials, judges, priests, prophets--accuses them of being mercenary and time-serving, and ends with the terrible threat that the holy hill will one day be made a desolation (iii.). [Footnote 1: Ch. ii. 12, 13, which interrupt the stern address of the prophet, ii. 11, iii. 1 with a promise which implies that Israel is scattered, are probably exilic; they can hardly be Micah's.]

These chapters are assigned almost unanimously to Micah. But serious critical difficulties are raised in connection with the rest of the book. Chs. iv. and v. constitute a section by themselves, and may be considered separately. Their general theme is the certainty of salvation, but it is quite clear that they do not form an original unity; iv. 1-4, e.g., with its generous attitude to the foreign nations, is inconsistent with iv. 11-13, which predicts their destruction. Again, iv. 10 describes a siege of Jerusalem, which is to issue in exile, iv. 11-13, a siege which is to end in the annihilation of the besiegers. Similar difficulties characterize ch. v; in _vv_. 7-9, 15 the enemies are to be destroyed.

No consecutive outline of the chapters is possible in their present disconnected form. Ch. iv. 1-5 describes the Messianic age, in which the nations will come to Jerusalem to have their cases peacefully arbitrated, iv. 6-8 promise that those scattered (in exile) will be gathered again, and the kingdom of Judah restored. Siege of Jerusalem, exile, and redemption, iv. 9, 10. Unsuccessful siege of Jerusalem and annihilation of the enemy, iv. 11-13. Another siege: Israel's suffering, v. 1. Promise of a victorious king, v. 2-4. Judah's victory over Assyria, v. 5, 6 and all her enemies, v. 7-9. All the apparatus of war and idolatry will be removed from the land, v. 10-14, and vengeance taken on the enemy, v. 15.

The summary shows how disjointed the chapters are. They may not impossibly contain reminiscences or even utterances of Micah; e.g. the prediction of the fatal siege, v. 1, or of the overthrow of idolatry, v. 10-14. But many elements could not possibly be Micah's: e.g. iv. 8 implies that the kingdom of Judah is already a thing of the past. iv. 6 postulates the exile,[1] and the prophecy of exile to Babylon, iv. 10, would be unnatural in Micah's time, when Assyria was the dominant power.[2] Again it is exceedingly improbable that Micah would have blunted the edge of his terrible threat in iii. 12 by following it up with so brilliant a promise as iv. 1-4, especially as not a word is said about the need of repentance. The story in Jeremiah xxvi. 17ff. raises the legitimate doubt whether Micah's prophecy, which was certainly one of threatening, iii. 12, also contained elements of promise. On the whole it seems best to assume that the fine picture of the glory and importance of Zion in the latter days, iv. 1-4, was set by some later writer as a foil to the stern threat with which the original prophecy closed, cf. Isaiah ii. 1-4. Chs. iv. and v. may be regarded as a collection of prophecies emphasizing the certainty of salvation and intended to supplement i.-iii. [Footnote 1: This might conceivably, though not very naturally, refer to the deportation of _Israel_ in 721.] [Footnote 2: Some retain iv. 9, 10 for Micah, and assume either that the Babylon clause is a later interpolation, or that Babylon has displaced another proper name.]

Chs. vi. and vii. take us again into another atmosphere, more like Micah's own. The people, who attempt to defend themselves against Jehovah's charge of ingratitude on the plea that they are ignorant of His demands, are reminded that those demands are ancient and simple: justice, love as between man and man, and a humble walk with God, vi. 1-8. But instead, dishonesty and injustice are rampant everywhere, and the judgment of God is inevitable, vi. 9-16. The prophet laments the utter and universal degradation of the people, which has corrupted even the intimacies of family life, vii. 1-6. In the rest of the chapter the blow predicted has already fallen; in their sorrow the people await the fulfilment of Jehovah's purpose in patience and faith, pray to Him to restore the land which once was theirs on the east of the Jordan, and thus to compel from the heathen an acknowledgment of His power. He is the incomparable God who can forgive and restore, vii. 7-20.

The accusations and laments of these two chapters come very strangely after the repeated promises of chs. iv. and v.; and if the whole book had been by Micah, it is hardly possible that this order should have been original. Probably these chapters were appended to Micah's book because of several features which they have in common with i.-iii.: notice, e.g., the prominence of the word "hear," i. 2, iii. 1, 9,