Jonah 1.13-The Crew Demonstrates A Moral Conscience (Doctrinal Bible Church in Huntsville, Alabama)

Doctrinal Bible Church

Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom

Sunday January 11, 2026

Jonah Series: Jonah 1:13-The Crew Demonstrates A Moral Conscience

Lesson # 15

Jonah 1:13 records the crew demonstrating a moral conscience by ignoring Jonah’s advice to throw him into the sea by attempting to row for land but they fail.

Jonah 1:1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. 4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish.” 7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” 9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” 10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.) 11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” 12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. (NIV84)

Verse 13 presents a contrast between the crew taking Jonah’s advice and killing him by depositing him into the stormy seas and the crew refusing to do so by attempting to row to dry land.

“The men” refers to the crew and emphasizes their weakness, mortality and impotence as human beings reminding the reader of man’s transience and his dependence upon the omnipotent, transcendent God.

This word is a reminder to the reader that these men are impotent in comparison to the omnipotent God and thus it tells the reader that they will get nowhere and it is silly to attempt to row to dry land at this point.

“Rowed” is the verb ḥā∙ṯǎr (חָתַר), which means “to dig through” and is used here to describe the intensity and effort in which the crew rowed in that they “dug through” the water.

Here in Jonah 1:13, the verb ḥā∙ṯǎr (חָתַר) describes the intense and frantic effort of the crew when rowing in that it conveys the idea that they rowed in such a way that they dug through the water.

It tells the reader how great an effort the crew was willing to expend in order to avoid Jonah’s advice to throw him overboard and drown him in order to bring an end to the storm.

The crew did not take his advice because they could not believe that Yahweh would be pleased with their killing his prophet.

The strenuous efforts of this heathen crew to save the prophet of Yahweh, Jonah and their concern for his life stands in stark contrast with the believer, Jonah’s total lack of concern for them.

“But they could not” marks a contrast between the crew’s intense efforts to reach the shore and their failure to do so because of the storm was getting more intense.

“They could not” is composed of the negative particle lō(ʾ) (לֹא), “not” and the verb yā∙ḵōl (יָכֹל), “they could” and together they express the idea that the crew was emphatically not able to overcome the violent storm.

“For the sea was becoming increasingly stormy” expresses the reason why the crew could by no means overcome the great storm after frantically attempting to cause the ship to return to dry land by rowing with intense effort.

In this verse, the crew demonstrates a moral conscience and that they fear or respect God by ignoring Jonah’s advice to throw him into the sea by frantically attempting to row for land but they fail.

In verse 14, they demonstrate this by their actions.

In Romans 2:14, the apostle Paul teaches that the Gentiles inherently possess a law that is manifested when they obey the principles that appear in written form of the Mosaic Law.

Romans 2:14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) (NIV84)

“Gentiles” refers to all those individuals who are “not” of Jewish racial descent and thus “not” members of the covenant people of God, Israel and by implication this word refers to all the nations of the world.

“By nature” refers to the innate impulse in man that governs his behavior.

“The things required by the Law” refers to the inherent law resident in the soul of every human being including principles that appear in the moral code of the Mosaic Law, otherwise, known as the “Ten Commandments,” or “Decalogue.”

The “inherent law” or “law of nature” refers to God’s revelation of Himself in creation as we noted in Romans 1:18-23 and falls under the category of the eternal law of God for the Ten Commandments, which did not begin with Sinai, but originate in the essence of God Himself (see 1 Pet. 1:16).

The content of the Ten Commandments is not really new since the book of Genesis reveals the fact that these formalized laws were already followed, or assumed as a moral standard.

All Ten Commandments had been part of the Law of God previously written on hearts instead of stone, for all ten appear, in one way or another, in Genesis.

They are as follows: (1) Genesis 35:2, “Get rid of the foreign gods.” (2) Genesis 31:39, “Laban to Jacob, ‘But why did you steal my gods?’” (3) Genesis 24:3, “I want you to swear by the Lord.” (4) Genesis 2:3, “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” (5) Genesis 27:41, “The days of mourning my father are near.” (6) Genesis 4:9, “Where is your brother Abel?” (7) Genesis 39:9, “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” (8) Genesis 44:4 7, “Why have you stolen my silver cup?” (9) Genesis 39:17, “[Joseph] came to me to make sport of me … but … he ran. …” (10) Genesis 12:18; 20:3, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”

In Romans 2:15, Paul teaches that the manifestation of the inherent law of the Gentiles is through the function of the conscience.