Jonah 1.8-The Crew Interrogates Jonah
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday September 22, 2010
Jonah: Jonah 1:8-The Crew Interrogates Jonah
Lesson # 13
Please turn in your Bibles to Jonah 1:1.
This evening we will note Jonah 1:8 and in this verse the crew interrogates Jonah.
Jonah 1:1, “The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, 2 ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.’ 3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. 4 The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. 5 Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down and fallen sound asleep. 6 So the captain approached him and said, ‘How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.’ 7 Each man said to his mate, ‘Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us.’ So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, ‘Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?’” (NASU)
“Said” is the third person masculine plural qal active imperfect form of the verb ʾā∙mǎr (אָמַר) (aw-mar), which means “to interrogate” and is used here of the crew members interrogating Jonah.
It denotes that they asked Jonah questions to seek answers or information as to his relationship to the great storm and the gods, which Jonah considers secret.
“Tell us now” is composed of the second person masculine singular hiphil active insistent imperative form of the verb nā∙ḡǎḏ (נָגַד) (naw-gheed), “tell” and the emphatic enclitic particle of entreaty nā(ʾ) (נָא) (naw), “now” and the preposition le (לְ) (le), which is followed by the first person plural pronomial suffix ʾǎnǎḥ∙nû (אֲנַחְנוּ) (anaw-new), “us.”
The verb nā∙ḡǎḏ means “to provide information” and is used of crew demanding that Jonah provide them with information as to who is responsible for the storm striking the ship, what his occupation was, where he came from and what was his nationality.
The emphatic particle of entreaty nā(ʾ) is used with the imperative form of the verb nā∙ḡǎḏ to express this request for information from Jonah by the crew.
Here it emphasizes or heightens the sense of urgency and intensity of this desire for information from Jonah by the crew.
The pronomial suffix ʾǎnǎḥ∙nû, “us” is a discourse reference to the speaker and associates and thus refers to the crew of the ship.
It is the object of the preposition le, which functions as a marker of advantage or persons benefited by an event.
Here it denotes the crew as benefiting from Jonah admitting his guilt and providing information as to his origins.
The crew already knew the answer to the first question (“on whose account has this calamity struck us?”) since the lot answered that for them.
Also, before the casting of the lots, they knew since Jonah admitted to fleeing from his commission according to Jonah 1:10.
Jonah 1:9, “He said to them, ‘I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.’ 10 Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, ‘How could you do this?’ For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.” (NASU)
Therefore, the sailors ask this first question for the purpose of soliciting confession.
The crew wants Jonah to admit his guilt that he brought this terrible storm upon them.
Reed Lessing writes, “The sailors already know the answer to their first request of Jonah because the lot answered it (and according to 1:10, Jonah himself previously had admitted as much). Therefore, some scholars advocate deleting ‘on whose account this evil has come to us!’ Yet people may request information or ask a question when they already know the answer for the purpose of soliciting confession. This was Yahweh’s strategy in Gen 3:11 when he asked Adam, ‘Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ Yahweh wants Adam to confess, ‘Yes, I have. Please forgive me.’ But Adam’s response was hardly that; he blamed Eve and Yahweh for creating her as his companion (Gen 3:12). In like manner, the sailors want Jonah to say, ‘It is my fault. I have brought you to the brink of death.’ But guilty Jonah doesn’t fully confess his sin.” (Concordia Commentary: Jonah; pages 126-127)
Jonah 1:8, “Then they said to him, ‘Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?’” (NASU)
Jonah does not answer the second question “what is your occupation because he has already told the crew that he was a prophet as implied by the fact that before the storm he admitted to the crew that he was fleeing from the commission of the Lord as recorded Jonah 1:10.
The last three questions are concerned with Jonah’s origin since by determining his nationality, they could figure out which god is responsible for the storm since nationality and religion went together in the ancient Near East.
Leslie Allen writes, “They (the crew) ply him for information concerning his nationality, for from that they may deduce which god is responsible since nationality and religion went together in the ancient Near East. The barrage of questions fired in quick succession are psychologically true to life as an outlet for emotions aroused by the implacable storm.” (Allen, Leslie C., The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah; The New International Commentary on the Old Testament; pages 208-209; William B. Eerdmans Publishing; 1976)
Stuart writes, “The final three questions all concern Jonah’s origin. The answer to those also would have religious significance, since one’s national god was usually the most important divinity in one’s life at this point in history. The ancients believed in three kinds of gods: personal, family, and national. But the world increasingly organized itself by empires and nations (in contrast, for example, to the relative isolation of the city-state system that had prevailed in Palestine in most of the second millennium b.c.). By Jonah’s time, people’s personal destinies became inextricably linked with their national destinies, and national gods functioned increasingly as personal gods, at least in Palestine. Moreover, the crew certainly had reason to suspect that Jonah was a Palestinian of some sort, since the ship sailed from a Palestinian port, and Jonah presumably spoke and dressed like a Palestinian. If he had been Greek, or Egyptian, or Assyrian, for example, his fluency in the sailor’s native Canaanite (the broad dialect of Philista, Israel, Judah, Edom, Moab, Phoenicia, etc.) would have been less likely and his foreign accent more evident, to mention nothing of his dress. What they wanted to know specifically, then, was which of the Palestinian nations he was from. Each had a national god. That would tell them at least which god he was likely to ‘fear.’ (cf. 1 Kgs 11:5–7).” (Word Biblical Commentary volume 31, Hosea-Jonah, page 46)
The Lord is using the crew now to deal with Jonah’s disobedience.
First he used the storm.
Then, he used the captain and then the drawing of lots and now he uses the questions of the crew to get Jonah to face up to his guilt and disobedience in refusing to go to Nineveh and announce judgment against its inhabitants.
So the Lord is closing in on Jonah and is about to put him in a vice!