OLD TESTAMENT GEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

OLD TESTAMENT GEM.

This admirable introduction to a study of one of the most beautiful books in the Bible, the Book of Jonah, is taken from an article by the Rev. A. J. Grigg, of the Baptist College, in the current number of the "New Zealand Baptist." The extreme importance of this great missionary book of the Old Testament has often been lost sight of in the undue emphasis on, and often unedifying discussion of. the question of Jonah and the great fish. We must be careful not to regard the interpretation of this incident as a test of orthodoxy, while missing the glowing significance of the book as a whole, which is one of the gems of the Old Testament. In the second part of the prophecy of Isaiah, Israel's mission is set forth as being "a light unto the Gentiles," the proclaiming of the knowledge of God to the world. The discipline of Israel's exile was intended to effect this, but, instead, after the return, the Jewish people rejected the missionary idea], and encased themselves in a hard, exclusive, jealous legalism, which regarded "the heathen" as evil, defiling, hostile to the chosen, people, and destined to be destroyed by the coming Messianic Kingdom. The Book of Jonah is a beautiful and compelling protest against this exclusiveness, and an appeal to Israel to accept its great mission to evangelise the world. The universalism of the religion of Jehovah is nowhere in the Old Testament proclaimed in nobler terms. The unknown writer uses the prophet Jonah as the means of demonstrating Ms great truth. There was a .Jonah mentioned briefly in 2 Kings 14: 25, who foretold the conquests by which Jeroboam* 11. restored Israel's territory. Nothing else is known of him, but he stands as a fit representative of bigoted patriotism. The writer in the fourth or third century B.C. either uses an historical narrative, or, more probably, following the literary usages of his day, weaves a most significant parable round the dim figure to enshrine his urgent message. Whatever the literary interpretation of the book may be, its spiritual and religious meaning is abundantly clear. Jonah (meaning "dove") stands for Israel, and Nineveh represents the heathen world.