V. 1. f. Jonah was almost very angry because of this, and he prayed to the Lord etc.
This is truly a strange saint to me, who is angry that God is merciful to sinners, and does not grant them any good, but vain misfortune, contrary to the kind of love that wishes and does all good even to enemies. And that is even more that he does this after he had experienced the great seriousness of divine will in the sea and whales. He still does not desist from this, since God punishes him for being unreasonably angry. And
Yet he stands on such great faith that he asks God for death and does not want to live; which he could not ask if he had not trusted God most of all.
What shall we say about this? How can such faith and such vice stand next to each other? Here one should ask, there would be benefit. We may not deny that Jonah is unreasonably angry and does wrong, because God punishes him for it, both in word and deed, and with a sign of the wild turnip. So we must also confess that he is in faith, and
God has been pleasant, as far as God speaks so kindly to him and gives a sign, and poses like a man who speaks and acts kindly with his neighbor.
(3) And if all these things were to be given to him, it is beyond measure that he should first approve and defend his first disobedience and flight, for which he is so horribly punished, and ascribe the guilt to God's goodness, since he says, "Oh, Lord, this is what I said while I was still in my country; therefore I also wanted to come beforehand to flee to the sea. What else is this said but this: I was right to flee and not to come here, and this is your goodness. Is there guilt? What does Jonah seek with it? Does he not defy God? Is he not striving to be cast again into a thousand seas and whales, as one who murmurs against God's goodness and justifies himself? If Saul or someone else did this, what would happen to him? If works should be valid or rewarded by God, Jonah would have to go into the abyss of hell, as he rages with his anger against faith and love. For he owes God's goodness, and forgives 1) his neighbor's mercy and all good. Are these good works? Yes, isn't there all unrighteousness, what is unrighteousness? I would not know what to answer here.
The first thing is that we notice here how strange God is in His saints, so that no one may be careless to judge or condemn anyone for the sake of a work. The work may be evil, and is evil; yet I should not despise or condemn the persons. For if we look at Jonah here, his work is truly wrong, as God Himself punishes: nor is he the dear child, and speaks to God as freely as if he feared nothing from Him (as is true), and trusts Him as a father.
The other is that we learn how God allows His dear children to err and fall short of good, great, and great things, as Christ also does with the apostles in the Gospel, for the comfort of all believers who sometimes sin and fall.
1) that is begrudging.
(6) The third, that we may see how kindly, fatherly and loving God acts and deals with those who trust in Him in trouble; how loving the Father becomes after the rod and distemper, as the epistle to the Hebrews says [Cap. 12:11]: that discipline brings forth the most lovely fruit to those who are exercised in it. For here you see, it does no harm at all, nor is it to be counted as sin, which is indeed sin and criminal, but is a daily childish sin, which the Father bears willingly and graciously. But he does not deal with the ungodly in this way; they also cannot get into it, but become completely too insolent and too wild, where they feel that God is merciful and sparing; just as if he should also allow or tolerate their ungodly nature.
(7) But it is no wonder that Jonah does not want to grant God's grace to the Gentiles. For, you count, it was a constant belief among the Jews that Israel alone was God's people, as I also reported above, [Cap. 1, § 35 ff.], and all the Gentiles under God's wrath, as the [sixth] verse of Psalm 79 slurs: "O Lord, pour out your wrath on the Gentiles who do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name." That is why they insisted that no man should be eligible for God's grace, he must first accept Mosiah's laws and become a Jew. For the apostles and the first Christians understood it no other way; as Lucas writes, that they went about preaching the gospel to no one but the Jews alone, and were angry with St. Peter because he had preached to the Gentiles. Apost. 10 and 11.
008 And if Jonah be not persecuted of the Jews, or slain, because he preacheth unto the Gentiles in Nineveh, and calleth Nineveh a city of God, it shall be a great wonder. For it was offensive to the Jews that a people should be of God and not have and keep the Law of Moses, as the Ninevites of Jonah are praised here. What must those wait for who teach that they are Christians, and may be Christians, who neither have nor keep the law of the Pope and the Roman churches' way and commandment? All of them heretics, heretics, and burned.
9. and would like to be that this is the
right reason why Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh, and still grumbles that it should not perish, and would rather be dead, than that he should see someone get God's grace and become God's people without the law of Moses and the Jews' way. What is this but a disgrace to the people of Israel, as they have unnecessary and futile laws, so that without them men may be saved? Should they not say here: What do we do with so much toil and labor, if these last work only one hour and get the same reward with us, who carry the heat and burden of the day? as it is written in the Gospel [Matth. 20, 12]. Shouldn't this make eyes pale? Should they be no better? Should they get nothing more?
(10) It is the same here, that the Ninevites get grace without law and prophets, and the Jews, with their great work in the law, get nothing more than they do; yes, even in the end they are completely lacking and lacking, because they want something better than the gospel with their murmuring and mocking, and do not want to grant the Gentiles to become Christians. This must have made Jonah quite unhappy, as he was the cause of all this with his preaching in Nineveh; and he was supposed to be the first to make Judaism contemptible and unnecessary? How could he have remained in the land? He did not flee without cause, refusing such preaching. For to be a Jew, and yet preach that Judaism is useless, and without which God's grace can be obtained, is just as much as if a Jew wanted to destroy his own Jews and make them useless, and elevate the Gentiles, just as St. Paul did in the same case, as Lucas describes in the Acts of the Apostles [Cap. 17, 24].
(11) Now that Jonah might be quieted, and might have answered his angry Jews, God played with him, and gave him a sign, as he did to Peter, Acts 10:11 ff. 10, 11. ff., when he also stood in Jonah's presence, and gave him a vision from heaven, a linen cloth with all kinds of animals, and said to him: it would all be pure; when they were all heathens without the law of Moses etc. So God gives Jonah a sign here, and made a wild turnip grow, so that Jonah had a merry litter on it.
While he was rejoicing in such a hut, the Lord provided a worm early in the morning, which Jonah did not understand, which pricked the wild turnip so that it withered, and deprived good Jonah of his 1) desire. In addition he let the hot sun sting him on the head, because he had no more hut, so that he becomes once again reluctant, and beats one reluctance to the other, and wants to go nowhere, which he would like. Therefore, he asks for death once again, so that he can get rid of his listlessness.
(12) Then God comes and quiets him, and concludes that he may do what he wills, as the father of the house says in the Gospel [Matt. 20:1 ff], proving also that Jonah is unreasonably angry. Behold, saith he, thou art wroth because of a little shrub, because it abideth not, but withereth: but how much less is such a shrub than a man, let alone such a city? Shouldest thou not also desire and gladly see that the city remain, to which thou wouldst so gladly see the wild turnip remain? What could Jonah say against this? He had to fall silent when he was overcome with his own judgment, into which he was finely led over the wild turnip before he looked around. So nothing is human wit against God.
(13) The wild turnip, which in Hebrew is called a kik, and here a kikaion, that is, a kiklein or small kik, was well tried by the teachers of old. The elders called it a pumpkin. After that St. Jerome came and interpreted it as hedera, that is epheu, and said: it is not in the Latin country, but in Syria. But it is such a shrub, which grows very quickly, and soon becomes so large that it gives a hut and thick shade, has leaves like vines, therefore the ancients may have wanted to make it pumpkin. We consider it to be the shrub that the natural heralds call in Latin, vitis alba, which in German means: Wilderüben. Our priest, Mr. Johann Pommer, thinks it is called holy root in his Pomeranians, and grows so large that it reaches over a house, which resembles nightshade. For epheu, as Hieronymus makes it, it cannot well be, as he himself confesses, because the same
1) In the original and in the Jenaer: "finer", but in the Wittenberg: "his", and Jonas translates: suis Uslioiis.
Bush does not stand on its stem, as Kikaion does, but hangs on walls and trees: that those have trophied much closer, who have interpreted it as pumpkin; although Jerome mocks them, and calls them pumpkiners.
Now, there is not so great a power in it, and we should not quarrel so much about the words, if we are sure of the thing. It is true that this shrub, though it grows quickly by nature, was prepared here in one night, miraculously, for Jonah's sake, and Jonah sat under it for a long time, perhaps until the forty days were over. For the text says that he went out to the city, when he saw that they were converted, and sat down to see whether the city would perish. For he was already distressed when he saw them repenting, and he was afraid that they would not perish. But after forty days, when he saw that the appointed time was past, his anger rose up that nothing would come of his preaching; so he grumbled against God, and had to let himself be mastered, and so went home again with shame and humiliation, but with great fear and use of his mind.
From all this we learn how God is a helper of all people, not only of the Jews, as St. Paul says, 1 Tim. 2, 4: "God wants all people to recover and come to the knowledge of the truth. And that we Gentiles, who have come to the last hour and have not worked at all, come to God's grace unworthily, because it was not promised to us as it was to the Jews. God wanted us to be grateful and make use of the same, as these people did in Nineveh, so that we would not perish in the end through ingratitude, as happened to those in Nineveh afterwards.
16 For this history of Jonah is written, that God may shew us his wonders, that his word may bear fruit first of all, when it is thought least of, and again, when it is thought least of, when it is thought most of. For here the Gentiles of Nineveh believe, who had no word before; and the Jews are disbelieving, who had the word of God daily; that we may not despair of any man, neither presume on any man.
(17) He says here that Nineveh had more than an hundred and twenty thousand people, from which it can almost be inferred how large the city was. For because he names a hundred and twenty thousand, and some number more, he shows sufficiently that there were not a hundred and thirty thousand there; for otherwise he would have said more than thirty or forty thousand, or two hundred thousand. Now it is not yet beyond all measure a large city, since two hundred thousand humans are in it, particularly where it stands well, and goes in the swing, as here Nineveh stood as the royal city, the head in the emperorship to Assyria. It would be that one wanted to interpret it in such a way that the people, who did not know what was right or left, should have been as much as young children and fools; the old people, however, had been much more. But I do not hold such an interpretation, but that they all at once did not know what was right or wrong, that is, as we say, they knew neither this nor that in divine matters, when they had no law of Moses nor prophets to teach them how they should, both in spiritual and bodily, in outward and inward things, keep themselves before God, as the Jews had. For so the right hand may be pointed to the spiritual inwardly, and the left hand to the bodily, outwardly; for one must serve God with body and soul. That is enough of it. Now we must also deal with the spiritual interpretations, of which there are three:
18. the first. Jonah is called a dove in Hebrew. Now in the New Testament the dove is the form of the Holy Spirit, Luc. 3, 22. and Joh. 1, 32. and especially the manifest Holy Spirit, who is given to preach Christ in all the world through the gospel; so that Jonah with his name is an example of the Holy Spirit and his ministry, namely the gospel, that all apostles and preachers should also be Jonah, and have the dove, that is, the Holy Spirit, and teach or do nothing of themselves without the Spirit; as also Christ himself Matth. 10, 16. commands his disciples to be without falsehood, like the doves, and cautious, like the serpents, that is, to teach the word of God purely and unadulteratedly, without any addition, simple as it is.
the Spirit gives, and deal falsely with no one, both in works and in doctrine.
Nineteen: Nineveh in Hebrew is called the beautiful or comely, as a comely, well-built city is beautiful. This is the world that lives and floats in its riches, pleasures, wisdom, strength, holiness and honors, most beautiful and refined; but underneath is vile abomination and sin before God.
(20) Now that she hears and accepts the word, fasts and wears sackcloth, and sits down in the ashes, indicates that God's word bears fruit, and turns everything back, and makes her consider her holiness, strength, wealth, pleasure, honor and good as sin, weakness, poverty, unwillingness, shame and harm, and despises everything. This means sitting in ashes, putting on sackcloth and fasting, so that even the animals, that is, their corpses, must fast and put on sackcloth, that is, chastise and discipline themselves.
21) That Jonah is also sent from the Jewish land to a foreign land means that the spirit and the word of God should be taken from the Jewish people and given to the Gentiles, as Christ says Matth. 21, 43: "I tell you truly, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to the Gentiles who produce fruit with it" etc.
22) The fact that it flees, and suffers such a journey in the sea, signifies the cross and persecution that the gospel faces in the world, so that it seems as if the Christian preaching ministry were fleeing, wanting to perish and be lost; so weak does it seem against such a being, because the people who lead it are fleeting, that is, weak, lowly people.
The sea, that is the world, is great and mighty with its raging and raging. So the whale is cruel and terrifying with its mouth and teeth; that is, the prince and god of the world, the devil, is cruel by his princes and great lords, with strangling and killing etc.
(24) Yet Jonah is sustained mightily by the power of God, and his preaching cannot be hindered by his own flight or by the raging of the sea, but he presses on and comes to Nineveh. Thus,
Even though the preachers are weak and the world is powerful, God's word, the holy gospel, is more powerful, penetrates and is unhindered. And though the preachers are all swallowed up, it only goes the stronger, and yet comes into the world, and turns it back; as we see that it was given to the apostles to comfort us, that we also should not be afraid of the sea and the whale, certain that our word or gospel is mightier than all these.
The other is of spiritual persecution, how it is with a sinner when he dies spiritually, and comes to life, that is, when he is to be justified and freed from sins. This is what happens. The first is sin, into which we have all fallen through Adam's disobedience, and have made it worse and greater through our own disobedience, and have thus fled from God's presence, not doing what God wants, and especially when we fall into beautiful sin, that is, hypocrisy and false worship, from the right word of God. This is the disobedience and fleeing of Jonah from God's presence. For because we are in sins, we do not see God, and are far away, like the Prodigal Son in the Gospel [Luc. 15, 11. ff].
26) But that he flees to the sea and not to a certain place means that the sinner, when he flees from God, does not make any certain plans, but goes and departs according to the flesh and the world, where the devil leads him and drives him, and does not ask where he is going, except that he may not be in the land and under God's obedience, but follows his own pleasure.
027 And he cometh down to Japho, and findeth a ship going to sea, and giveth fare, and goeth in, and lieth down, and sleepeth, and so goeth. Japho means beautiful or fine, that is, the ungodly crowd who live a glittering life in disobedience to God. This city is then just right for the disobedience, conceit, and self-chosen righteousness.
For there he finds a ship, that is, as it seems to him, a good way and doctrine to guide him, as it is the law of God understood by human conceit. There are shipmen, that is, teachers of such law and their own works, and lead, so that one does not
906 be. 4i, 4o8-no. Interpretations about the prophets. W. vi. Mi-E. 907
knows where, but only to the sea. For there is no sure nor certain conscience before God, but goes as the sea goes etc.
29 To these Jonah gives fare; for such teachers are belly servants, for money they teach and lead; they are also gladly given and made rich, as God gave the land of Canaan to the people of Israel, even for their works. But to the apostles and evangelists one gives nothing, but takes from them what they have.
3t). Then Jonah enters the ship, and gives himself up to the teaching, lies down in the ship and snores, that is, he is safe, and thinks he is now well off, and always goes in the being. How then do all the saints of works, who in their glitter lie so deep down and sleep, and do not feel what evil they do, as Solomon says Ecclesiastes 4:17: "Obedience is better than the sacrifice of the wicked, who know not what evil they do." Behold, this means to go down to Japho and down into the ship; of course, high down from Jerusalem, from God's obedience into the depth of disobedience and conceit.
31 But now God is coming to wake up the disobedient saint, and to make his holiness sin publicly, and to cause a weather to come, that is, to feel his wrath and judgment.
(32) Then all their own holiness perishes, and both teacher and disciple despair, and the works will not endure nor stand, and the ship will break up and sink.
Every man shall call upon his God, that is, to comfort himself with his good life. But no one hears or helps the idols, for they do not know the right God.
34 Then they also awaken Jonah, that is, then they become true teachers of the law, then the law comes to its right office, and no longer teaches works nor false consciences, but shows sin and God's wrath, and frightens the conscience.
35 This is when they loose, and seek sin, and meet Jonah. For the law does not cease to search and torture the conscience until it finds the sinner and forces him to confess; as David says Psalm 32:3: "Because I would keep it secret, my bones became obsolete" etc.
The loosening means that the sin is found about, and the law meets us; not when we think it, but when we think it least, then the house father comes, and finds us. Then Jonah must come out and confess to the law and justify how he is a sinner, otherwise the sea will not stop.
(36) And even though they push and row hard to get to land, it does not help; that is, even though such a conscience is overcome, it still does not want to suffer the judgment of death, even though it confesses that it should and must suffer it, and that it deserves it. That is why Jonah does not jump into the sea himself, but is thrown in.
37. at last they throw Jonah into the sea, because it will not be otherwise, but ask God not to impute it to them, and fear and serve God, that is, as St. Paul says Rom. 7, 10: "The law is good, pious and holy", and yet kills, and makes God angry with me; of which there is nothing more to be said now.
38) Now that they fear and serve God means that the law, when it comes to its right office, serves God, that is, it makes fearful, humble servants of God, which before, when it was still in Japho, in abuse of works and conceit, it served the belly and took ferry money, and made snoring, safe, false works saints.
39 Now here comes the whale and swallows Jonah, that is, death and hell. For this is how it goes in succession: first the law, then sin, and finally death; as St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:56: "The law is the power of sin, but death is the sting of sin"; that is, if there were no sin in the conscience, death could do nothing, neither pierce nor cut, neither choke nor torture, would have neither point nor edge, but would be blunt and nothing. But if sin is there, and is felt in the conscience, death soon has spear and sword, and wants to strangle the man badly; and also strangles him, if he is not helped. So also, where there is no law, that is, where there is no right law and in its right office, there would be no sin, that is, sin would not be felt, and sin would be powerless.
and do not bite, as it does, where the 1) Jonah sleeps in the ship, and the sure work saints. Just as it is in nature that where there is no law, there can be no sin; but when the law comes, sin is soon there, and feels itself in the conscience. As horrible as the whale with its mouth was to Jonah, so horrible is the threat of death in a sinful, frightened conscience.
40 Then Jonah dies three days and nights in the whale, that is, the sinner lies in such terror and agony, and wrestles with death until he despairs. For within three days one can well feel whether one is dead, and whoever reaches the third day in death, there is no more hope. If he does not lie for a whole three days, that is, because he lies for a whole night and day, he is dead; for he may well reach one hour of the previous day and one hour of the following day. 2) Such three days are not long in this spiritual death. For it soon happens that death and fear drive him to despair.
41 Then the living word of God, the gospel of grace, comes and speaks to the fish, that is, it barks at death to let man live. Then faith comes, and man is both delivered from sins and death, and so lives in grace and righteousness with Christ.
Now Jonah learns to sing the little song Cap. 2, 10: "I will sacrifice with thanksgiving" etc., and scolds those who rely on vanity and do not respect grace. For such people learn that works and the life of the law are vain things, and that only God's grace must help. And so they become people who create great benefit in the world. For they can teach, advise and govern rightly, because they have it not only from the books or words, but from the spirit and their own experience. There then cuts lind
1) Wittenberg "hie" instead of "die" and "schläft" instead of "sleep". - "die Jona", that is, such people as Jonah. In the Latin translation: tnws 4onn6, iU 68t sutitiurii 6te.
2) Here something seems to have fallen out, which Justus Jonas adds in his translation: so that one can say with truth that he lay there dead for three days.
is powerful what they teach, as Jonah means here with his sermon to Nineveh.
(43) The third one Christ pointed out to Himself, Matth. 12, 39, 40, although it is not a whole allegory or interpretation, but an example. For Christ takes Jonah alone before him, as he was in the whale, and says that he will also lie dead in the earth, and calls it a sign of Jonah, that is, a sign that is like Jonah. For he does not make the three days spiritual, as is proper in spiritual interpretations; therefore it is more a similitude than an allegory; and no one should interpret it thus unless Christ himself had done it. Now, there is not much to be said about this here, because it is all known in the day and in all the world how Christ died and rose again, and that this is the miraculous sign given to the unbelieving Jews, yes, it is presented to all the world through the gospel, so that they may know how they are all redeemed through the same miraculous sign and the wonderful divine work, and that they should hold on to it with true faith.
44 Now the whole world is offended at the sign, especially the Jews, and it is an offence and a foolishness to them; but it must nevertheless be, for they will have no other, as they would gladly have it. For there it is, as Christ says Matth. 12, 39: "No other sign will happen to this evil kind without the sign of Jonah the prophet. This is also said elsewhere.
45 Finally, there is the wild turnip, with the worm that stings it at dawn. The story rhymes not only with Jonah's anger and thoughts, as the text reads, but also with Judaism, which has been a real wild turnip.
46 First of all, it has large leaves, which is the best part, because Jonah has a fine shade and a hut under it against the heat of the sun. But nothing is reported there, nor is there any fruit. The leaves are the words and laws of God, as St. Paul says Rom. 3, 2: "God's words were trusted in them.
47 Under these leaves sits Jonah, that is, the prophets and holy fathers sat under Judaism, as under a temporal tabernacle and outward worship, until
on Christ. For it was a summerhouse or lauberhütte, which was temporal, and was to cease.
(48) But it did not bear fruit. For the law without the spirit could not help anyone of itself, though many such holy people were among them in the spirit. Therefore Christ also cursed the fig tree with leaves without fruit, so that it withered away [Matth. 21, 19]. Which is one thing with this wild turnip.
49 But Jonah rejoiced in this tabernacle, and waited for the destruction of the city of Nineveh. For it pleased the Jews, and they also boasted that they alone should have God's word and God's service, and they kept the Gentiles all lost, just as Jonah keeps the Ninevites here.
50. While they were most confident that they alone were God's people, and like Jonah was most joyful over such a wild turnip, God provided a little worm that pricked the wild turnip, that is, Christ just came with his gospel, when the Jews were most proud that they were God's people alone, and pricked the wild turnip, that is, preached against it, and abolished the law by his Holy Spirit, and made us all free from the law and its power.
51 Therefore Judaism is withered and destroyed until this day in all the world, and neither green nor flourishing anymore, nor saint nor prophet sitting under its shadow, it is over with them. For Christ is a worm, as he says, Ps. 22:7: "I am a worm, and not a man," because he is so miserably crucified and despised. But still the poor crucified worm bites such a fine bush that it withers, and with the small bite, that is, with the despised gospel, destroys such a kingdom and people.
52) But the fact that the worm does not do harm in the evening, but early in the morning, when the dawn breaks, means that such a worm does not do harm in the evening, but early in the morning, when the dawn breaks.
The fall of Judaism happened when the time of grace, the New Testament, went out through the gospel to all the world. For he that caused the wild turnip to grow miraculously, the same also caused it to be pierced by the worm, and to wither. Thus, Judaism also arose quickly through great and many miraculous deeds, by the power of God, not by their own strength or power; as the histories show in the times of Moses and all kings etc. In the same way it withered and perished, by God's will and command, when the hour of the gospel came.
53. Now Jonah grumbles for two great reasons: one, that the wild turnip withers and he can no longer sit under its shade; the other, that Nineveh should not perish; that is, it was ever unreasonable, even in the sight of some great saints, that the Jews should be abandoned and wither and perish, and the Ninevites, the Gentiles, should accept the gospel and become God's people: Then the sun stingeth hotly upon Jonah's head, and cometh a dry east wind, that he should faint. For St. Paul, too, Rom. 9:3, was greatly distressed that the Jews were so corrupt, and would gladly be banished from Christ for their sake.
54 But he is told that it is cheaper to be angry that Nineveh should perish than that the wild turnip should wither, and cheaper that Nineveh should remain than the wild turnip; that is, as St. Paul Rom. 11:11. From the destruction of the Jews comes the salvation of the Gentiles; that is, it is better and cheaper for Judaism to perish (which was of no use without the Spirit, and was vain leaves without fruit), than for the whole world to perish through its continuance. The judgment pleased God, and is also right, that we Gentiles may well give thanks to His grace. For the Jews, if they would also believe and leave Judaism, no harm would come to them, and yet all our salvation would be in it. God help us to do this, amen.