JONAH 489 great majority of them being clumsy and farfetched, doing violence to the language, and despite to the spirit of revelation. In vindication of the reality of this striking narrative, it may be argued that the allusions of Christ to Old Testament events on similar occasions are to actual occurrences (John iii. 14; vi. 48); that the purpose which God had in view justified his miraculous interposition; that this miracle must have had a salutary effect both on the minds of the Ninevites and on the people of Israel. Neither is the character of Jonah improbable. Many reasons might induce him to avoid the discharge of his prophetic duty-fear of being thought a false prophet, scorn of a foreign and hostile race, desire for their utter destruction, a false diguity which might reckon it beneath his prerogative to officiate among uncircumcised idolaters. Some, who cannot altogether reject the reality of the narrative, suppose it to have had an historical basis, though its present form be fanciful or mythical. Grimm regards it as a dream proinduced in that sleep which fell upon Jonah as he lay on the sides of the ship, and others regard this book as an allegory. Various other hypotheses have been proposed which are all vague and baseless, and do not merit a special refutation. Endeavouring to free us from one difficulty they plunge us into others yet more intricate and perplexing. Much profane wit has been expended on the miraculous means of Jonah's deliverance, very unnecessarily and very absurdly; it is simply said, "The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.' Now the species of marine animal is not defined, and the original word is often used to specify, not the genus whale, but any large fish or seamonster. All objections to its being a whale which lodged Jonah in its stomach from its straitness of throat, or rareness of haunt in the Mediterranean, are thus removed. The Scripture speaks only of an enormous fish, which under God's direction swallowed the prophet, and does not point out the species to which the voracious prowler belonged. Since the days of Bochart it has been a common opinion that the fish was of the shark species or sea-dog.' Entire human bodies have been found in some fishes of this kind. The stomach, too, has no influence on any living substance admitted into it. Granting all these facts as proof of what is termed the economy of miracles, still must we say, in reference to the supernatural preservation of Jonah, Is anything too hard for the Lord? | remarkable. Perceiving Jonadab, he saluted him, and called out, Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?" Jonadab answered, It is.' Then said Jehu, If it be, give me thine hand.' And he gave him his hand, and was taken up into the chariot, Jehu inviting him to Come and see my zeal for the Lord' (2 Kings x. 15-17; Jer. xxxv. 6-10). It would seem that the Rechabites were a branch of the Kenites, over another branch of whom Heber was chief in the time of Deborah and Barak (Judg. iv. 11, 17): and as it is expressly said that Jonadab went out to meet Jehu, it seems probable that the people of Samaria, alarmed at the menacing letter which they had received from Jehu, had induced Jonadab to go to meet and appease him on the road. His venerated character, his rank as the head of a tribe, and his neutral position, well qualified him for this mission; and it was quite as much the interest of Jonadab to conciliate the new dynasty, in whose founder he beheld the minister of the divine decrees, as it was that of Jehu to obtain his concurrence and support proceedings which he could not but know were likely to render him odious to the people. JONAH (a dove), the fifth in order of the minor prophets. No era is assigned to him in the book of his prophecy, yet there is little doubt of his being the same person who is spoken of in 2 Kings xiv. 25. His birthplace was Gath-hepher, in the tribe of Zebulon. Jonah flourished in or before the reign of Jeroboam II., and predicted the successful conquests, enlarged territory, and brief prosperity of the Israelitish kingdom under that monarch's sway. JONAH The book of Jonah contains an account of the prophet's commission to denounce Nineveh, and of his refusal to undertake the embassy-of the method he employed to escape the unwelcome task [TARSHISH], and the miraculous means which God used to curb his self-willed spirit, and subdue his petulant and querulous disposition. The third and fourth chapters briefly detail Jonah's fulfilment of the divine command, and present us with another exemplification of his refractory temper. His attempt to flee from the presence of the Lord must have sprung from a partial insanity, produced by the excitement of distracting motives in an irascible and melancholy heart. The temerity and folly of the fugitive could scarcely be credited, if they had not been equalled by future outbreaks of a similar peevish and morbid infatuation. The mind of Jonah was dark and moody, not unlike a lake which mirrors in the waters the gloomy thunderclouds which overshadow it, and flash over its sullen waves a momentary gleam. The history of Jonah is certainly striking and extraordinary. Its characteristic prodigy does not resemble the other miraculous phenomena recorded in Scripture; yet we must believe in its literal occurrence, as the Bible affords no indication of its being a mythus, allegory, or parable. On the other hand, our Saviour's pointed and peculiar allusion to it is a presumption of its reality (Matt. xii. 40). The opinion of the earlier Jews is also in favour of the literality of the adventure. It requires less faith to credit this simple excerpt from Jonah's biography, than to believe the numerous hypotheses that have been invented to deprive it of its supernatural character, the On what portion of the coast Jonah was set down in safety we are not informed. The prophet proceeded, on receiving a second commission, to fulfil it. The fearful menace had the desired effect. The city humbled itself before God, and a respite was vouchsafed. The king (Pul, according to Usher) and his people fasted, and their penitence was accepted. The spirit of Jonah was chafed that the doom he had uttered was not executed. He retired to a station out of the city whence he might witness the threatened catastrophe. Under the shadow of a gourd prepared by God he reclined, while Jehovah taught him by the growth and speedy death of this plant, and his attachment to it, a sublime lesson of patient and forgiving generosity. The book of Jonah is a simple narrative, with the exception JONATHAN of the prayer or thanksgiving in chap. ii. Its style and mode of narration are uniform. There are no traces of compilation, as Nactigall supposed; neither is the prayer, as De Wette imagines, improperly borrowed from some other sources. That prayer contains, indeed, not only imagery peculiar to itself, but also such imagery as at once was suggested to the mind of a pious Hebrew preserved in circumstances of extreme jeopardy. On this principle we account for the similarity of some portions of its phraseology to Ps. lix., xlii., &c. The language in both places had been hallowed by frequent usage, and fad become the consecrated idiom of a distressed and succoured Israelite. The hymn seems to have been composed after his deliverance, and the reason why his deliverance is noted after the hymn is recorded may be to show the occasion of its composition. 490 were forbidden to the Hebrews. The offence here was twofold,-the establishment of a sacred ritual different from the only one which the law recognised, and the worship by symbols, naturally leading to idolatry, with the ministration of one who could not legally be a priest, but only a Levite, and under circumstances in which no Aaronic priest could legally have officiated. It is more than likely that this establishment was eventually merged in that of the golden calf, which Jeroboam set up in this place, his choice of which may very possibly have been determined by its being already in possession of 'a house of gods.' 2. JONATHAN, eldest son of Saul, king of Israel, and consequently heir apparent of the throne which David was destined to occupy (1 Sam. xiv. 9; 1 Chron. viii. 33; ix. 39). The war with the Philistines, which occupied the early part of his father's reign, afforded Jonathan more than one opportunity of displaying the chivalrous valour and the princely qualities with which he was endowed. His exploit in surprising the Philistine garrison at Michmash, attended only by his armour-bearer, is one of the most daring which history or even romance records (1 Sam. xiv. 1-14). His father came to follow up this victory, and in the ensuing pursuit of the confounded Philistines, Jonathan, spent with fatigue and hunger, refreshed himself with some wild honey which he found in a wood through which he passed. He knew not that his father had rashly vowed to put to death any one who touched a morsel of food before night. When the fact transpired, Saul felt himself bound to execute his vow even upon his gallant son; but the people, with whom the young prince was a great favourite, interposed and prevented the execution of his design (1 Sam. xiv. 16-52). Jonathan, who was resident at Bethlehem, lived at a time when the dues of the sanctuary did not afford a livelihood to the numerous LeVites who had a claim upon them; and belonged to a tribe destitute of the landed possessions which gave to all others a sufficient maintenance. He, therefore, went forth to seek his fortune. In Mount Ephraim he came to a house of gods,' which had been established by one Micah, who Jealousy and every mean or low feeling were wanted nothing but a priest to make his esta- strangers to the generous heart of Jonathan. blishment complete [MICAH]. This person made Valiant and accomplished himself, none knew Jonathan what was manifestly considered the better how to acknowledge valour and accomhandsome offer of engaging him as his priest for plishment in others. The act of David in meethis victuals, a yearly suit of clothes, and ten ing the challenge of Goliath, and in overcoming shekels (twenty-five shillings) a year in money. that huge barbarian, entirely won his heart; and Here he lived for some time, till the Danite from that day forward the son of Jesse found no spies, who were sent by their tribe to explore the one who loved him so tenderly, who admired his north, passed this way and formed his acquaint-high gifts with so much enthusiasm, or who risked auce. When, not long after, the body of armed so much to preserve him from harın, as the very Danites passed the same way when going to prince whom he was destined to exclude from a settle near the sources of the Jordan, the spies throne. Jonathan knew well what was to happen, mentioned Micah's establishment to them; on and he submitted cheerfully to the appointment which they went and took away not only the which gave the throne of his father to the young ephod, the teraphim, and the graven image,' but shepherd of Bethlehem. In the intensity of his the priest also, that they might set up the same love and confidence he shrank not to think of worship in the place of which they were going to David as his destined king and master; and his take possession. Micah vainly protested against dreams of the future pictured nothing brighter this robbery; but Jonathan himself was glad at than the day in which David should reign over the improvement in his prospects, and from that Israel, and he be one with him in friendship, and time, even down to the captivity, he and his de- next to him in place and council. scendants continued to be priests of the Danites in the town of Laish, the name of which they changed to Dan. 1. JONATHAN (God-given), a Levite descended from Gershom, the son of Moses, not Manasseh, as in our common copies, an interpolation made (Judg. xviii. 30) in order to save the character of the great lawgiver from the stain of having an idolater among his immediate descendants. The history of this Jonathan is involved in the narrative which occupies Judges xvii., xviii.; and the events themselves appear to have occurred soon after the death of Joshua, and of the elders who outlived him, when the government was in a most unsettled state. JONATHAN There is not any reason to suppose that this establishment, whether in the hands of Micah or of the Danites, involved an apostacy from Jehovah. It appears rather to have been an attempt to localize or domesticate His presence, under those symbols and forms of service which were common among the neighbouring nations, but When Saul began to hate David as his intended successor, he was highly displeased at the friendship which had arisen between him and his sou. This exposed Jonathan to much contumely, and even to danger of life; for, once at least, the king's passion against him on this account rose so high that he cast a javelin at him to smite him to the wall.' This unequivocal act taught Jonathan that the court of Saul was no safe place for David. He JOPPA JOPPA 491 223. [Joppa.] told him so, and they parted with many tears. | the Apostle Peter, who here raised Tabitha from David then set forth upon those wanderings the dead, and lodged in the outskirts of the town among strangers and in solitary places, which with Simon, the tanner, when favoured with the lasted all the time of Saul. The friends met only vision which taught him to call no man common once more. Saul was in pursuit of David when or unclean' (Acts ix. 36-39; x. 5, 18; xi. 5). he was in the wilderness of Ziph; and Jonathan From the first crusade down to our own day, could not forbear coming to him secretly in the Joppa has been the landing-place of pilgrims wood to give him comfort and encouragement going to Jerusalem. There is still here an hos(1 Sam. xxiii. 16-18). Nothing more is related pital for pilgrims, dependent on the convent of of Jonathan till both he and his father lost their St. Salvador in Jerusalem, and occupied by lives in the fatal battle of Gilboa, combating Spanish monks. In 1797 the place was taken by against the enemies of their country. storm by the French army under Napoleon, and was sacked without mercy; when the Turkish prisoners, to the number of 500 or 600, were carried to the neighbouring sand-hills and put to death by his order. JOP'PA, a sea-port town and haven on the coast of Palestine, situated on an eminence, in a sandy soil, about forty miles N. W. of Jerusalem, and nine miles W.N.W. from Ramleh. It was a very ancient town. To say nothing respecting the fabulous accounts of its great antiquity, it existed when the Israelites invaded the land of Canaan, and is mentioned as lying on the border of the tribe of Dan (Josh. xix. 46). Joppa was the only port possessed by the Israelites till Herod formed the harbour at Caesarea; and hence it was here that the timber from Lebanon destined for both the first and second temples was landed (1 Kings v. 9; 2 Chron. ii. 16; Ezra iii. 7). It was the place to which Jonah went, in expectation of finding a ship bound on some distant voyage, and where he found one going to Tarshish (Jonah i. 3). Joppa belonged to the powers which were successively dominant on this shore; and it does not again appear in Jewish history till the time of Judas Maccabæus, when the inhabitants having, contrary to the faith of treaties, thrown 200 Jews into the sea, the hero, to avenge them, surprised the haven by night, and set the shipping on fire (2 Macc. xii. 3-7). It is mentioned in the New Testament only in connection with the visit of Joppa is naturally very unfit for a haven. The port is so dangerous, from exposure to the open sea, that the surf often rolls in with the utmost violence, and even so lately as 1842 a lieutenant and some sailors were lost in pulling to the shore from an English steamer that lay in the harbour. But however bad, it was the only port which existed within reach of the important district which lay behind it inland: and the miserable state of the ancient roads, or rather perhaps the absence of any roads, made a near harbour, however incommodious, of more immediate consequence than a good one at a greater distance. The town is approached on the land side through rich and extensive gardens and orchards, and is very picturesquely situated upon an eminence or promontory, which is crowned by a castle. It chiefly faces the north; and the buildings appear, from the steepness of the site, as if standing upon one another. The aspect of the whole is mean and gloomy, and inside the place has all the appearance of a poor though large 492 JORAM village. There are no public buildings to engage, the eye, and the houses are mean and comfortless. No ancient ruins have been observed, nor are any to be expected in a place so often deIstroyed in war. There are three mosques in Joppa, and Latin, Greek, and Armenian convents. The former is that in which European pilgrims and travellers usually lodge. The town still enjoys a considerable trade with the neighbouring coasts. Its chief manufacture is soap, which is largely consumed in the baths of Cairo and Damascus; and its excellent fruits are exported in large quantities, especially water-melons, which are very extensively cultivated here and in other parts of the plain of Sharon. The inhabitants are said not to exceed 4000, of whom one-fourth are reckoned to be Christians. A British consul is now resident in the place. JO'RAM (God-exalted, a contraction of JEHORAM), ninth king of Israel, son of Ahab, and successor to his elder brother Ahaziah, who died childless. He began to reign B.C. 896, and reigned twelve years (2 Kings i. 17; iii. 1). Joram adhered to the sinful policy of Jeroboam in the matter of the golden calves; but, although his mother Jezebel was still alive, he discontinued the dark idolatries of Baal which she had introduced and maintained at such high cost of guilt and blood to the nation. JOSEPH cessor, Hazael. During the illness of Benhadad, the king of Israel seems to have employed himself in strengthening his eastern frontier against the Syrians, and in fortifying Ramoth-Gilead, which had fallen into his hands, and which his father had perished in the attempt to recover from the Syrians. This strong fortress thenceforth became the head-quarters of the operations beyond the river. Hazael was scarcely settled on the throne before he took arms, and marched against Ramoth, in the environs of which the Israelites sustained a defeat, and the king was wounded. He returned to Jezreel to be healed of his wounds, leaving the army in the charge of Jehu, one of his ablest and most active generals. It was in this interval that Jehu was anointed king of Israel by the messenger of Elisha, and immediately proceeded to Jezreel to fulfil his commission to exterminate the house of Ahab. The king, who went forth from the city to meet him when the watchman on the tower of Jezreel announced his approach, was slain under the circumstances described in the article JEHU; and Ahaziah, the king of Judah, who was at Jezreel on a visit to his sick cousin, shared his fate (B.C. 884). With Joram ended the dynasty of Ahab, which reigned forty-four years in Israel (2 Kings viii. 25-29; ix. 1-20). JOR'DAN, the principal river of Palestine. [PALESTINE.] The Moabites had been tributary to the crown of Israel since the separation of the two king- JO'SEPH (God-increased), son of Jacob and doms. But king Mesha deemed the defeat and Rachel, born under peculiar circumstances, as death of Ahab so heavy a blow to the power of may be seen in Gen. xxx. 22; on which account, Israel that he might safely assert his indepen- and because he was the son of his old age (xxxvii. dence. He accordingly did so, by withholding 3), he was beloved by his father more than were his tribute of 100,000 lambs, and 100,000 rams, the rest of his children, though Benjamin, as being with the wool.' The short reign of Ahaziah had also a son of Jacob's favourite wife, Rachel, was afforded no opportunity for any operations against in a peculiar manner dear to the patriarch. The the revolters; but the new king hastened to re-partiality evinced towards Joseph by his father duce them again under the yoke they had cast excited jealousy on the part of his brethren, the off. The good king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, was rather that they were born of different mothers too easily induced to take a part in the war. (xxxvii. 2). Joseph had reached his seventeenth He perhaps feared that the example of Moab, year, when some conduct on the part of his if allowed to be successful, might seduce into a brothers seems to have been such as in the similar course his own tributary, the king of opinion of Joseph to require the special attention Edom, whom he now summoned to join in this of Jacob, to whom, accordingly, he communiexpedition. The deliverance of the allies from cated the facts. This greatly increased their disperishing for lack of water, and the signal over- like to him, and they henceforth hated him, and throw of the Moabites at the word of Elisha, have could not speak peaceably unto him' (xxxvii. 4). been already described under ELISHA and JEHO- Their aversion, however, was carried to the highest pitch when Joseph acquainted them with two dreams, which appeared to indicate that Joseph would acquire pre-eminence in the family, if not sovereignty; and while even his father rebuked him, his brothers were filled with envy. Jacob, however, was not aware of the depth of their ill will; so that on one occasion, having a desire to hear intelligence of his sons, who were pasturing their flocks at a distance, he did not hesitate to make Joseph his messenger for that purpose. His appearing in view of his brothers was the signal for their malice to gain head. They began to devise means for his immediate destruction, which they would unhesitatingly have effected, but for his half-brother, Reuben, who, as the eldest son, might well be the party! to interfere on behalf of Joseph. A compromise was entered into, in virtue of which the youth' was stripped of the distinguishing vestments which he owed to his father's affection, and cast into a pit. Having performed this evil deed, and SHAPHAT. After this a more redoubtable enemy, Benhadad, king of Syria, occupied for a long time the attention and strength of the king. In the sacred records the more striking events of this war seem to be recorded for the sake of showing forth the great acts of ELISHA, and they have therefore been related under his name. It suffices here to indicate that they consisted in the Syrian king being constrained to terminate one campaign in consequence of all his plans being made known by the prophet to the king of Israel (2 Kings vi. 1-23); and in the deliverance of Samaria, according to the prediction of the prophet, from a horrible famine, caused by the city being besieged by the Syrians (2 Kings vi. 24-33; vii.). An interval of the war also afforded occasion for the remarkable cure of Naaman, the Syrian leper, by the same prophet (2 Kings v.) [NAAMAN]. After the death of Benhadad, Joram found a new and active enemy in his murderer and suc JOSEPH JOSEPH 493 while they were taking refreshment, the brothers | daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On, given him beheld a caravan of Arabian merchants, who to wife. were bearing the spices and aromatic gums of India down to the well-known and much-frequented mart, Egypt. On the proposal of Judah they resolved that, instead of allowing Joseph to perish, they should sell him to the merchants. This was accordingly done. Joseph was sold for a slave, to be conveyed by his masters into Egypt. While on his way thither, Reuben returned to the pit, intending to rescue his brother, and convey him safely back to their father. Joseph was gone. On which Reuben went to the wicked young men, who, not content with selling a brother into slavery, determined to punish their father for his partiality towards the unoffending sufferer. With this view they dipped Joseph's party-coloured garment in the blood of a kid and sent it to Jacob, in order to make him believe that his favourite child had been torn to pieces by some wild beast. The trick succeeded, and Jacob was grieved beyond measure. Meanwhile the merchants sold Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, and captain of the royal guard, who was a native of the country. In Potiphar's house Joseph enjoyed the highest confidence and the largest prosperity. A higher power watched over him; and whatever he undertook succeeded, till at length his master gave everything into his hands. But a second time he innocently brought on himself the vengeance of the ill-disposed. Charged by his master's wife with the very crime to which he had in vain been tempted, he was at once cast by his master into the state prison. " His 6 Seven years of abundance afforded Joseph opportunity to carry into effect such plans as secured an ample provision against the seven years of need. The famine came, but it found a prepared people. The visitation did not depend on any mere local causes, for the famine was over all the face of the earth;' and all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn' (ver. 56, 57). Among these customers appeared ten brethren, sons of the Hebrew Jacob. They had of necessity to appear before Joseph, whose licence for the purchase of corn was indispensable. Joseph had probably expected to see them, and he seems to have formed a deliberate plan of action. conduct has brought on him the always ready charges of those who would rather impeach than study the Bible, and even friends of that sacred book have hardly in this case done Joseph full justice. Joseph's main object appears to have been to make his brothers feel and recognise their guilt in their conduct towards him. For this purpose suffering, then as well as now, was indispensable. Accordingly Joseph feigned not to know his brothers, charged them with being spies, threatened them with imprisonment, and allowed them to return home to fetch their younger brother, as a proof of their veracity, only on condition that one of them should remain behind in chains, with a prospect of death before him should not their words be verified. Then it was, and not before, that they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul and would not hear; The narrative, which is obviously constructed therefore is this distress come upon us' (xliii. 21). in order to show the workings of divine Provi- On which, after weeping bitterly, he by common dence, states, however, that Joseph was not left agreement bound his brother Simeon, and left without special aid, in consequence of which he him in custody. At length Jacob consented to gained favour with the keeper of the prison to Benjamin's going in company with his brothers, such an extent that every thing was put under and provided with a present consisting of balm, his direction. Two of the regal officers, the honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds, and chief of the butlers' and 'the chief of the bakers,' with double money in their hands (double, in having offended their royal master, were con- order that they might repay the sum which Josigned to the same prison with Joseph. While seph had caused to be put into each man's sack there, each one had a dream, which Joseph inter- at their departure, if, as Jacob supposed, it was preted correctly. The butler, whose fate was an oversight), they went again down to Egypt auspicious, promised the young Hebrew to em- and stood before Joseph (xliii. 15); and there, ploy his influence to procure his deliverance; but too, stood Benjamin, Joseph's beloved brother. when again in the enjoyment of his butlership,' The required pledge of truthfulness was given. he forgat' Joseph (xl.). Pharaoh himself, how- If it is asked why such a pledge was demanded, ever, had two dreams, which found in Joseph a since the giving of it caused pain to Jacob, the successful expounder; for the butler then remem- answer may be thus: Joseph knew not how to bered the skill of his prison-companion, and ad- demean himself towards his family until he asvised his royal master to put it to the test in his certained its actual condition. That knowledge own case. Pharaoh's dream, as interpreted by he could hardly be certain he had gained from Joseph, foreboded the approach of a seven years' the mere words of men who had spared his life famine; to abate the evils of which Joseph re- only to sell him into slavery. How had these commended that some discreet and wise' man wicked men behaved towards his venerable should be chosen and set in full power over the father? His beloved brother Benjamin, was he land of Egypt. The monarch was alarmed, and safe? or had he suffered from their jealousy and called a council of his advisers. The wisdom of malice the worse fate with which he himself had Joseph was recognised as of divine origin and been threatened? Nothing but the sight of Bensupereminent value; and the king and his mi-jamin could answer these questions, and resolve nisters (whence it appears that the Egyptian these doubts. monarchy-at Memphis was not despotic, but constitutional) resolved that Joseph should be made (to borrow a term from Rome) Dictator in the approaching time of need. The highest honours were conferred upon him. He was made ruler over all the land of Egypt, and the • . Benjamin had come, and immediately a natural change took place in Joseph's conduct: the brother began to claim his rights in Joseph's bosom. Jacob was safe, and Benjamin was safe. Joseph's heart melted at the sight of Benjamin: And he said to the ruler of his house, Bring these men • |