the spot where he was cast upon the land, or the name of the Assyrian king; in brief, he omits all the more minute details which are necessarily connected with a true history.” But the assertion that completeness in all external circumstances, which would serve to gratify curiosity rather than to help to an understanding of the main facts of the case, is indispensable to the truth of any historical narrative, is one which might expose the whole of the historical writings of antiquity to criticism, but can never shake their truth. There is not a single one of the ancient historians in whose works such completeness as this can be found: and still less do the biblical historians aim at communicating such things as have no close connection with the main object of their narrative, or with the religious significance of the facts themselves. Proofs of the later origin of the book have also been sought for in the language employed, and in the circumstance that Jonah's prayer in Jon 2:3-10 contains so many reminiscences from the Psalms, that Ph. D. Burk has called it praestantissimum exemplum psalterii recte applicati. But the so-called Aramaisms, such as הטיל to throw (Jon 1:4-5, Jon 1:12, etc.), the interchange of ספינה with אניּה (Jon 1:5), מנּה to determine, to appoint (Jon 2:1; Jon 4:6.), חתר in the supposed sense of rowing (Jon 1:13), התעשּׁת to remember (Jon 1:6), and the forms בּשׁלּמי (ch. 1:7), בּשׁלּי (Jon 1:12), and שׁ for אשׁר (Jon 4:10), belong either to the speech of Galilee or the language of ordinary intercourse, and are very far from being proofs of a later age, since it cannot be proved with certainty that any one of these words was unknown in the early Hebrew usage, and שׁ for אשׁר occurs as early as Jdg 5:7; Jdg 6:17, and even שׁלּי in Sol 1:6; Sol 8:12, whilst in the book before us it is only in the sayings of the persons acting (Jon 1:7, Jon 1:12), or of God (Sol 4:10), that it is used. The only non-Hebraic word, viz., טעם, which is used in the sense of command, and applied to the edict of the king of Assyria, was heard by Jonah in Nineveh, where it was used as a technical term, and was transferred by him. The reminiscences which occur in Jonah's prayer are all taken from the Psalms of David or his contemporaries, which were generally known in Israel long before the prophet's day.[1]
Lastly, the statement in Jon 3:3, that
- ↑ They are the following: Jon 2:3 is formed from Psa 18:7 and Psa 120:1; Jon 2:4 is taken literally from Psa 42:8; Jon 2:5 from Psa 31:23, whilst Jon 2:5 recals Psa 5:8; Jon 2:6 is formed from Psa 69:2 and Psa 18:5; Jon 2:8 from Psa 142:4 or Psa 143:4, whilst Jon 2:8 recals Psa 18:7 and Psa 88:3; Jon 2:9 is formed after Psa 31:7; and Jon 2:10 resembles Psa 42:5 and Psa 50:14, Psa 50:23.
