Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Jonah · About this commentary
The Lot and the Confession
Jonah 1:7-10
7 They all said to each other, “Come! Let’s cast lots, that we may know who is responsible for this evil that is on us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. · WEB
Cornered by a lot, Jonah states a creed that condemns the very thing he is doing.
The lot is not superstition here; it is the last resort of men who have run out of ordinary means, and it lands where the narrative has already told the reader it must. What follows is a volley of questions — occupation, origin, country, people — and Jonah answers the last one first.
His reply is a creed, and it is orthodox to the letter. He fears Yahweh, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Every clause is true, and every clause indicts him. A man cannot flee across the sea from the God who made the sea; that is not a theological subtlety but the plain sense of what he has just said out loud. The psalmist put the same thought as a question with no available answer Psalms 139:7–10.
The sailors grasp it faster than he does. They are seized with a great fear — the phrase will return in verse 16 with Yahweh as its object — and their response is not a theological objection but an exasperated one. What is this that you have done? They can see that a man does not confess a Creator and then buy passage away from him.
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