1883 Haydock Douay Rheims Bible
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| Jonah 1:1 | Now *the word of the Lord came to Jonas, the son of Amathi, saying: | Year of the World about 3197, Year before Christ 807. |
| Jonah 1:2 | Arise, and go to Ninive, the great city, and preach in it: for the wickedness thereof is come up before me. | Ninive, the capital city of the Assyrian empire. (Challoner) --- It was 150 stadia long and 90 broad, (Diod. ii.) on the western bank of the Tigris. (Pliny, [Natural History?] 6:13.) --- Mosul, which some mistake for it, stands on the northern side. See Genesis 10:10. At the time when Jonas preached, Ninive would contain about 600,000, Jonas 4:11. They were people less favoured by God, (Acts 14:15.; Calmet) but not abandoned. (Theodoret) --- God took sufficient care of all his creatures, and foretold many things relating to foreign nations. (Calmet) --- Romans 3:29. (Worthington) --- For the. Septuagint add, "cry of," Genesis iv., and xviii. (Haydock) |
| Jonah 1:3 | And Jonas rose up to flee into Tharsis from the face of the Lord, and he went down to Joppe, and found a ship going to Tharsis: and he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them to Tharsis from the face of the Lord. | Tharsis. Which some take to be Tharsus of Cilicia, others to be Tartessus of Spain, others to be Carthage. (Challoner) --- Joppe, now Jaffa, (Menochius) a miserable seaport. (Haydock) --- It was formerly the best near Jerusalem, (2 Paralipomenon 2:16.) though very dangerous. (Josephus, Jewish Wars 3:15. or 29.) --- It is said to have been built before "the inundation" of the world, (Mela. 1:11.) and was famous for the adventure of Andromeda, rescued by Perseus from a sea monster. (Pliny, [Natural History?] 5:13.) (Calmet) --- Lord. He feared being accounted a false prophet, (Worthington) knowing how much God was inclined to shew mercy, (chap. 4:2.) and being disheartened at the difficulty of the undertaking, like Moses and Gedeon. (Calmet) --- He might also think that if the Ninivites repented, it would be a reflection on the obstinacy of the Jews. (St. Gregory, Mor. 6:13.) (St. Jerome) |
| Jonah 1:4 | But the Lord sent a great wind into the sea: and a great tempest was raised in the sea, and the ship was in danger to be broken. | Broken. Seeing no natural cause of such a sudden tempest, they concluded (Worthington) that some on board must be guilty; as the sailors argued (Haydock) when the noted atheist, Diagoras, was in similar circumstances. (Calmet) --- They had recourse to lots, and the prophet consented by God's inspiration, (Worthington) though this is not written, (Haydock) and the lots were superstitious. (Menochius) --- The oriental writers add many things to this sufficiently marvellous account. (Lyranus; D'Herbelot.) (Calmet) |
| Jonah 1:5 | And the mariners were afraid, and the men cried to their god: and they cast forth the wares that were in the ship, into the sea, to lighten it of them: and Jonas went down into the inner part of the ship, and fell into a deep sleep. | God. They were idolaters, ver. 6. --- Wares, which is commonly done in storms. (Calmet) --- This loss was in punishment of their sins; though they seem not devoid of some fear of God and man. (Haydock) --- Sleep. This is a lively image of the insensibility of sinners, fleeing from God, and threatened on every side with his judgments; and yet sleeping as if they were secure. (Challoner) --- Yet Jonas was sleeping through grief. (St. Jerome) (Matthew 26:40.) (Calmet) |
| Jonah 1:6 | And the shipmaster came to him, and said to him: Why art thou fast asleep? rise up, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think of us, that we may not perish. | |
| Jonah 1:7 | And they said every one to his fellow: Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know why this evil is upon us. And they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonas. | |
| Jonah 1:8 | And they said to him: Tell us for what cause this evil is upon us, what is thy business? of what country art thou? and whither goest thou? or of what people art thou? | |
| Jonah 1:9 | And he said to them: I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made both the sea and the dry land. | Fear, and therefore fly from the face of the Lord, ver. 3, 10. (Haydock) --- He knew that God is every where, ver. 3., and Psalm 133:8. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "I worship." Fear is often taken in this sense. (Haydock) |
| Jonah 1:10 | And the men were greatly afraid, and they said to him: Why hast thou done this? (for the men knew that he fled from the face of the Lord: because he had told them.) | |
| Jonah 1:11 | And they said to him: What shall we do to thee, that the sea may be calm to us? for the sea flowed and swelled. | |
| Jonah 1:12 | And he said to them: Take me up, and cast me into the sea, and the sea shall be calm to you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. | Cast me. God intimates that he required this sacrifice. (Menochius) |
| Jonah 1:13 | And the men rowed hard to return to land, but they were not able: because the sea tossed and swelled upon them. | Hard. They were unwilling to destroy the prophet, (Calmet) fearing to incur fresh guilt by thus treating one who had intrusted his life to them. (Josephus, Antiquities 9:11.) |
| Jonah 1:14 | And they cried to the Lord, and said: We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. | Blood. We act thus by his direction, and through necessity. |
| Jonah 1:15 | And they took Jonas, and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceased from raging. | |
| Jonah 1:16 | And the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and sacrificed victims to the Lord, and made vows. | Lord. They were converted by this prodigy, and offered sacrifice immediately, or (Calmet) when they came to port. (Menochius) --- All know by the light of reason that sacrifice and vows are acceptable to the Lord. (Worthington) |
| Jonah 2:0 | Jonas is swallowed up by a great fish; he prayeth with confidence in God: and the fish casteth him out on the dry land. | |
| Jonah 2:1 | Now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonas: *and Jonas was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Matthew 12:40.; Matthew 16:4.; Luke 11:30.; 1 Corinthians 15:4. | Fish. Hebrew dag: afterwards daga occurs, ver. 2; (Haydock) on which Leusden observes, the Jews infer that Jonas was first swallowed up by male and then by a female fish, which being full of young he was much straitened, and prayed from the belly of that (hadaga) female fish! He alludes to Rabbi Jarchi. (Haydock) --- Thus nar, puer, is put for a girl, to imply that Rebecca was prudent and Dina rambling. (Buxt. Tib. 13.) See Kennicott, Dis. 2., p. 417 and 552. --- Noble discoveries! Many suppose (Haydock) that this fish was a whale, as it does not live on flesh; (Calmet) but its throat being so narrow, as hardly to suffer a man's arm to pass, it is more probable that it was the sea-dog, lamia or canis chariarias, (Bartolin 14.) which may easily contain a man. (Aldrovandus 3:32.) (Menochius) --- This sea-dog, or shark, has five rows of teeth in each jaw. Human bodies have been found entire in the stomach. (Button.) --- Our Saviour calls the fish a whale, Matthew 12:40. (Worthington) --- But that term is given to any great sea monster. Yet it is not of much importance what species of fish be meant, provided the miracle be admitted. (Calmet) --- The pagans ridiculed it. (St. Augustine, ep. 102. q. 6. 30.) --- Yet they believed many of a similar nature, alleging the omnipotence of God. (St.. Jerome) --- This reason accounts for all the miracles recorded in Scripture. But might not God have chosen some easier expedient? We must not dive into his reasons. The impression which such a fact would make on the Ninivites, and the prefiguring of Christ's burial, might suffice. Jonas was not a type of his death, as some have imagined, Q. ad Orthodox. (Calmet) --- Nights, or as long as our Saviour was in the monument, (Menochius) which was about thirty-four hours. (Calmet, Dis.) |
| Jonah 2:2 | And Jonas prayed to the Lord, his God, out of the belly of the fish. | Prayed. He entertained these sentiments. (Sanct. xiv.) --- He afterwards wrote them down. (Calmet) |
| Jonah 2:3 | And he said: *I cried out of my affliction to the Lord, and he heard me: I cried out of the belly of hell, and thou hast heard my voice. Psalm 119:1. | I cried. These five verses (Haydock) express his thoughts while he was in the sea, (St. Jerome; Calmet) or in the fish. (Haydock) --- He doubtless prayed before, when he was cast into the sea, and also in the whale's belly, having then greater confidence that he should arrive safely on dry land, (ver. 5.) and therefore vowing sacrifices of thanks, ver. 10. (Worthington) --- Hell; the whale's belly, (Theodoret; etc.) or rather the depth of the sea. It may denote any imminent danger. |
| Jonah 2:4 | And thou hast cast me forth into the deep, in the heart of the sea, and a flood hath compassed me: all thy billows, and thy waves have passed over me. | |
| Jonah 2:5 | And I said: I am cast away out of the sight of thy eyes: but yet I shall see thy holy temple again. | Eyes, in a sort of despair, like the psalmist, 30:23. Yet he presently resumes fresh confidence in God, notwithstanding the greatness of his offences. --- Temple. He went to Jerusalem, like other good Israelites. |
| Jonah 2:6 | *The waters compassed me about even to the soul: the deep hath closed me round about, the sea hath covered my head. Psalm 68:1. | Soul, so that I was in danger of being suffocated, Psalms 68:2. (Calmet) --- Sea. Hebrew, "weeds entangled," etc. (Haydock) --- The Mediterranean has a great deal of sea weed. He speaks of the time before he was swallowed up by the fish. |
| Jonah 2:7 | I went down to the lowest parts of the mountains: the bars of the earth have shut me up for ever: and thou wilt bring up my life from corruption, O Lord, my God. | Lowest. Hebrew and Septuagint, "clefts." --- Bars, or prisons, in the abyss, (Calmet) farthest from the heights. (Worthington) |
| Jonah 2:8 | When my soul was in distress within me, I remembered the Lord: that my prayer may come to thee, unto thy holy temple. | Me, at the last gasp, (Calmet) and oppressed with grief. (Menochius) |
| Jonah 2:9 | They that are vain observe vanities, forsake their own mercy. | Mercy. He alludes to the sailors. (Theodoret) --- Hebrew also, "let them forsake their worship," (Drusius, Leviticus 20:17.) or they are guilty of impiety. They neglect their vows, ver. 10., and Jonas 1:16. (Calmet) |
| Jonah 2:10 | But I with the voice of praise will sacrifice to thee: I will pay whatsoever I have vowed for my salvation to the Lord. | |
| Jonah 2:11 | And the Lord spoke to the fish: and it vomited out Jonas upon the dry land. | Spoke to the fish. God's speaking to the fish was nothing else but his will, which all things obey. (Challoner) (Worthington) --- Land. Josephus says near the Euxine Sea. But thus it must have travelled 800 leagues. Others fix upon different places, without any proof. (Calmet) |
| Jonah 3:0 | Jonas is sent again to preach in Ninive. Upon their fasting and repentance, God recalleth the sentence by which they were to be destroyed. | |
| Jonah 3:1 | And the word of the Lord came to Jonas the second time, saying: | |
| Jonah 3:2 | Arise, and go to Ninive, the great city: and preach in it the preaching that I bid thee. | Bid thee before, or when thou shalt be there. (Calmet) --- He seems to have retired to Jerusalem. (Menochius) |
| Jonah 3:3 | And Jonas arose, and went to Ninive, according to the word of the Lord: now Ninive was a great city of three days' journey. | Journey. By the computation of some ancient historians, Ninive was about fifty miles round: so that to go through all the chief streets and public places, was three days' journey. (Challoner) --- Diodorus (III. 1.) says Ninive was 150 stadia or furlongs in length. It must have been therefore 480 round; and as each furlong contains 125 paces of 5 ft. each, the compass would be "60 Italian miles, (about 50 English)" which would employ a person three days to go through the principal streets. (Worthington) --- Ninive "was much larger that Babylon." (Strabo xvi.) --- Hebrew, "a great city of God," etc., denoting its stupendous size. |
| Jonah 3:4 | And Jonas began to enter into the city one day's journey: and he cried, and said: Yet forty days, and Ninive shall be destroyed. | Journey. He records what he said the first day, though he seems to have preached many (Theodoret) even during forty days, after which time (Haydock) he expected the city would fall, and therefore retired out of the walls, Jonas 4:--- Forty. Septuagint three. St. Justin Martyr, (Dialogue with Trypho) "three, or forty-three." Theodoret thinks that the mistake was made by some ancient transcriber, and has since prevailed in all the copies of the Septuagint. All the rest have forty. St. Augustine (City of God 18:44.) believes the Septuagint placed three for a mysterious reason. Origen (hom. xvi. Num.) suggests that the prophet determined the number, and hence God did not execute the threat. (Calmet) --- This and many other menaces are conditional. If men repent, God will change his sentence. (St. Chrysostom; St. Gregory, Mor. 16:18.) (Worthington) |
| Jonah 3:5 | *And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. Matthew 12:41.; Luke 11:32. | God. They were convinced that he had wrought such wonders in the person of Jonas, with a desire of their welfare, particularly as he allowed them some delay. Accordingly they did penance for about forty days, and their conversion was so sincere, that Christ proposes it to his disciples, Matthew 12:41. (Calmet) --- Thus "the city was overturned in its perverse manners." (St. Augustine, City of God 21:24., and Psalm l.) --- They were at an end, and the city was renovated. (Haydock) |
| Jonah 3:6 | And the word came to the king of Ninive: and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. | King Sardanapalus, (Salien, Year of the world 3216) or rather his father, Phul, whom Strabo calls Anacyndaraxes, (Calmet.) and who died in the year of the world 3237, (Usher) four years after he had invaded Palestine, 4 Kings 15:19. |
| Jonah 3:7 | And he caused it to be proclaimed and published in Ninive, from the mouth of the king, and of his princes, saying: Let neither men nor beasts, oxen, nor sheep, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water. | Princes. Their consent was requisite, to form an irrevocable edict, Daniel 6:8. --- Men. Even infants, according to the Fathers, Joel 2:16. St. Basil adds also, the young of cattle. This was done to excite rational beings to repentance. (Theodoret) --- We do not find that cattle were deprived of food on such occasions among the Jews. But Virgil specifies that this was the case at the death of Caesar, (Ecl. v.) as it was in droughts among some nations of America. (Horn 2:13.) (Calmet) --- When people are greatly moved by repentance, they exceed in austerity; but if this be not indiscreet, God accepts of their good intention. (Worthington) |
| Jonah 3:8 | And let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength, and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. | |
| Jonah 3:9 | *Who can tell if God will turn, and forgive: and will turn away from his fierce anger, and we shall not perish? Jeremias 18:11.; Joel 2:14. | |
| Jonah 3:10 | And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and God had mercy with regard to the evil which he had said that he would do to them, and he did it not. | Mercy. Hebrew, "repented," as some copies of the Septuagint read, while others have, "was comforted." (Haydock) --- God suspended the stroke. But as the people soon relapsed, Sardanapalus burnt himself to death, and the city was taken, (St. Jerome) thirty-seven years after Jeroboam. (Year of the world 3257, Usher) --- Yet this was only a prelude to its future ruin, foretold by Tobias, (xiv. 5. in Greek) and effected by Nabopolassar and Astyages. (Calmet) (Year of the world 3378, Usher) --- The vestiges did not appear in the days of Lucian, (Charon.; Calmet) soon after Christ. (Haydock) |
| Jonah 4:0 | Jonas, repining to see that his prophecy is not fulfilled, is reproved by the type of the ivy. | |
| Jonah 4:1 | And Jonas was exceedingly troubled, and was angry: | Troubled. His concern was lest he should pass for a false prophet; or rather lest God's word, by this occasion might come to be slighted and disbelieved. (Challoner) --- He conjectured that God would spare the penitent Ninivites, and feared lest prophecies should be deemed uncertain. But this doubt is solved by observing that some are conditional, (chap. 3:4., and Jeremias 18:8.) as it proved here. When the people relapsed, they were afterwards destroyed, Nahum i., etc. (Worthington) (Chap. 3:10.) --- The conversion of Ninive was an earnest of that of the Gentiles. (Calmet) --- This being so intimately connected with the reprobation of the Jews, (Haydock) the prophet was grieved at the misery of the latter, (St. Jerome) which our Saviour and St. Paul bewailed. (Acts 11:2.; Romans 10:19.; Luke xix.; etc.) Yet Jonas seems to have considered himself rather too much. |
| Jonah 4:2 | And he prayed to the Lord, and said: I beseech thee, O Lord, is not this what I said, when I was yet in my own country? therefore I went before to flee into Tharsis: *for I know that thou art a gracious and merciful God, patient, and of much compassion, and easy to forgive evil. Psalm 85:5.; Joel 2:13. | |
| Jonah 4:3 | And now, O Lord, I beseech thee take my life from me: for it is better for me to die than to live. | |
| Jonah 4:4 | And the Lord said: Dost thou think thou hast reason to be angry? | |
| Jonah 4:5 | Then Jonas went out of the city, and sat toward the east side of the city: and he made himself a booth there, and he sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would befal the city. | Went, or "had gone," waiting for the city's ruin. (Calmet) |
| Jonah 4:6 | And the Lord God prepared an ivy, and it came up over the head of Jonas, to be a shadow over his head, and to cover him (for he was fatigued): and Jonas was exceeding glad of the ivy. | The Lord God prepared an ivy. Hederam. In the Hebrew it is kikajon, which some render a gourd; others a palmerist, or palma Christi. (Challoner) --- This latter is now the common opinion. St.Jerome explains it of a shrub growing very fast in the sandy places of Palestine. He did not pretend (Calmet) that hedera, or ivy, as Aquila translates, (Haydock) was the precise import; but he found no Latin term more resembling, (Calmet) as he observes here and in his letter to St. Augustine, who had informed him that a certain bishop of Africa having read his version publicly, the audience was surprised at the change; and the Jews, "either through ignorance or malice," decided in favour of the old Greek and Latin version of gourd, which [the] Protestants retain. (Haydock) --- But this does not grow so soon no more than the ivy. The palma Christi, or ricinus, does. The Egyptians call it kiki, and the Greeks selicy prion. See Pliny, [Natural History?] 15:7. Its foliage is thick, and its trunk hollow. (Calmet) --- But how came St. Jerome to be unacquainted with this plant? or why did he substitute one false name for another? |
| Jonah 4:7 | But God prepared a worm, when the morning arose on the following day: and it struck the ivy and it withered. | |
| Jonah 4:8 | And when the sun was risen, the Lord commanded a hot and burning wind: and the sun beat upon the head of Jonas, and he broiled with the heat: and he desired for his soul that he might die, and said: It is better for me to die than to live. | Hot. Hebrew also, "eastern and sultry," (Haydock) or silent, (Calmet) which instead of refreshing, served only to increase the heat, (Haydock) and to raise dust. Septuagint, Syriac, etc., agree with the Vulgate. |
| Jonah 4:9 | And the Lord said to Jonas: Dost thou think thou hast reason to be angry, for the ivy? And he said: I am angry with reason even unto death. | Death. The spirit of prophecy changes not the temper. (Calmet) --- Jonas had reason to be grieved, and so had God to shew mercy. In this history and prediction, who would have thought that Jonas had been a figure of our Saviour's death and resurrection, if he himself had not declared it? (Matthew xii.) (Worthington) --- The prophet comes out of the fish alive, as Christ does from the tomb. He was cast into the sea to save those on board; Christ dies for the redemption of mankind. Jonas had been ordered to preach, but did not comply till after his escape; thus the gospel was designed to be preached to the Gentiles, yet Christ would not have it done till he had risen, Matthew 15:26. The prophet's grief intimates the jealousy of the Jews; as his shade destroyed, points out the law, which leaves them in the greatest distress. The very name fish, ichthus, is a monogram of "Jesus Christ, the Son of God, a Saviour, (Calmet) or crucified." (Haydock) (St. Paulinus, ep. 33.) --- Hence Jonas most strikingly foreshewed Christ. (St. Augustine, City of God 18:30.) |
| Jonah 4:10 | And the Lord said: Thou art grieved for the ivy, for which thou hast not laboured, nor made it to grow, which in one night came up, and in one night perished. | |
| Jonah 4:11 | And shall not I spare Ninive, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons, that know not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left, and many beasts? |