9 And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, a worshipper of the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.
And in that hour there was a great earth-shock and a tenth part of the town came to destruction; and in the earth-shock seven thousand persons came to their end: and the rest were in fear, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
O give praise to the God of heaven: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.
Then, after hearing these words, for some days I gave myself up to weeping and sorrow, seated on the earth; and taking no food I made prayer to the God of heaven,
These are the words of Cyrus, king of Persia: The Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he has made me responsible for building a house for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Now when first they were living there they did not give worship to the Lord. So the Lord sent lions among them, causing the death of some of them.
And one who had got away from the fight came and gave word of it to Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the holy tree of Mamre, the Amorite, the brother of Eshcol and Aner, who were friends of Abram.
For when I came by, I was looking at the things to which you give worship, and I saw an altar with this writing on it, TO THE GOD OF WHOM THERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE. Now, what you, without knowledge, give worship to, I make clear to you. The God who made the earth and everything in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, is not housed in buildings made with hands; And he is not dependent on the work of men's hands, as if he had need of anything, for he himself gives to all life and breath and all things;
And they said evil things against the God of heaven because of their pain and their wounds; and they were not turned from their evil works.
What man is there who will not have fear before you, O Lord, and give glory to your name? because you only are holy; for all the nations will come and give worship before you; for your righteousness has been made clear.
For this night there came to my side an angel of the God who is my Master and whose servant I am,
She sent for the men of her house and said to them, See, he has let a Hebrew come here and make sport of us; he came to my bed, and I gave a loud cry;
Good people, why are you doing these things? We are men with the same feelings as you, and we give you the good news so that you may be turned away from these foolish things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all things in them:
And after that, the children of Israel will come back and go in search of the Lord their God and David their king; and they will come in fear to the Lord and to his mercies in the days to come.
And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will put up a kingdom which will never come to destruction, and its power will never be given into the hands of another people, and all these kingdoms will be broken and overcome by it, but it will keep its place for ever.
So that they might make a request for the mercy of the God of heaven in the question of this secret; so that Daniel and his friends might not come to destruction with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the secret was made clear to Daniel in a vision of the night. And Daniel gave blessing to the God of heaven.
Happy is the man who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things in them; who keeps faith for ever:
The sea is his, and he made it; and the dry land was formed by his hands. O come, let us give worship, falling down on our knees before the Lord our Maker.
Then the king said to me, What is your desire? So I made prayer to the God of heaven.
Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, scribe of the law of the God of heaven, all peace; And now it is my order that all those of the people of Israel, and their priests and Levites in my kingdom, who are ready and have a desire to go to Jerusalem, are to go with you.
So they went on worshipping the Lord, and made for themselves, from among all the people, priests for the high places, to make offerings for them in the houses of the high places. They gave worship to the Lord, but they gave honour to their gods like the nations did from whom they had been taken as prisoners. So to this day they go on in their old ways, not worshipping the Lord or keeping his orders or his ways or the law and the rule which the Lord gave to the children of Jacob, to whom he gave the name Israel; And the Lord made an agreement with them and gave them orders, saying, You are to have no other gods; you are not to give worship to them or be their servants or make them offerings:
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jonah 1
Commentary on Jonah 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Book of Jonah
Chapter 1
In this chapter we have,
Jon 1:1-3
Observe,
Jon 1:4-10
When Jonah was set on ship-board, and under sail for Tarshish, he thought himself safe enough; but here we find him pursued and overtaken, discovered and convicted as a deserter from God, as one that had run his colours.
Jon 1:11-17
It is plain that Jonah is the man for whose sake this evil is upon them, but the discovery of him to be so was not sufficient to answer the demands of this tempest; they had found him out, but something more was to be done, for still the sea wrought and was tempestuous (v. 11), and again (v. 13), it grew more and more tempestuous (so the margin reads it); for if we discover sin to be the cause of our troubles, and do not forsake it, we do but make bad worse. Therefore they went on with the prosecution.