To correct these by teaching, by
an instance drawn from Assyria itself, God's care for the Gentiles and
their susceptibility to His voice, was the purpose of Jonah's mission.
He is a prophet of Israel, because the lesson of his history was for
them, though his message was for Nineveh. He first taught by example the
truth which Jesus proclaimed in the synagogue of Nazareth, and Peter
learned on the housetop at Joppa, and Paul took as his guiding star. A
truth so unwelcome and remote from popular belief needed emphasis when
first proclaimed; and this singular story, as it were, underlines it for
the generation which heard it first. Its place would rather have been
among the narratives than the prophets, except for this aspect of it. So
regarded, Jonah becomes a kind of representative of Israel; and his
history sets forth large lessons as to its function among the nations,
its unwillingness to discharge it, the consequences of disobedience, and
the means of return to a better mind.

Note then, first, the Prophet's unwelcome charge. There seems no
sufficient reason for doubting the historical reality of Jonah's mission
to Nineveh; for we know that intercourse was not infrequent, and the
silence of other records is, in their fragmentary condition, nothing
wonderful. But the fact that a prophet of Israel was sent to a heathen
city, and that not to denounce destruction except as a means of winning
to repentance, declared emphatically God's care for the world, and
rebuked the exclusiveness which claimed Him for Israel alone. The same
spirit haunts the Christian Church, and we have all need to ponder the
opposite truth, till our sympathies are widened to the width of God's
universal love, and we discern that we are bound to care for all men,
since He does so.

Jonah sullenly resolved not to obey God's voice. What a glimpse into the
prophetic office that gives us! The divine Spirit could be resisted, and
the Prophet was no mere machine, but a living man who had to consent
with his devoted will to bear the burden of the Lord. One refused, and
his refusal teaches us how superb and self-sacrificing was the
faithfulness of the rest. So we have each to do in regard to God's
message intrusted to us. We must bow our wills, and sink our prejudices,
and sacrifice our tastes, and say, 'Here am I; send me.'

Jonah represents the national feelings which he shared. Why did he
refuse to go to Nineveh? Not because he was afraid of his life,