Ch.4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry? So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

Jonah should surely have been mightily pleased with the outcome of his campaign of warning. Nineveh had taken notice. There was a dramatic and drastic change in their morality. So his God would certainly be pleased and would now show a marked approval of His prophet’s work.

But if God was pleased, Jonah wasn’t. In a record that is peppered with Hebrew intensives and hyperboles, the verse (4:1), which describes Jonah’s reaction, is one of the most vigorous.

The soliloquy, which follows probably, took place between himself and the angel of the Lord (there is one small hint in the text that this may have been so).

Jonah’s expostulation began with his quoting the words of the angel of the Lord to Moses at Sinai:

“Thou art a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil” (cp. Ex. 34: 6,7).

He went on: ‘I knew it would work out like this. When I was first told to go lo Nineveh, did I not say then that this would be the outcome? And now that I have done my duty, as I was made to do, my life is in peril and is even now a present misery — and all this as a reward for obedience and hard dedication to a difficult duty, forty days of it! And when I chose to abandon Nineveh to its fate, that horrific destiny came on me instead. As a prophet of the God of Israel, I am between the upper and nether millstone. I just can’t win.’

So self-righteous, self-pitying Jonah was angry. He felt that he had every right to be.

But why should he be angry at the sight of a violent greedy power-drunk city of Nineveh all at once showing respect for Jehovah and trembling at His word? Ought not a prophet of the Lord to rejoice at such a reformation?

In high dudgeon he went out of the city (on its east side because there was high ground, and on the west Calah abutted on the wide fast-flowing Tigris). There he built himself a booth, of the sort he had made in early days at Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles; and there he would discipline his impatient soul with patience. Perhaps, after all, his remonstration to the angel would bring thunderbolts from heaven, something comparable to Sodom’s grim fate and would “turn Nineveh to ashes, condemning it with an overthrow.” What a satisfaction it would be to himself and to his countrymen to see a politically-inflated Nineveh wiped out!

And as he sat there, waiting and expectant, and feeling the growing heat of the day more and more, he noted that already the stem of a fast-growing gourd plant, rather like a vine but with more foliage, was climbing up and over his booth. He marked with amazement the rapidity of its development. What a blessing this added shelter was to save him from the exhausting heat of a fierce mid-day sun.

All that day and all that night Jonah camped out there, comfortable and expectant. But still nothing happened.

Next day, the angel of the Lord went into action. A plague of caterpillars appeared on the gourd, as if from nowhere. These greedily devastated all that rich vegetation. Then, as the day wore on, a hot, hot wind blew up from the desert with vehement intensity. There was no escaping the fierce heat of scorching sun and blasting wind combined. It was worse than being in an oven.

And Jonah groaned aloud in his misery. Now he had an added reason for wishing himself dead.

Then, all at once, the angel of the Lord stood before him again, coolly rebuking his self-pity.

“Doest thou well to be angry, Jonah? Why feel so full of complaint at losing the cool shade of your gourd? Yet you are mighty indignant when that vast sprawling city, full of pathetic, ignorant, superstitious people, is saved from the fierce heat of Almighty wrath. Is that reasonable? When will you begin to allow that God, far wiser than you, knows what He is doing?”

Why did not Jonah want Nineveh to be saved? Why should he reckon his own life would be put in peril if his preaching were to save the city from destruction?

It had probably become a firm conviction in the northern tribes of Israel that, before long, the aggrandisement of Assyria would be sure to mean an irresistible threat to the survival of Israel. It were far better if Nineveh perish. On the other hand, a Nineveh converted to high respect for Jehovah would be sure to lead to friendship between Assyria and Judah, and thus Israel might find itself with strong enemies on both flanks. So, after preaching repentance in Nineveh, how could Jonah possibly show his face again in his own country? He was convinced that his dutiful obedience to the Lord’s behest had put him in an impossible position.

But think again, man! Your God does not enjoy destroying the creatures of His hand. And there in Nineveh are 120,000 people, and all of them spiritually no better than uninstructed children who cannot tell right hand from left. Indeed, are they any better than “much cattle”? Can’t you have pity, Jonah, as your God has pity?

Indeed, there is more to it than that, Jonah. Why don’t you learn from the parable of your own gourd? Just as it sheltered you, so the strength of Nineveh sheltered your people by holding in check the perennial threat from Syria. But your gourd withered away and became useless to you. Learn also from this part of the parable. This repentance is only a flash in the pan. It won’t last. Very soon, they will forget Jehovah and the judgment He can bring, and they will turn back to their violence and wickedness and to their false gods. And then both Israel and Judah will feel the blast of Assyrian heat. There will come an ambitious brutal monarch called Sennacherib who will resent the respect his forefathers were constrained to show to the God of Israel. He will challenge Jehovah with the might of his national god Ashur, and will bring against the tribes of Jacob the worst ferocity Assyria can muster. You have seen, Jonah, what Heaven’s compassion has done for Nineveh in your time. But live to the end of this century, and you will see that God is not mocked.

Ch. 3 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd not flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

When the call came to Jonah the second time, there was no hesitation, no argument. He went — almost certainly preceded by an astonishing story of a mighty tornado brought to stillness by a man being thrown overboard, a man who was swallowed by a great fish and was vomited up, none the worse for his unique experience. So when Jonah began his campaign, the populace was already agog to see and hear him.

There is a lovely double entendre about the description given here of Nineveh as “an exceeding great city”, for literally this is: “a city great unto God” (an example of the occasional use of Elohim to emphasize the extraordinary, e.g. 1 Sam. 14: 15; Acts 7: 20; Gen. 23: 6). All kinds of guesses have been made about the description of Nineveh as “a city of three days’ journey”. Three days to cross it? Three days to go all round it? But since Jonah “began to enter into the city a day’s journey”, this might suggest that he needed a full day in each of the three great sub-divisions of the city (see on ch.2).

“Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown”. The effect of the message was electric, especially on the rulers of the city. The phrase: “the king of Nineveh” is rather remarkable, for the city’s monarchs were always titled: “king of Assyria” and also, in later days, “king of Babylon” as well. So possibly the ruler mentioned here was the mayor of the city.

Thus, by preaching, example and edict, the entire city was made to realise both the gravity and urgency of its condition in the eyes of Jehovah, the God of Israel. The sweeping transformation from evil and violence (an Assyrian speciality!) is intimated in language of extraordinary hyperbole, for, of course, the animals also were not literally arrayed in sackcloth; and it was the people, not the beasts, who “cried mightily (with strength) unto God”. Sayce says that in later years in the reign of Esarhaddon, there was another similar occasion when a like proclamation was made.

The transformation that took place was breath-taking in its magnitude and comprehensive character. But it is not unlikely that the impact of the message of such an extraordinary man as Jonah would be reinforced by the considerable reputation of those other notable prophets of the Lord, Elijah and Elisha. It may be, too, that Jonah’s campaign went on for all the forty day period which was Nineveh’s time of grace. However it happened, the transformation in those Ninevites far surpassed the effect produced by John the Baptist in Jewry, and of all the prophets there was none greater than he (Mt. 11: 11). And after John the Baptist, Jesus was to hold up to the same people the example of this city’s repentance: “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here” (Mt. 12: 41). The message of John was: “Yet forty years and Jerusalem shall be overthrown!” (A.D.30-70). Those Ninevites changed their lives so dramatically because led by the good example of their ruler. What a lesson was held out here to Judah and Israel, with their sequence, rarely interrupted, of unworthy kings, so often downright wicked. The narrative here is careful to specify “the high and the low”, appropriately reversing the phrase: “both small and great” (Jer. 31: 34), this latter form being more usual because God has greater regard for the humble than for the proud.

In Jonah’s preaching there was no assurance that repentance would bring a reversal of the threatened judgment, for the ruler’s best hope, expressed to his people, was: “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?”

Who can tell? Nearly two hundred years later Jeremiah could tell: “If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them” (18: 8). The words are almost a direct quotation of Jonah 3: 10.

This problem of God’s “change of mind” meets the reader of Holy Scripture not only here but in a variety of other situations. It is a matter for no little surprise that such a question as this should have been the subject of so much sloppy thinking and even of downright neglect.

Clearly there is a paradox involved here. If God is omniscient and knows the end from the beginning — a timeless God — how is it possible for Him “to repent” or “change His mind”?

There are more examples of this than is commonly realised. Here are a few, to be going on with:

1. The classic instance: Num. 14: 30-34: Because of the faithless Israelite acceptance of the report of the ten faithless spies, the people were condemned to wander in the wilderness for forty years longer than they need have done. If, instead, they had followed the good counsel of Joshua and Caleb, they would have been in the Land of Promise in a matter of weeks. “Ye shall know my breach of promise (mg: the altering of my purpose)”.
2. A proper reading of Acts 7: 25 (see RV) and Dt. 9: 24 requires the interpretation that when Moses made his first intervention on behalf of his people, “God was giving them deliverance”, but they rejected him and it (“the reproach of Christ”; Heb.11: 26 — anticipating a like situation applying to A.D.30-70).
3. Two examples associated with the reign of Ahab: 1 Kgs. 20: 42 and 21: 19.21 RV.
4. King Hezekiah: “Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live” (Isaiah 38: 1). But because of his prayer, for fifteen years he lived and did not die.
5. After the numbering of the people, David opted for three days of plague; yet, according to 2 Sam.24: 15,16 (Heb. text), the plague was stayed on the first day.
6. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen.2: 17) was stretched to cover nearly a thousand years because of faith expressed and sacrifice offered.

“Explanations’’ of the phenomena indicated here tend to specialize in woolly verbiage and vague ideas. Something better is called for.

It is agreed that the concept of a God who “repents” or “changes His purpose” is one not readily acceded to by a mere human mind. But then, “ My ways are not your ways, neither are your thoughts My thoughts, saith the Lord” (ls.55: 8). Then ought we not to stop trying to reconcile seeming contradictions in the ways of God? If Holy Scripture repeatedly talks about a God at work in this strange fashion, is it not because He wants His creatures to think of Him in this way. ‘You small beings can no more understand those things than you can understand or even guess at the processes behind Creation in Genesis 1. What you are being told in the Word of Truth is what is best for you to believe, whether you can understand or reconcile or not’.

The sheet anchor is Jeremiah 18: 6-10. It is a Scripture to be believed, not explained away.

For a fuller expansion of the theme developed here, and for more important application of it, see “Revelation”, H.A.W., Appendix.

1: 17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

There is no detail about Jonah more familiar and more certain, than the simple fact that he was buried inside the whale for three days and nights. Nor is there any detail of greater importance, for did not Jesus make it so?

“As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt. 12: 40).

A simple fact, a very simple fact — in need of interpretation!

On the strength of the words just quoted it is very dogmatically asserted by some that there is a great error in the long received idea that the Lord Jesus was crucified on a Friday and rose from the dead on the Sunday morning.

Not possibly! For where is the room between Friday afternoon and Sunday sunrise for ” three days and three nights”?

Accordingly, it is decided that the crucifixion was on a Wednesday, followed by a Passover Sabbath on the Thursday and then an ordinary Sabbath on the Saturday. Thus, reckoning from Wednesday sunset to Saturday sunset, the body of the crucified Lord lay in the tomb for exactly seventy-two hours.

Leaving on one side the strange incongruity that the Sun of righteousness should rise just as darkness fell; there is a large accumulation of unexplained difficulties before the theory can be fully accepted:

1. Whilst the New Testament mentions this “three days and three nights” only once, it also uses the expression “after three days” and no less than ten times it says “the third day” when speaking of Christ’s resurrection.
2. The words of the two disciples talking to Jesus on the road to Emmaus on the day of his resurrection: “Today is the third day since these things (the crucifixion) were done” (Lk. 24: 21). But if Christ had lain in the tomb for seventy-two hours, ought they not to have said “the fourth, or even the fifth, day since these things were done”? This point is surely decisive.
3. The Lord’s enemies, the chief priests, give the same kind of witness. They came to Pilate: “That deceiver said…After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day” (Mt. 27: 63,64). “After three days” would require, would it not, a guard at the tomb until the fourth day? But they were content to have the guard until the third day.
4. If the theory is correct, why should the women leave their visit to the tomb, to anoint the body (Mk.16: 1,2), until the Sunday, when Friday would have been the most obvious time? The problem of corruption of the body would decide this, wouldn’t it? (Jn.11: 39).

It seems strange that there has not long ago been clear recognition that “three days and three nights” is a familiar Bible idiom for “the third day”. Considering that the phrase is not of common occurrence, it is surprising how many times this idiom crops up—with the explanation in the context:

1. Queen Esther, faced with a great threat against her own people, bade them fast with her “three days, night and day” (Esth. 4: 16). Yet before this seventy-two hours fast was concluded, she went in “on the third day” to intercede with the king. Thus “three days and three nights” was interpreted as meaning “on the third day”.
2. “They continued three years without war between Syria and Israel”. Yet “in the third year” war broke out again (1 Kgs. 22: 1,2). Here the same idiomatic usage is applied to years.
3. In the fourth year of Hezekiah, the king of Assyria took Samaria “at the end of three years” in the sixth year of Hezekiah (2 Kgs.18: 9,10).
4. King Rehoboam told the deputation, who came appealing to him, that they should “come again unto me after three days.” They returned “on the third day” (2 Chr.10: 5,12).
5. Similarly, Mk. 8: 31 has the phrase “after three days”, and what is certainly the parallel record in Mt.16: 21 has “on the third day”.

There are other examples of the same sort, but these should suffice to establish that the solitary use of “three days and three nights” (Mt.12: 40) about the Lord’s entombment is to be understood as meaning “the third day”. The eight occurrences of this latter phrase (Mt.17: 23; 20: 19; Mk.9: 31; 10: 34; Lk.9: 22; 18: 33; Acts 10: 40; 1 Cor.15: 4) besides those already quoted should surely settle the question.

There is also the very striking double type of the wave sheaf of barley and also the Jamb of the first year (the Passover lamb reconsecrated to God), which were both offered on the day after the Passover Sabbath (Lev. 23: 11,12). Thus the death and resurrection of Jesus correspond exactly with the slaying of the Passover lambs on the 14th, and the reconsecration of a Passover lamb on the morning of the 16th.

Now the question needs to be asked afresh and answered afresh. How long was Jonah in the whale?

Already, in chapter5, it has been demonstrated from verses 5,6 that Jonah died in stormy seas, drowned in violent waters in which the strongest of swimmers would have had no chance of even a few minutes’ survival. And Jonah was given his life back again after being swallowed by the whale.

The tenses of Hebrew poetry are admittedly rather precarious to argue from. But the tones, as well as the tenses, of these opening verses of Jonah’s prayer here do suggest that in his last minutes of consciousness Jonah prayed to the God whose mandate he had so flagrantly flouted. And now, inside the whale, in his first moments of new life, that prayer was repeated. “Out of the belly of hell cried I, and Thou heardest my voice”. Even here the prophet is an unwitting witness to the truth of God, that is, against those who would teach a destiny of unquenchable hell-fire for those whom God rejects. For this hell of Jonah’s was a very cold and clammy sort of place.

The outstanding feature of Jonah’s prayer is the remarkable number of echoes of the Book of Psalms. In some instances exact phrases are quoted, but there are virtually no continuous quotations of verses (or of half-verses). Yet the entire prayer is dominated by the words and spirit of the temple hymnbook. This requires one fairly certain conclusion — that although Jonah lived in the far north, he was very familiar with the temple service; and this surely means that he had been very assiduous in his keeping of the Feasts of the Lord in spite of all the discouragement which would be met with from the northern separatists.

The following list is probably incomplete:

Two other very significant features of Jonah’s prayer call for special attention.

Verse 9 is remarkable: “I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed”.

The obvious intention behind these words is a firm resolution to make good his earlier deficiencies: Lord, I will go to Nineveh and preach, little as I like the task!

Nor must the further implication be overlooked. Jonah, finding himself alive again, although still inside the great fish, now leaped to the splendid logical conclusion that God would give him a new life and new opportunity to witness as he had been bidden formerly.

The other remarkable thing to notice here is the evident allusion in Jeremiah’s prophecy to Jonah’s experience.

“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me…he hath swallowed me up like a dragon (s.w. also translated: whale, sea monster), he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out” (51: 34).

The resemblance to Jonah’s experience is not to be missed. Why, it may well be asked, should Jeremiah harness it in his lament of the fate of Judah in his time? There can be no doubt that Jeremiah knew that that captivity would last only seventy years and that then Judah would be “vomited up” with a further undeserved opportunity to serve Jehovah. So it would seem that Jonah’s “death and resurrection” was intended by God to be an acted parable and prophecy of the nation’s experience at the hands of the men of Nineveh. Jonah had refused his commission, hoping thereby to save his people from the rising tide of Assyrian power. Indeed, what happened to him, enacted beforehand, was this very thing that he feared. In the later days of Sennacherib God’s people were drowned by the Assyrian flood, two hundred thousand of them (Taylor prism) were swallowed up in a mighty captivity (actually greater than Nebuchadnezzar’s) and were promptly vomited up by a miraculous deliverance. The details of this are worked out at length in “Isaiah”, H.A.W.

1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

The instruction to Jonah was: “Rise up, go to Nineveh and cry against it”. But the prophet, resenting this commission, “rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord”. Giving Jonah the benefit of the doubt, so to speak, one would like to interpret these words as meaning that he went out from the presence of God in the temple. But twice more the words are repeated (1: 10; 4: 2), in such a context as to mean that he thought he could evade this unwelcome responsibility by getting away from his God, and that he could achieve this by going as far as possible from God’s Land.

So he determined to go to Tarshish. Which Tarshish? Josephus says this was Tarsus. But in this he was surely mistaken, for if Jonah believed that the judgment of the Lord might reach to Nineveh, it could certainly reach him in Cilicia. The Indian Tarshish must also be ruled out, for ships sailing thither used Ezion-geber (1 Kgs. 22: 48) as their port of departure. And the alternative route round Africa was out of question. So it seems more likely that either Tartessus in Southern Spain or the Tarshish in Britain (Ezek. 27: 12) was the intended destination.

But why did Jonah not go to Tyre or Zidon, the two great sea-ports of that era and country? Both were nearer to Zebulun than Joppa was. The explanation must be that Jonah “went down” from the temple at Jerusalem, where the Lord appeared unto him, to the nearest sea-port.

And, by God’s providence, no doubt, he immediately found a passage in a ship just about to set sail for Tarshish. The immediacy of this may surely be inferred from his fatigue; for having paid his fare, he forthwith went below and fell asleep and snored (so the LXX version of v.5 has it)!

That expression: “went down” was not inappropriate, for the road from Jerusalem drops more than two thousand feet to the coast; but also there is about this phrase a special implication of spiritual declension. When Abraham “went down” into Egypt (Gen. 12: 10), it was one of the worst decisions of his life; and, by and by, he was glad to recognize this and to “go up” back to the Land of Promise, unto “the place” (tabernacle) where he had been at the beginning. Jonah, in a day or two, you will have the like experience!

That detail, that Jonah “paid his fare” is a reminder that the prophet was a man of some substance, for such a considerable journey would assuredly cost him more than ten cents.

Very soon the voyage was fraught with difficulty and hardship. “The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea”. The language implies that an angel was sent expressly to produce this tempest (LXX: clydon; cp. Acts 27: 14), “so that the ship was like to be broken” (LXX has s.w. as in Lk. 8: 23).

But, down below, Jonah slept on. He had no bad conscience to keep him awake. So, convinced that his judgement was better than the Almighty’s, he slept. And the message of Heaven’s euroclydon was lost on him — for the present.

1: 4-16 But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not. And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy countrv? and of what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then they said unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, 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. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows.

The state of that ship — a pathetically little barque, by modern standards — rapidly became desperate. Great seas crashed on her deck and flooded her hold. Since no pumping or baling out was possible, the only other expedient was to throw overboard as much cargo as possible, in the hope of keeping her afloat. Before long it seemed likely that the ship would break up. Had the storm found a weakness in her construction, or were they driving before the gale on to a rock-bound coast? But if the latter, where is the rocky shore in that corner of the Mediterranean?

And through all this, Jonah still slept — in some relatively dry and secure corner, in the fo’c’s’le, perhaps. But all the ship’s crew were hard at work, doing anything they could think of to bring them through this predicament, more fraught with danger than anything any of them had ever known. They were a mixed lot, these sea-faring men, as ships’ crews usually are. So there was hardly a deity known to the superstitions of the Middle East who was not assailed with desperate prayers and promises, interspersed with all the purple oaths that belonged to their trade.

For all this importunity, things only got worse. The captain was desperate to know what else might be done to save their lives, but when he learned that their supercargo was sleeping hard through all this tumult, he knew at last the explanation of their peril: they had an atheist on board!

So Jonah found himself being roughly shaken into wakefulness whilst equally rough exhortations were being shouted at him! “Don’t you realise that we may be foundering any minute? And you the only one on board who doesn’t care! Every man jack of us is praying, except you! Haven’t you got a god to pray to? Yes? Then why don’t you? Man, our lives are at stake as well as yours!”

It was not for nothing that through past years Jonah had been a witness in the Northern Kingdom to the True God worshipped in Jerusalem. Now he made his confession again before these devotees of such a variety of heathen deities.

“I am an Hebrew, and I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land”.

The guess may perhaps be hazarded that the proposal about the casting of lots, which now came up, was a suggestion made in the first instance by Jonah himself. If he knew how (in 1 Samuel 14: 41,42) a crisis situation in the days of king Saul had been resolved by means of Urim and Thummim (see ’Samuel, Saul, David’ on this), the present circumstance would surely appeal to him as not dissimilar. He himself would be glad to have any lingering doubts set at rest as to whether any connection was to be seen between this terrifying peril and his recent rebellion against prophetic duty.

The lot would be immediately organized with the tossing of a coin or any other heads or tails device. Jonah accepted the result as implicitly as if he had had it from the high priest of Jehovah.

So, now, without hesitation, he told his story, not at first in a succinct tidy fashion, for he found himself bombarded by a torrent of questions. There was no hint of bullying in these, but only a tone of respect. His story about being a prophet of Jehovah, worshipped at the world-famous temple in Jerusalem, was accepted at its face value. And when he told of his refusal of the Lord’s commission to proclaim impending doom against Nineveh they were aghast. No wonder they were involved now in such a storm at sea as beggared all past experience. “Why, why hast thou done this?” They couldn’t understand such an attitude as his. These simpleminded pagans, hearing the truth of Jehovah for the first time, judged Jonah’s behaviour to be that of a lunatic. They now saw everything clearly. With a disobedient prophet on board, no wonder the God who made the earth and the sea was angry. The shrieking of the wind and the violence of the waves, as high as their mast, were now explained.

Jonah too weighed the pros and cons. Rather than be party to what he was convinced was a wrong policy of the angel of the Lord, he had been prepared to sacrifice his own nationality, but their present straits showed that the problem had come to sea with him. Then, what next? Was his foolishness now to mean irreparable disaster for these harmless ignorant seamen just because they had Jonah on board? It was obviously useless to persist in following his own judgement or inclination. Just think what had befallen Balaam when he thought he knew better than the angel of the Lord!

Then he came to a heroic decision. If there must be a price paid for his wilfulness, let it not be paid by these good fellows who shared none of his blame.

“There’s no safety for you chaps whilst I am on board”, he explained. “So, dump me in the sea, and then you will come through. The wrath of Jehovah is against me, not against you.”

They got his point. They knew he was right in what he bade them do. But all their better instincts revolted against the idea of having one man die, swept away in a swirl of angry water, to save their skins.

“ No! Not that! “ The captain spoke for them all. “ Lads, get her bow round to the wind, and we’ll ride this storm out yet”.

They went to it with a will. With sweeps out, they strained until their muscles cracked. But what could those feeble endeavours do against that wild welter of wind and water?

Very well. If they must, they must. But first, fearing a great fear, with a devoutness that shamed Jonah’s self-reliance, they prayed to the God that Jonah told them held those boiling seas in the hollow of His hand.

“Jehovah, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O Lord, hast done as it hath pleased thee “

Innocent blood! Those words were eloquent. They declared: ‘We haven’t got anything against him. But, Lord, you know what you are doing!’

Then two of those lusty fellows helped Jonah to the stern of the ship, and there with a mighty heave they pitched him clear, and saw him swept away into the darkness.

The effect of this propitiatory sacrifice had those hard-bitten seamen speechless with awe. The wind suddenly dropped. One moment there was a venomous howling and shrieking of the wind through the rigging. The next, complete stillness and the silence of a sea at rest. Never had they known the like of it. AII at once, the sea and the waves were no longer roaring (s.w. Lk. 21: 25).

Their reaction to this deafening silence of God was instinctive. The captain spoke for them all:

“Boys, let’s hold a prayer meeting, to thank Jehovah that He has brought us through, and to pray for Jonah, that headstrong, yet selfless, Hebrew”.

So, again fearing a great fear, with bowed heads they gave thanks for their survival and made solemn declaration that, once on land again, they would find their way to Jerusalem and there offer to Jehovah a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Apart from his name—Joel-ben-Pethuel—nothing whatever is known about this man of God. So here in this first paragraph is a stalwart attempt to make bricks without straw.

The name Joel could be one of the Hebrew language’s rich collections of words for “fool”, but somehow this meaning seems a trifle unlikely here.

The obvious alternative is that this is a commonplace combination of the divine names: “Jehovah is God” (cp. Elijah—the same in reverse). This is almost certainly correct. There are parallels to this; e.g., Joseph is certainly Y’hoseph (see Hebrew text of Psalm 81:5), and similarly Jochebed is an elided form of Y’ho-chebed. But immediately, for those who are wedded to “Yahweh” as the form of the Covenant Name, another kind of problem arises; for whereas Yo’el derives easily from the beginning of Y’howah, it is not exactly easy to see a link with Yahweh.

The prophet’s patronymic provides little assistance, for the resemblance to Hebrew words for “deceive” and “sudden” are not exactly helpful. However, in LXX the name is: Bethuel (an easy confusion between B and P in Hebrew). This yields the obvious and very meaningful: “laid waste by God” (s.w. Isa. 5:6) with reference to the main theme of the prophecy. Such a meaning would be readily chosen by the prophet himself to prepare his readers for what is coming, the true patronymic being the much more likely: —”ben-Azariah” (2 Chr. 29:12). This would make Joel a Levite, and most probably a priest. What splendid appropriateness can now be seen in Joel 2:12ff!

When did Joel live? And where did he proclaim his message? Guesses as to dating have been copious. The times of Jehoshaphat (3:12 is virtually the only evidence here), Athaliah, Hezekiah, and Zephaniah (some similarities of idea and wording).

The evidence in favour of the third of these turns out to be abundant; and when the prophecy is studied against this background of Hezekiah and Isaiah, paragraph after paragraph lights up the primary reference of Joel’s message.

The dominant references to Jerusalem fit Hezekiah’s time remarkably well. And the allusions to various Gentile neighbours of Israel chime in with all that is known of Hezekiah’s reign, and with various Isaiah allusions. On the other hand, the marked absence of prophetic tirade against imported paganism is appropriate to a period following on reformation (see 2 Kgs. 18:4; 2 Chr. 30,31), and in any case would hardly be appropriate to Joel’s main theme of invasion, destruction and salvation. As a later chapter is developed, the reader will begin to see how readily Joel’s prophecy fits into this niche.

 The Contents of the Prophecy

After a brief but eloquent introduction (1:2,3), the rest of chapter 1 and 2:1-11 depicts in some of the finest language of the Old Testament an invasion by a plague of locusts. The rest of chapter 2 makes appeals for national repentance, and adds alluring promises of heavenly blessing.

Chapter 3 describes in lurid terms the massing of an international onslaught on God’s Land and People. But the Almighty Himself comes to the rescue. The blessedness of the Messianic kingdom and the open assertion of God’s authority are both declared in a triumphant climax.

The Locust Invasion

The prophet’s language is truly horrific. Crops devastated, flocks and herds famished through lack of fodder, the sky is darkened with the spreading cloud of irresistible devastation, the husbandman miserable in his sense of helplessness, the inexorable advance of a hostile army disciplined to be ever closing ranks and marching with callous indifference to every obstruction.

Another locust swarm, this time of commentators, has decided that Joel saw a recent locust invasion of the Holy Land as a judgment from God intended to warn His people of their need for repentance.

The main idea, of a lesson to be learned from a harrowing experience, is certainly correct. But was this the horror of a locust swarm or of an invasion of pitiless Assyrians?

When the details are considered carefully, it becomes clear that, if indeed there was a locust invasion, the prophet meant his people to see it as a God-provided warning of an imminent over-running of the Land by the worst enemy they had ever encountered:

1. “The fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field…The fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness” (1:19,20). Even the best-regulated families of locusts do not burn up pasture or trees.
2. “A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth” (2:3). Is it permissible even to say that a locust horde leaves the land looking as though it had been burned?
3. “The Lord shall utter his voice before his army” (2:11): compare Isaiah 8:7,8; 10:5-7; and the same idiom in Matthew 22:7; Rev. 9:11.
4. “…that the heathen should rule over them…(saying), Where is their God?” (2: 17).
5. ” I will remove far off from you the northern army (no locust plague comes into Israel from the north), and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea (the Dead Sea), and his hinder part toward the utmost sea (the western sea)” (2:20). Would a locust swarm travel with the wind in two opposite directions?

Such details are surely decisive. The prophet may have been building his warnings on a recent experience of locust invasion (in precisely the way in which the apostle James exhorts against the dangers presented by false teachers—see 3:1 RV— through the sustained figure of an undisciplined tongue), but his main intent was to fortify his people against the most powerful military invasion their history had ever known. This reading of chapters 1,2 is finally settled by the “holy war” prophecy of chapter 3, couched in much more literal terms.

It will be from this angle that the rest of this commentary will be developed, with detail after detail expounded, in the first instance, with reference to the massive Assyrian invasion of Judah in the reign of king Hezekiah. Then the exposition can begin all over again in fuller detail with reference to the Last Day crisis of tribulation yet to be experienced by heedless Jewry in their threatened state of Israel.

Contemporary Reference

Modern commentators are well-satisfied that Joel’s three chapters were written entirely with reference to contemporary events—a literal locust plague bringing agricultural ruin and every other kind of national collapse conceivable. According to this view, the other side of the picture is the need to learn to take religion more seriously, accept again the neglected religious regimen, put real trust in the Lord, and all will turn out well: the ultimate blessings will far outweigh all the wretchedness of present tribulation.

Earlier commentators considered only figurative locusts afflicting God’s faithful remnant, which were promised the glories of a Messianic spiritual kingdom. Here, the figurative is seen as being predominant, to the total exclusion of any literal fulfilment.

Over against these, the present writer will attempt to vindicate in detail his conviction that, whereas there may have been an invasion of literal locusts, these were employed by God and His prophet as a kind of visual aid to add yet more force to the terrors of a military invasion of Judah by the dreaded Assyrians in the time of King Hezekiah.

BUT, this is less than half the story, for the normal pattern of Bible prophecy (with very few exceptions) is the presentation of a two-fold message:

1. A contemporary reference to events, which have just happened or are about to happen. 2. A Messianic reference, concerning the first or second Advents of Christ.

The present chapter comes before the reader as an exercise in the first of these aspects of the Book of Joel. The rest of this commentary will follow on with a more complete exposition with reference to the Last Days and the Kingdom of God. The pattern is virtually the same as has already been presented in the two-fold exposition of each of Isaiah’s 66 chapters. And, as it turns out, the contemporary background is essentially the same in both books.

It is useful to note that in the writings of some of the prophets (and of apostles also) one encounters a fair amount of organized dislocation and thematic disruption. This is not a complaint or criticism, but simply a statement of fact. Joel has its share of this characteristic. So in this chapter in order to make certain aspects of the message more clear to the modern reader, the sequence will be according to topic. When the now much more important Last Day theme is addressed, the study will be verse-by-verse. Thus it is hoped to have the best of both worlds.

“Locust” invasion

No modern writer of “spooky” stories has achieved a more macabre effect than has the prophet Joel in his two brief descriptions of the inexorable onward march or flight of his locusts.

There is helpless horror written in every face (2:6). This insatiable irresistible enemy—they run, they climb, they fly as a dense dark cloud, and as the most disciplined army that ever was they march and march without ever a break in the ranks; thus they refuse to be hindered (2:7-9). And they know the military technique of living off the land. Indeed that is what they are there for. Always, as they go, they are eating, eating, eating (1:4). Before them, the Land is a Garden of Eden, God’s own garden; behind them there is only a desolate wilderness (2:3)—Vines, fig trees (1:7), cattle and sheep (1:18), all are lost.

An invading army

These invaders are ruthless cruel empire-building Assyrians: A nation is come up upon my Land (1:6). In fact, not one nation only, but a confederacy of several nations willing to co-operate with the Assyrians rather than suffer from their matchless cruelty and barbarism. “All nations” is Joel’s phrase (3: 2). The words are not to be taken literally. Tibetans and Red Indians do not play their part in this developing purpose of the God of Israel. It was unnecessary to identify the leader by name. But “having the teeth of a great lion” (1:6; a fantastic detail regarding a locust!) makes identification of Assyria easy, for Layard and other archaeologists have brought to light that these Assyrians thought of themselves as a pride of lions. It was a symbol, which the Babylonians were glad to take over after the collapse of Nineveh (Dan. 7:4). The mention of chariots provides another mark of identification, for no other nation, not even Egypt, could rival this feature of Assyria’s military strength.

The mention at the outset of four different kinds of locust (1:4) is usually taken to indicate different stages of development of these creatures. But it seems not unlikely that these four names are introduced to suggest the four great Assyrian monarchs whose campaigns all included onslaught on the people of God: Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmanezer V who died at the siege of Samaria, Sargon II (Isaiah 20:1) and Sennacherib, the worst of the lot.

Attempts have been made to turn the names of these creepy-crawly Hebrew words into equivalent numerals, which can then conveniently and impressively, describe the duration of the four great empires of Nebuchadnezzar’s image. There are at least two substantial difficulties: (a) The figures arrived at don’t fit known history: (b) This thesis is quite irrelevant to the theme of Joel’s prophecy.

Some of the nations, which joined Assyria in the onslaught on Judah, are named: Tyre and Zidon, Edom and Egypt (3:4,19). The last of these was an enemy of Assyria, but that did not stop a massive Egyptian army from ravaging southern Judah before meeting with defeat at El-tekeh. Others in the confederacy against Judah are identified in “Isaiah” (HAW), page 43f.

The phrase: “Sanctify war” (3:9mg) used about these invaders was superbly accurate, for a mass of details brought together in “Hezekiah the Great” (HAW), ch.14, makes clear that Sennacherib regarded this particular campaign as a war between Ashur, the god of Nineveh, and Jehovah. Compare also: “Wherefore should they (the Gentiles) say among the people, Where is their God?” (2:17).

There is an obvious connection between the exhortation to the enemy to “beat ploughshares into swords, and pruning hooks into spears” (3: 10) and its converse in Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messianic kingdom (2:4).

“The valley of Jehoshaphat” has persuaded some to refer this prophecy to the time of king Jehoshaphat; but there is a lack of supporting evidence. See also the later comments on this detail. On the other hand, the repeated phrase “round about”, which is meaningless unless it be referred to Jerusalem, suggests that “the valley of decision” (3:14; the valley of the Lord’s judgment) was immediately outside the Holy City. The besieging army was encamped there and met with destruction there. “Thither cause thy mighty ones (the angels) to come down, O Lord” (3:11,12). And God did! (Is. 37:36).

Before that mighty destruction of the enemy took place, the desolating effect of their campaign throughout the Land left the inhabitants of Jerusalem paralysed with horror.

In the mind of Sennacherib there was evidently such an implacable hatred of Israel and Israel’s God that his campaign of destruction was pursued with almost lunatic ferocity. A conqueror that has his wits about him will subjugate in order to harness the prosperity of the victim people to the further enhancement of the civilisation of his own land and people. Other empire builders had the sense to do this to the progressive glory and luxury of their reigns. But not so Sennacherib on this occasion! He was set on reducing Israel to a wilderness. He would show the world what he thought about the God these Jews worshipped. But Isaiah and Joel knew him to be the instrument of Jehovah (Is. 8:7,8; 10:5-7). His army was “My army” (2:11).

There was, in fact, more than one army furthering this fell purpose. Whilst a long and bitter siege was sustained against Lachish, the key to Egypt, with Libnah as the next on the hit-list, other columns ranged through the Land, reducing and burning to ashes no less than forty-six fortified towns (Taylor prism). And cavalry units went unopposed throughout the Land (e.g., Is. 10:28-32) intent on burning and destroying every sign of the horticulture which king Uzziah had brought to such a matchless standard ( 2 Chr. 26:9,10).

So vineyards became useless and desolate, fig trees (the sign of a prosperous Israel) were ruthlessly killed off; every orchard was devastated (1:12). The crops were burnt, whatever stage of growth they had reached. And barns, whether full or empty, were savagely destroyed (1:17). The oxen and sheep which could not be commandeered by the Assyrian commissariat went untended and starving for lack of fodder (1 : 18). In savage despite crops were fired, and a pall of smoke ascended up to heaven (1:19,20). Gloom both in spirit and atmospheric fact, hung over the whole Land. But there was no fire of sacrifice ascending up to God, nor any of the tokens of thanksgiving with which a good harvest would normally fill the temple court.

It was the total eclipse of Israel. Their sun and moon and stars were darkened. All glory gone (2:10).

And those miscreant neighbours of Israel, who had thrown in their lot with the Assyrians, as a means of saving their own skins, took a special pleasure in rounding up captives (besides the two hundred thousand whom Sennacherib’s men had marched off to Nineveh and Babylon; Taylor Prism) in order to sell them off to slave-dealers and those who specialised in catering for the lustful appetites of the legionaries (3:5ff).

Except for Jerusalem—and there everyone was in fear—there was one word written across the map of Judah: DISASTER.

Decadence

Of course, there was a reason for God being on the side of the big brutal battalions. Apart from a faithful remnant (2:32) the nation was well on the way to forgetting Hezekiah’s great reformation (2 Chr. 29,30) which for a time at any rate had pulled the nation back from the brink of complete apostasy. Priests and aristocrats were a drunken worldly lot (1:5; Is. 28:7,8).

Repent! Repent!

It was high time that they read the sign of their times spelling out their dire message: Retribution!

There was only one thing for it: The nation must repent, and not in any half-hearted fashion either.

“Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil” (2:12,13).

So there must be a Day of Atonement of such a degree of sincerity and earnest prayer as none in the nation could remember:

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly” (2:15).

The priests must set the example for all the rest. Their importunity must not flag. And they must mean every word of it.

Even so it may be that the situation would prove to be past mending. “Who knows if he (the Lord) will return and repent?” (2:14).

Deliverance

But yes! There is hope. Our God is not the one to cast off His people utterly.

“The Lord will be jealous for his Land, and He will pity His people…(v.18).

Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem (and virtually nowhere else) shall be deliverance” (v.32).

And how?

“But I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he (the Lord) hath done great things.” (2:20).

For the Lord of hosts will “shew wonders in the heaven and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke” (2:30; cp. Is. 37:36; 30:30-33; 31:8,9)

“The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.” (3: 16).

There will be recompense (3:7b) not only on the head of Assyria, but also upon Egypt, the false friend who persecuted harmless Jewish refugees (3:19; Is. 19:20); and against Edom who was better at hatred than at showing brotherly love. (Is. 63:1-4; 34:6,8).

Jubilee

Did Isaiah make a correct inference from the lovely pictures of blessedness painted by Joel, or was there a separate inspiration, which communicated to Hezekiah that the bad years would be atoned for with the double fertility and rich blessing of a Year of Jubilee? (2:23-26; Is. 37:30,31). In brief alluring pictures it was now made plain to God’s stricken people that all that had been brutally snatched away from them would be restored in abundance, “pressed down and running over”.

Such a land as the Holy Land needs only the blessing of the clouds, and nothing can restrain its fertility. Not for nothing is it called “a land flowing with milk and honey” (grass and flowers!). So the promised Jubilee would bring copious refreshing rains to beautify the Land and to gladden the hearts of men and beasts alike (3:18).

Threshing floors, which had been associated with God’s threshing wrath, were now to be full, over-full, with piles of golden grain (2:24). The winepresses would pour forth their liquid sunshine, and the oil presses likewise, whilst awestruck farmers would stand by, marvelling at Nature’s God-given fecundity and lifting their eyes to heaven in praise and thanksgiving that the Lord they had served so ill should be so kind to such as they, the unworthy (2:18).

From early September 1988, when pen was first put to paper in the writing of this booklet it was intended that it should be just that- a booklet. Some of the topics touched on here could have been developed much more fully. But from the start the intention has been to give reminders, to stimulate enquiry, to set discussion and Bible searching going among those who should have oil in their vessels but don’t.

Now, as a back-up to the foregoing, here is a sequence of paragraphs making brief mention of the other signs to which Scripture and current events steer attention. Most of these signs- the unbeliever could very well argue – are of too general a character to be regarded as signs specific enough to convince a critical mind. That is a false argument. Of course there have been pestilences. Of course there have been wars. Of course there has been a threat of nuclear convulsion, for over forty years, but only a threat. And so on. But the real force of a catalogue such as now follows is that now in our time these signs all accumulate together and in the eyes of anyone who is not too busy providing fulfilments by his own worldly self-centred heedlessness, these phenomena all have a specially pointed relevance to this miserably clever twentieth century. It is when the stark facts are considered from such an angle, that unbelieving hearts should have attacks of angina- or alternatively, should give way to the logic of these God-controlled events and so move at a step into a lasting sense of assurance and tranquillity. When a man can see that the Second Coming is near, he stops asking, “Whatever is the world coming to7” He knows!

1. “As it was in the days of Noah”

Then, not only was there a massive landslide away from godliness-“thee (only) have I seen righteous before me” (that last phrase implies religious decay); but also “the earth was filled with violence.” No commentary needed!

2. “As it was in the days of Lot”

The men of Sodom not only enjoyed luxury and got a kick out of violence, but they also specialized in sodomy- what our modern society has tried to make respectable under the polysyllabic label: homosexuality.

And it is to be noted that in the times of Noah and Lot they were busy with their eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage right up to the time when the judgment of God fell. “Thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.” No opportunity for a “death bed” repentance.

3. “Wars and rumours of wars”

Since the greatest war of all time finished, there has never been a let-up. Always, in any of those forty years there have been at least three or four wars going on somewhere. And with Gaddafi’s plastic explosives, terrorists everywhere are having the time of their lives, and of other people’s deaths.

4. “Famines”

It is one of the most sickly ironies in human history that at a time when human cleverness has made two ears of corn grow instead of one in huge areas of the world, in other huge areas of the world people are dying in their millions through wars and failure of crops. Farmers have to be paid vast sums not to work so hard, not to grow so much; and what they have grown is given away lavishly, but doesn’t reach the desperate starving souls who clamour for it. “Whom the gods would destroy they first drive mad”. They have!

5. “Pestilences”

In all history wars and famines have bred pestilences. But today, such is man’s cleverness, this process must needs be accelerated. “Malaria is now eliminated” was the triumphant cry; but now that great tropical killer has resumed its sway. We know how to cope with TB and measles, yet still they slay their millions. But such scourges as these are in the background today, for now THE incurable horror is being helped to pep up its efficiency by sexual depravity in every nation, and by the brainless philosophy that says to itself “I’m willing to chance it.”

6. “Earthquakes”

To be sure, this weary Earth has always been complaining about human wickedness, but again the folly of modern times accentuates the grumbling of the ground and the roar of rubble. Always the mad philosophy is: “It won’t happen to us.” But soon at the San Andreas fault, and at the Mount of Olives, Earth will make its most significant protest, but by that time it will be too late. For some time now the earthquakes have been intensifying, both statistically and on the Richter Scale, and also in our human awareness, thanks to newsmen hungry for another sensation.

7. “Men’s hearts failing them for fear”

This comes in a context of signs in the sun, moon and stars, that is, in Israel (see “The Time of the End”, H.A.W. ch.11). And the next phrase is “distress of nations with perplexity”. Today the reading: “with no way out” is widely recognised. But why such slowness to see also that this foretells: “distress (in Israel!) caused by Gentiles”? (see ch. 8 in this booklet). Years ago the P.L.O. was pronounced dead and done with. Yet still, in 1989!, it poses the biggest threat Jews have to face. Its deadly wound has been healed.

8. Nuclear destruction

There will be home-made earthquakes as well. The Nuclear Club grows in number and in indiscipline. Every year or two another member dedicated to international benevolence creeps in by the back door. How long before some crazy dictator, intent on showing that his Big Bang is as big as the Creator’s, presses a button to prove it? There are scriptures enough (Isaiah ch. 24, 25, 34; Jeremiah 25; Zechariah 14, 2 Peter 3; and sundry purple passages in Revelation) to indicate that when at last God wearies of mankind He will give them license to use their ingenious toys-“every man’s sword against his brother”. In five prophecies the idea is the same though the words are different (see “Jews, Arabs and Bible Prophecy”, H.A.W., ch.15).

9. “Perilous Times”

The entire paragraph – 2 Tim. 3: 1-5 needs to be considered in detail. Of course there have been other periods in the history of this “civilisation” of ours when one phrase or another in this purple passage have been relevant enough. But it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to point to any other epoch when these characteristics of society have been so palpably and simultaneously true. The argument about “wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes” all intensifying together in this present generation stands true here also.

10. “Peace and Safety”

– and instead of these, “sudden destruction”. But this, contrary to much uninformed guesswork, is not about a gasp of relief at UNO or Geneva or Jerusalem, but about those who take pride in knowing (and in knowing that they know) the Plan of God and its impending climax. On this, see “The Time of the End”; H.A.W., ch. 16. When at midnight there is a cry made: “Behold, the Bridegroom!” All the virgins will be asleep, and their lamps out. For many of them, “sudden destruction”. How many? Five out of ten?

1988 – What Went Wrong?

The fortieth year from the foundation of the state of Israel found many Christadelphians (though not all!) in a state of foundering expectation. Instead of an ecstatic welcoming of the Kingdom or at least a year of matchless excitement at unmistakable preliminaries about the personal appearance of the Lord of Glory, there was a non-year — a dreary depressing sequence of human blunders, disasters such as the hyper clever 20th century is good at.

Were those 1988 expectations well founded? Yes, of course they were. Good Bible Evidence Consider:

1. The parable of the fig-tree (Mt.24: 32) speaks of the revival of Israel. Can this be argued against? The Bible evidence is too clear and emphatic. See “Bible Studies”, ch.6.02.
2. “This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled” (Mt.24: 34). Here, “these things” can only refer to the preceding paragraph, all of which is about the Second Coming.
3. But what about “this generation’? Certainly not the generation to which Jesus spoke. Nearly 2,000 years empty of significant Jewish history have proved this (but there is a reason, not to be gone into now, why our Lord should use the expression ambiguously here). In two places not to be swept aside (Mt.23: 36; Heb.3: 9, 10, 17) this word “generation” is given the precise meaning of “forty years”.
4. When did the fig-tree nation begin to blossom? It hardly seems possible to put a finger on any date except 1948. It is true that some try to rationalize a later date by opting for 1967, the year when Jerusalem, all of it, became the capital of the Israeli state. Against this it can surely be urged (i) the fig tree was blossoming well before that date. (ii) It is difficult to believe that our crazy modern civilisation can continue all the way to 2007 without blowing Israel and itself to bits long before that date is reached.

Thus strong Bible evidence, combined with the stark facts of modern history point emphatically to 1988 as the crisis year.

And that conclusion proved to be wrong. Why?

The short answer, not too clear until explained (sorry!) is this:

There is no Bible evidence that God’s purpose with his ancient people and with His elect is tied to a rigid unbudgeable chronology. Our forefathers bequeathed to us the big unwarranted assumption that it is. Hence a century of wrecked expectations.

On the other hand there is a vast amount of Bible evidence that significant developments in God’s Purpose depend on contingencies — upon the disposition and attitudes of those with whom God is dealing.

Familiar Examples:

It is important first to illustrate and then prove the truth of this neglected principle.

1. At Kadesh-barnea faithless Israel chose to believe the faithless spies instead of being guided by faithful Joshua and Caleb. For this they were condemned to forty years of wandering in the wilderness. But suppose the people had adhered in faith to the counsel of Joshua and Caleb. In that case those forty years would have been replaced with forty days of exhilarating victorious conquest. Little faith – belated fulfilment. Firm faith – prompt divine response.
2. Good king Hezekiah was mortally ill. The prophet of the Lord was sent to him: ‘Set thine house in order. Thou shalt die, and not live”. ‘No!’ wailed Hezekiah; ‘death cannot praise thee. I must live and not die’. That importunity added fifteen years to his life. A drastic change in the divine purpose with a godly man.
3. “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” The message of Jonah rang through the Assyrian metropolis. However, a century later that greatest city of the 8th century B.C. I was still flourishing. Another dramatic change in the declared divine purpose! And why? Because king and people of that great city repented at the awesome threat from heaven.
4. More than once the intercession of Moses saved his people from an outpouring of the wrath of God. After the sin of the golden calf—’Out of my way, Moses! I will consume them, and start again from you’. But because of the pleading of this great leader, the threat was not carried out. ‘I will not go up (into Canaan) in the midst of this people’, God declared. But he did! Again, it was because Moses would not be said nay.

These are only illustrations. The proof of the principle — which the fulfilment of God’s declared will depends on the people He is dealing with, is available in the existence of another thirty examples and more. And Jeremiah 18: 7-10 declares the principle in words that a child can understand.

There has been no lack of effort to get round the obvious conclusion indicated by this multitude of examples by bringing in woolly arguments based on the fore-knowledge of God. Let the reader attempt to work his way through three dozen examples, explaining away the obvious, and he will find his “lucid” thesis getting lost in a cloud of verbiage.

Instead, let it be frankly recognised that the Almighty wants His people to think of Him as a God who, in certain circumstances, ‘changes His mind’. Whether we understand or we don’t, Holy Scripture bids us shape our thinking this way.

A Big N.T. Problem

And now here is the solution to one of the biggest problems in the NT.

It is not to be gainsaid that the NT writers looked for an early return of their Lord and they were inspired to write thus. At least 35 NT passages of this kind are available. These expectations were not fulfilled.

How Explain?

There are three ways of coping with the problem thus presented:

1. To pretend it isn’t there.
2. ‘The Second Coming is as near as the day of your death’. Why has this glib “explanation” been so often repeated when as yet no one has found it in the pages of Holy Scripture? The acceptance of this notion proclaims the bankruptcy of those from whose tongue it trips so lightly.
3. The present writer’s former desperate expedient: to find a means of explaining away each separate passage by its own individual “fiddle”; e.g. “Behold I come quickly” means “I come suddenly”— which it certainly doesn’t; it means “soon” (see as many modern versions as you like). In any case, this coining of a fresh explanation for each problem passage at last breaks down under its own weight. Try it, and you will see!

Instead of this kind of well-intentioned but unworthy handling of the Word of God, it is suggested that here is another well-documented example of a dramatic change in the time-fulfilment of God’s purpose because of the unworthiness of Israel and the New Israel in whom it centres — stubborn rejection of Christ by the former, and spiritual decadence of the latter.

Bible Proof

Here is a group of passages, which enunciate or clearly imply this idea:

1. “Repent ye therefore, that your sins may be blotted out…and that he may send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you” (Acts 3: 19,20 RV). Here the return of the Lord is made dependent on Jewish repentance.
2. “For if the casting away of them (Israel) be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead”

   (Rom.11: 15). Here, twice over, Paul presents the connection between Cause and Effect: The rejection of faithless Israel had already led to the Gospel being taken to receptive Gentiles. All Paul’s readers knew this. So also a change of heart in Israel will lead to the resurrection (and, therefore, to the Second Coming). Clearly the timing of those great occasions was and will be determined, or at least influenced, by the spiritual reaction of the people concerned.

3. Rom.11: 25 declares, or at least implies, the same idea: “Blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in”. That last phrase seems to imply that one-day the last conversion and the last baptism among the Gentiles will take place, and with this “fulness” the blindness of Israel will be finally removed. Certainly there is here once again a clear connection between unbelieving Israel and believing Gentiles and the Second Coming.
4. Except for its last three verses, the whole of 2 Peter 3 is about the Second Coming. Here are two specially significant phrases from it: “What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation (way of life) and godliness, looking for and hastening (see AVm and most modern versions) the coming of the day of God…and account that the longsuffering of our Lord is (your) salvation” (v.11, 12, 15).

Paraphrased, the first of these quotes says: ‘Your repentance and godly living will help to bring nearer the Second Coming of the Lord’. And the second: ‘The delay hitherto in the Lord’s return is meant to provide you believers with an added opportunity for fuller repentance’. It needs a very clever man to make these words mean anything different from this. Here, once again, and very clearly, the time of the Lord’s return from heaven is conditioned by the attitude and spiritual disposition of those whom it specially concerns.

Now, back to the original question:

What went wrong in 1988?

The clearest and most precise sign, carefully and Biblically interpreted, pointed to that year as the time of the last big development immediately prior to the Day of the Lord — and nothing happened!

Why?

Here are two possible explanations, both of them very unwelcome:

1. There is a serious unperceived flaw in the reasoning developed at the beginning of this study. If so, why has no one long since put a finger on it?
2. There is yet again a delay in fulfilment, and this because Israel and the New Israel are alike unworthy of their high privilege. Five minutes to midnight, and all the virgins, wise and unwise alike, are “asleep” — and for more reasons than one. Some are sunk in tradition, with more reverence for the mistakes of their “pioneers” than for Holy Scripture. Some — many — have wrapped themselves in the comforts of an affluent Godless society. Some — not a few! — find self-congratulation in erecting and maintaining barriers of fellowship between brother and brother.

All this whilst the miseries of the world intensify, and whilst angels, eager to go into action on their Lord’s behalf, weep over Jerusalem as He did.

More examples of God changing His mind:

Acts 7: 25RV; 1 Kgs. 21: 19, 21RV, 29; 1 Kgs. 20: 42; 2 Sam. 24: 15; Heb.; Gen. 2: 17; Amos 1: 3RVm; Is. 62: 6RV; Lk. 13: 8, 9; Dt. 28: 1, 15; Acts 1: 6-8; Jn. 1: 23; Jn. 1: 31; Mk. 13: 32; Mt. 23: 39Gk; (other examples: Mt. 10: 23; 12: 20; Lk. 19: 23; 1 Cor. 4: 5; 11: 26; Jas. 5: 7; Rev. 2: 25); 1 Kgs. 8: 46-53; Dan. 9: 4-19 (especially v.13); Neh. 1: 5-11; Mal. 4: 5, 6; Is. 17: 7, 8; 40: 3; 59: 20; Zeph. 2: 3; Ezek. 20: 42-44; Ps. 81: 13; Jer. 4: 1, 2.

New Testament expectation of early return of Christ:

Phil. 4: 5; 1 Pet. 4: 7 (cp. use in Mt. 26: 18; 2 Tim. 4: 6); Heb. 10: 37 (cp. Jn. 13: 33); Rom. 16: 20; 1 Cor. 7: 29; Mt. 10: 23; 24: 29; Mt. 16: 27, 28; 1 Pet. 1: 20; Heb. 9: 26; Mt. 13: 40; 24: 3; 1 Jn. 2: 18; 1 Cor. 10: 11; Mt. 26: 64; Lk. 24: 52; Rom. 13: 11, 12; 1 Th. 1: 10, 5: 23; Heb. 1: 2; 10: 25; Jas. 5: 8, 9; 2 Pet. 2: 3; 1 Jn. 2: 17, 18RV; 2 Pet. 3: 3; Jn. 21: 22; Rev. 1: 1, 3; 2: 5, 16; 2: 25; 3: 3; 19: 15; 22: 7, 20; 6: 11; 3: 20; 22: 10-12.

In order to get ideas clear, it is necessary to begin this chapter by setting question marks against certain familiar ideas about the Second Coming which are not as well-founded in plain testimony of Scripture as perhaps they ought to be.

One of these is the concept of a secret coming of the Lord. And linked with it is belief that the great Day of Judgment will take place at mount Sinai.

The idea of an unperceived coming of the Lord seems to be based entirely on the repeated warning: “Behold, I come as a thief”; “the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night”, and so on.

But is it not true that ” he shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1: 11). He went away visibly, bodily; and his disciples saw him go in a cloud of glory. “He shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels” (Mt. 16: 27). “As the lightning shineth from one part of heaven unto the other, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Lk. 17: 24). “Behold he cometh with clouds (the clouds of the Shekinah Glory), and every eye shall see him” (Rev. 1: 7). “The Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God” (1 Th.4: 16); nothing very secret about these testimonies!

Alongside these is the Lord’s plain warning: “If any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not…Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert (Sinai?), go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers (ever since 1914, say J.W.’s), believe it not” (Mt. 24: 23,26).

But what about the “thief in the night,’ passages? A careful examination of all these verses quickly reveals that in each instance the context is that of unprepared disciples. It is to them that the Lord’s coming is as a thief. The depredations of a burglar bring the unpleasant realisation that the material things, which you have prized so highly, have gone. What was most valuable is now valueless- to you. And so it will be concerning the misplaced affection on worldly things that the faithless disciple has set great store by.

It is difficult to see why Sinai should be deemed to be the site of the Judgment. Three passages – Dt. 33: 2; Ps. 68: 17; Hab. 3: 3 – are cited in support of this belief. Yet not one of them mentions judgment, either directly or indirectly: The first of these clearly refers to the Law of Moses given at Sinai. The second is obscure and doubtful as to translation, and occurs in a context, which explicitly says that Zion, not Sinai, is the mountain that God has chosen. The third comes in a chapter, which is fu 11 of allusions to the activity of God in the midst of His people, so it would be strange indeed if verse 3 also were not a reference, like Dt. 33. to the theophany at Sinai, especially since v. 2 has the prayer “Lord, revive thy work. . .”

A man has to want to believe in Judgment at Sinai if he considers this evidence as adequate for such a weighty conclusion. When this idea was first pronounced, it was difficult to find a Biblical site lonelier than Sinai. The common assumption that the Judgment will proceed at Sinai whilst the world goes on unheeding, presents difficulties in modern times. This predilection is too slender a thread on which to hang so important a concept.

Over against this is the very explicit word of Jesus himself:

“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats” (Mt. 25: 31,32).

Will Christ have any throne of glory other than the throne of David in Jerusalem (Lk. 1: 32)?

Some like to insist that this is a judgment of nations and not individual saints. But such an idea will not hold. Here are a few of the many difficulties in the way of such a reading:

1. Where else is there a judgment of nations spoken of?
2. How is it possible for a nation to be judged? e.g. the U.S.A. produces the biggest villains and also the most gracious and kindly believers in all the world. And what nation could be described as “the righteous”, for there is no righteousness except in Christ.
3. “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt. 25: 34). It is impossible for these words to apply to any but saints in Christ.
4. Not infrequently “all nations” means “people out of all nations” (Is. 25: 7); the context there describes the resurrection of the dead.

A further important conclusion follows from this Matthew passage: In this Judgment Jesus is “the King” sitting on “the throne of his glory”. There he is already King of the Jews. This means that before ever the saints are gathered to Christ, the Jews have been rescued from their hopelessness and despair, and have been regathered from captivity. Now they know Jesus of Nazareth to be not only Son of David but also Son of God. He is their Messiah.

Such an order of development is to be expected, because of the divine principle: “First that which is natural, then that which is spiritual”.

But will not the very first item in Messiah’s programme be the raising of the dead and the gathering (with them) of those “which are alive and remain”? Does not Paul insist that “the dead in Christ shall rise first”?

So many read the word “first” as meaning “first, before anything else happens”; whereas the context in 1 Th. 4: 17 plainly requires this: the dead will rise first, before the living in Christ are gathered to him.

Thus there will be another test of faith for the readers of these words, especially if it has been dinned into them that before ever the world knows a thing about the Lord’s coming they will have been mysteriously snatched away.

In fact, very differently, there will be a rehabilitation of Israel and an elimination from Abraham’s Land of those whose forefathers Abraham himself had sent away eastward (Gen. 25: 6). In unbelievably quick time the Holy Land will also become a Land of unmatched fertility and blessing. Arab prosperity, now being squandered in frivolous and empty-headed vainglory will become the glory of Jehovah – the “silver and gold” of Ezekiel 38: 13.

Two other questions related to the foregoing are worth spending some time on. The first has so much clear positive Bible testimony to support it that it is something of a mystery that ideas regarding it have not long ago crystallized out into dogma. Put baldly and simply it is this: The saints in Christ will receive their immortality at Jerusalem:

1. As already intimated, it is when the King sits on the throne of his glory that he says to those on his right hand: “Come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the Kingdom”. It would be a strange unnatural reading of the words to postulate that these blessed ones had already been made immortal elsewhere. It they had been, would they need to be separated off from the “goats” when standing before the King on his throne?
2. Psalm 133 is explicit: “For there (in Zion) the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore”. On this, see “Psalms” by G. Booker.
3. “In this mountain (which mountain? see context)… he will swallow up death in victory: and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces. . .” (Isaiah 25: 7,8, interpreted in 1 Cor. 15: 54 and Rev. 21: 4).
4. “He that is left in Zion… shall be called holy, every one that is written unto life (Hebrew, literally) in Jerusalem” (Is. 4: 3).
5. “And of Zion it shall be said, This man was born in her” (Ps. 87: 5). Is there any Scripture, which says that God has a special esteem for a man whose natural birth, was in Jerusalem? But of course the new birth of God’s New Israel is a thing of unmatched importance. Compare also Ps. 102: 16-18, if anything even more emphatic, and certainly given a Messianic interpretation in Hebrews 1.
6. Joel 2: 28 foretells an outpouring of the Spirit in Jerusalem. Peter applied these words to Christ’s gift of the Spirit on the early church at Pentecost (Acts 2: 17,18). But, as the Joel context very plainly intimates, there is to be another yet more impressive fulfilment of these words in the Last Days- and where? The prophet mentions nowhere except Jerusalem.

It will be seen by and by, that this chapter is almost certainly out of place chronologically. But it becomes necessary to deal with it here because of certain mistaken assumptions of a serious character which are very commonly made about Ezekiel 38, and which tend to cloud understanding of other Scriptures.

All students of Bible prophecy are aware that Ezekiel 38, 39 describe in vivid fashion an invasion of the Land of Israel in the Last Days. This invasion, headed by Russia (“the uttermost parts of the north” RV is halted by a dramatic outpouring of divine judgment. Thus the whole world is made to recognise this assertion of the authority of God; and Israel, exalted as never before to be God’s favoured nation, sighs with relief and thankfulness that at last all their tribulations are at an end. The kingdom of God has arrived.

The serious error, which has crept into the understanding of this terrific prophecy, is in the assumption that this northern invasion will inaugurate the great crisis of the end-time and will culminate in the coming of the Messiah and the establishing of his Kingdom.

In fact, all the details in these chapters, save one (to be examined in due course) point to a different conclusion, namely, that Ezekiel 38, 39 will be fulfilled after Christ has returned and begun his reign as King of the Holy Land.

1. It was the late Peter Watkins who pointed out very incisively that Ezekiel 37, 38, 39 are to be read as one prophecy. It cannot be accident that ch. 37 begins with the dry bones of Israel scattered in Gentile lands (Ez. 37: 21), and ch. 39: 11 speaks of Gentile bones scattered in Israel’s Land. If this is accepted, then what of the fine picture presented in ch. 37 of God’s tabernacle planted in the midst of a sanctified Israel, and “my servant David being their prince for ever” (37: 25,27)? The northern invasion follows on after this.
2. Repeatedly Israel is described as “dwelling safely” or “securely” (38: 8,11; 39: 26). This is a phrase which, in the prophets, is always associated with the Kingdom; e.g. Ez. 34: 25,27,28; Hos. 2: 18; Zec.14: 11.

   Then ought not the same meaning to dominate these passages in ch.38, 39 also? On the other hand, can it be said, with any stretch of imagination, in 1989, or in any succeeding year before Messiah’s coming, that Israel dwells safely? In July of 1988 the Jewish Chronicle carried a especially prominent leading article headed: “The Six Hour War”. Its purpose was to draw attention to the fact that the Arab nations round Israel are now in a position to bring Israel to its knees in such a sensational fashion as will make the 1967 Six Day War look like a boy-scout exercise. More on this in chapter 8.

3. “Dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates” (38:11) is a strange way of describing a people, which spends a higher percentage of its national income on armaments than any other nation on the face of the earth. But, apply the words to Israel dwelling in peace under its Messiah (“first that which is natural, then that which is spiritual”), and there is no difficulty. On the other hand Zechariah 2:4,5 uses very similar language about Jerusalem in its Kingdom Glory
4. The invader is intent on carrying away “silver and gold, cattle and goods- a great spoil” (38: 13). But with Israel as it is today, what nation would risk an international conflagration for the sake of appropriating little Israel’s dubious wealth? Those enthusiasts intent on making this prophecy pre-Messianic skate round the difficulty here by turning “spoil” into OIL- a most un– Biblical conclusion, for, the gross misapplication of Deuteronomy 33: 24 notwithstanding, only the tiniest trickle of oil has ever been found in Israel. Israel is the only Middle East country without oil. Of course, for did not God burn up all the oil of that Land when He destroyed the cities of the plain?
5. Some readers will also appreciate this point. The only other Gog-Magog prophecy is in Revelation 20: 8. Normally these two Scriptures – Ez. 38; Rev. 20 -would be used to interpret each other, according to the well established method of Bible study. In “The Last Days” ch.13 and in ” Revelation – a Biblical Approach” ch. 38, identification of these two passages has been argued for, and difficulties cleared, thus leaving the way to refer Ezekiel 38 to an international rebellion against Messiah in the early days of his reign, for certainly Revelation 20 describes what happens after Messiah’s coming.
6. It can now be readily perceived that Ezekiel 38 is a parallel prophecy to Psalm 2: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed… Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion” (2,6). The experience of David after his capture of Jerusalem (2 Sam. 8) makes an impressive prototype.

Over against this accumulation of details all pointing to the same conclusion there is (so it is believed) only one passage which might be read as pointing to the alternative conclusion:

“After that they have borne their shame. . . when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid” (Ez. 39: 26).

These words have been read as meaning that the deliverance of Israel comes before their repentance, and before their Messiah appears.

However, this turns out to be a very unsure prop for such an interpretation:

1. There is a double textual doubt about the reading of the Hebrew word translated “bear”. Tanakh 1985 J.P.S. has a special footnote at this verse, reading ´´bear”, or “forget”. (Technicalities omitted here for simplicity’s sake).
2. There is an elided consonant, which may be supplied in more than one way, leading possibly to a different double meaning Hebrew word.
3. The A.V. reading is inexact here.
4. Thus an equally possible reading could be: “and they shall forget their shame. . .” – a very different idea from what has just been mentioned.
5. “When they dwelt safely. . .” is, more exactly: “in their dwelling safely”. What has been advanced earlier about this phrase also needs to be borne in mind here.

This 39: 26 AV reading is surely too precarious to lean on, especially when contrasted with the contrary evidence already set out.

Thus the overwhelming evidence is that this prophecy will be fulfilled after the coming of the Lord and not before it.