FOOTNOTES (continued 2)
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Smith, George Adam and Nicoll, W. Robertson (William Robertson), Sir
[1534] See above, pp. 511 f.
[1535] See above, p. 511, nn. 1500, 1501.
[1536] The grammar, which usually expresses result, more literally runs, And Thou didst cast me; but after the preceding verse it must be taken not as expressing consequence but cause.
[1537] Read אֵיךְ for אַךְ, and with the LXX. take the sentence interrogatively.
[1538] Only in iii. 1, second time, and in iv. 2 are there any references from the second to the first part of the book.
[1539] The diameter rather than the circumference seems intended by the writer, if we can judge by his sending the prophet one day’s journey through the city. Some, however, take the circumference as meant, and this agrees with the computation of sixty English miles as the girth of the greater Niniveh described below.
[1540] LXX. Codd. B, etc., read three days; other Codd. have the forty of the Heb. text.
[1541] For a more detailed description of Niniveh see above on the Book of Nahum, pp. 98 ff.
[1542]רחבות עיר, Gen. x. 11.
[1543] Gen. x. 12, according to which the Great City included, besides Niniveh, at least Resen and Kelach.
[1544] And taking the present Kujundschik, Nimrud, Khorsabad and Balawat as the four corners of the district.
[1545] iii. 2, iv. 11.
[1546] Compare the Book of Jonah, for instance, with the Book of Nahum.
[1547] Cf. Herod. IX. 24; Joel i. 18; Virgil, Eclogue V., Æneid XI. 89 ff.; Plutarch, Alex. 72.
[1548] LXX.: and they did clothe themselves in sackcloth, and so on.
[1549] So LXX. Heb. text: may turn and relent, and turn.
[1550] The alleged discrepancies in this account have been already noticed. As the text stands the fast and mourning are proclaimed and actually begun before word reaches the king and his proclamation of fast and mourning goes forth. The discrepancies might be removed by transferring the words in ver. 6, and they cried a fast, and from the greatest of them, to the least they clothed themselves in sackcloth, to the end of ver. 8, with a לאמר or ויאמרו to introduce ver. 9. But, as said above (pp. 499, 510, n. 1499), it is more probable that the text as it stands was original, and that the inconsistencies in the order of the narrative are due to its being a tale or parable.
[1551] Deut. xviii. 21, 22.
[1552] The Hebrew may be translated either, first, Doest thou well to be angry? or second, Art thou very angry? Our versions both prefer the first, though they put the second in the margin. The LXX. take the second. That the second is the right one is not only proved by its greater suitableness, but by Jonah’s answer to the question, I am very angry, yea, even unto death.
[1553] Heb. the city.
[1554]קִיקָיון, the Egyptian kiki, the Ricinus or Palma Christi. See above, p. 498, n. 1473.
[1555] Heb. adds to save him from his evil, perhaps a gloss.
[1556] Heb. it.
[1557]חֲרִישִׁית. The Targum implies a quiet, i.e. sweltering, east wind. Hitzig thinks that the name is derived from the season of ploughing and some modern proverbs appear to bear this out: an autumn east wind. LXX. συγκαίων Siegfried-Stade: a cutting east wind, as if from חרשׁ. Steiner emends to חריסית, as if from חֶרֶס = the piercing, a poetic name of the sun; and Böhme, Z.A.T.W., VII. 256, to חרירית, from חרר, to glow. Köhler (Theol. Rev., XVI., p. 143) compares חֶרֶשׁ, dried clay.
[1558] Heb.: begged his life, that he might die.
[1559] Heb.: which was the son of a night, and son of a night has perished.
[1560] Gen. x. 12.