The Message Of Jonah: Presence In The Storm [Paperback]

Rosemary Nixon's exposition on Jonah ranks among the best in the Bible Speaks Today series. Other excellent authors in the same series are John Stott and Alec Motyer.

Jonah is a short book among the Minor Prophets in the Old Testament. It has only 48 verses. Nixon's commentary is some 220 pages long and provides a good balance between exegesis and exposition. Nixon's book is however more than just a commentary. It provides useful information on:
1. historical background,
2. relationship with other books in the Bible (especially the prophetic literature),
3. detailed explanation of the text (exegesis and expositon), and
4. application of the text.

Nixon obviously thought through the implication and application of the text and is able to relate the text to today's situation. It is ideal as a reference for sermon preparation. Despite the attention to details, Nixon's style is highly readable. I can't recommend this book high enough.

I'm about half-way through this commentary and have been thoroughly disappointed. First, Rosemary is not that conservative in her view of Scripture. Like some of her other British colleagues, she has been thoroughly influenced by liberal scholarship. She does not hold to the inerrancy of Scripture, at least as defined by American scholars. She essentials says that the story is not historical and the fish is myth. It's hard to make out most of her opinions because she never comes down one way or another, and straddles the fence on one issue after another.

Besides her low view of Scripture what is most problematic is that she psycho-analyzes Jonah left and right. While this might be warranted in chapter 2 to some degree, she just spills pages and pages of ink devoted to psycho-babble. It is impossible to read Jonah's mind, and yet she tries to do this at every turn, and comes to some very strange conclusions. Her commentary reads more like a psychology book filled with bad theories! Very little exegetical insights here and little theological synthesis.

On top of that, the text does not interact with the Scripture that much, nor give insight into the Hebrew, word studies, various interpretive issues, or the like. If you're looking to typical answers to questions a preacher or student would be asking of the text, look elsewhere. It will be useless for sermon preparation. Check out Boice, Wiersbe, Sinclair Ferguson, Butler's from the Holman series, and Lessing from the Concordia series (for the advanced reader).

Four Minor Prophets: Obadiah, Jonah, Habakkuk, and Haggai by Frank E. Gaebelein is great, as is McComiskey's work (3 volume for Minor Prophets coming out next year in a one volume, the Tyndale series (Desmond Alexander), James Bruckner's (NIVAC), Leslie Allen (NICOT), Stuart in the Word Biblical series, Page and Smith from the NAC series, and Feinberg's work on the Minor Prophets.

Bryan Estelle's, "Salvation Through Judgment And Mercy: The Gospel According to Jonah (Gospel According to the Old Testament)" has some helpful insights but it's not a commentary. It's more like a topical guide than a verse-by-verse exegetical treatment. That being said, Jonah is a wonderful book to study. It contains many powerful themes, and he is a type of Christ as Jesus said Himself.

This is a pretty bad commentary on Jonah. There are few good insights and the prose is laborious and a really boring read. A better commentary (if you can stomach the maddening transliterations of the Hebrew) is Jack Sasson's commentary.