Yunus 1:7

1:7 The sailors said to one another, ¹  “Come on, let’s cast lots ²  to find out ³  whose fault it is that this disaster has overtaken us. ⁴ ” So they cast lots, and Jonah was singled out. ⁵ 

Yunus 3:7

3:7 He issued a proclamation and said, ⁶  “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water.

Yunus 3:10

3:10 When God saw their actions – they turned ⁷  from their evil way of living! ⁸  – God relented concerning the judgment ⁹  he had threatened them with ¹⁰  and he did not destroy them. ¹¹ 

[1:7]  ¹ tn Heb “And they said, a man to his companion.” The plural verb is individualized by “a man.”

[1:7]  ² sn The English word lots is a generic term. In some cultures the procedure for “casting lots” is to “draw straws” so that the person who receives the short straw is chosen. In other situations a colored stone or a designated playing card might be picked at random. In Jonah’s case, small stones were probably used.

[1:7]  ³ sn In the ancient Near East, casting lots was a custom used to try to receive a revelation from the gods about a particular situation. The Phoenician sailors here cried out to their gods and cast lots in the hope that one of their gods might reveal the identity of the person with whom he was angry. CEV has well captured the sentiment of v.7b: “‘Let’s ask our gods to show us who caused all this trouble.’ It turned out to be Jonah.”

[1:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “On whose account this calamity is upon us.”

[1:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “the lot fell on Jonah.” From their questions posed to Jonah, it does not appear that the sailors immediately realize that Jonah was the one responsible for the storm. Instead, they seem to think that he is the one chosen by their gods to reveal to them the one responsible for their plight. It is only after he admits in vv. 9-10 that he was fleeing from the God whom he served that they realize that Jonah was in fact the cause of their trouble.

[3:7]  ⁶ tn Contrary to many modern English versions, the present translation understands the king’s proclamation to begin after the phrase “and he said” (rather than after “in Nineveh”), as do quotations in 1:14; 2:2, 4; 4:2, 8, 9. In Jonah where the quotation does not begin immediately after “said” (אָמַר, ’amar), it is only the speaker or addressee or both that come between “said” and the start of the quotation (1:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 4:4, 9, 10; cf. 1:1; 3:1).

[3:10]  ⁷ tn This clause is introduced by כִּי (ki, “that”) and functions as an epexegetical, explanatory clause.

[3:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “from their evil way” (so KJV, ASV, NAB); NASB “wicked way.”

[3:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “calamity” or “disaster.” The noun רָעָה (ra’ah, “calamity, disaster”) functions as a metonymy of result – the cause being the threatened judgment (e.g., Exod 32:12, 14; 2 Sam 24:16; Jer 18:8; 26:13, 19; 42:10; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; HALOT 1263 s.v. רָעָה 6). The root רָעָה is repeated three times in vv. 8 and 10. Twice it refers to the Ninevites’ moral “evil” (vv. 8 and 10a) and here it refers to the “calamity” or “disaster” that the Lord had threatened (v. 10b). This repetition of the root forms a polysemantic wordplay that exploits this broad range of meanings of the noun. The wordplay emphasizes that God’s response was appropriate: because the Ninevites repented from their moral “evil” God relented from the “calamity” he had threatened.

[3:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the disaster that he had spoken to do to them.”

[3:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and he did not do it.” See notes on 3:8-9.