Jonah Flees Toward Tarshish
With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah further flouts God by seeking to flee from Him. He imagines that a ship made by men can carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, seeking a ship bound for Tarshish—identified with the modern Cadiz in Spain, more than two thousand miles westward from Joppa across an almost unknown Atlantic. Thus Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God: a miserable, contemptible fugitive prowling the shipping like a vile burglar, with no baggage and no friends to see him off, his guilty eye and disordered look betraying his self-condemning conscience.
Boarding the Tarshish Ship
After much searching, Jonah finds the Tarshish ship receiving her last cargo. As he steps aboard to see the Captain in the cabin, all the sailors pause from hoisting in the goods to mark his evil eye. Though Jonah attempts a confident smile, the mariners’ strong intuitions assure them he is no innocent man. They whisper suspicions of robbery, bigamy, or worse, and one even compares him to a murderer wanted in Sodom or Gomorrah. Jonah, terrified, summons boldness to his face but only looks the more a coward. When the sailors find he is not the man described on a wanted bill offering five hundred gold coins for a parricide, they let him pass, and he descends into the cabin.
The Captain’s Suspicion
The Captain, busy at his desk with Customs papers, cries “Who’s there?”—a harmless question that nearly causes Jonah to flee again. Rallying, Jonah requests passage to Tarshish. The Captain slowly looks up and scrutinizes him with a glance. When the Captain mentions sailing with the next tide, the shipmate comments that this is soon enough for any honest man who goes as a passenger, another stab at Jonah. Jonah swiftly diverts suspicion by asking the passage money and offering to pay now. Father Mapple notes that the text particularly records that Jonah paid the fare before the craft did sail, a detail full of meaning.
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