r this. "Why do you have anything to do
with these Gentile dogs?" they asked. It was in answer to this
question that he wrote about Jonah, the prophet whom Jehovah had sent
to preach to the wicked heathen city of Nineveh. He had tried to avoid
obeying the command, but at last had gone; and when the Ninevites
listened to his preaching and repented and turned to Jehovah he was
angry. And Jehovah said unto him, "Should not I have regard for
Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand
persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left
hand?" (That is, six score thousand little children.)

Jonah in this story is a type of the Jewish people. As Jehovah sent
Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, so he would send the Jews to teach
the nations of his love. What a pity to be so narrow-minded, so
blinded by pride of race, as to have no sympathy or good will for any
other race of men! This is the lesson the author of the book meant to
teach.

Probably very few of the Jews who heard this man, or read his book,
understood or appreciated him. But there were enough of them who cared
for him to preserve his book, so that it became a part of their sacred
writings; and perhaps more than any other book in the Old Testament it
prepared the way for a broadening of the dreams and plans of Abraham
and Moses and the prophets to include not only Jews but all
mankind--that broadening which we call Christianity.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Read Isaiah 19. 19-24.

2. What do you think this writer would have thought of our American
habit of calling names at foreigners?

3. What advice would these writers have given us, in regard to our
"Japanese" problem?

4. If you have time, look into the book of Jonah.

CHAPTER XXVII

OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS[5]

All children among all races receive as they grow up some kind of an
education. Isaac learned from his father Abraham and from the other
older people about him how to set up a tent, how to milk a goat, how
to recognize the tracks of bears and other wild beasts, and all the
other bits of knowledge so necessary to wandering shepherds. Not till
many centuries after Abraham in Hebrew history were there any special
schools apart from the everyday experiences of life, or any man whose
special work was that of teaching. But in the centuries following the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and its gradual
restoration, the people came more and more