Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto you, that the sea may be calm for us? for the sea raged, and was tempestuous.
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Jerome
AD 420
LXX: 'then they said to him, what should we do with you, so that the sea is calm for us? For the sea was surging its waves more and more'. It is because of you, you say, that the winds, the waves, the sea and swells have been unleashed. You have revealed the cause of this wickedness, now tell us how to stop it. The sea swells against us, and we know that a God is angry because we took you on board. If we have sinned by taking you in, then what can we do so that the Lord does not become angrier? "What should we do with you?" that is to say: "shall we kill you?" but you are faithful to the Lord. Are we to protect you? But you flee from Him. All we have to do is carry out whatever you command, all you have to do is give the command that the sea be calm, for now its wildness attests the wrath of the creator. The narrator also adds the reason for this question. The sea, he says, was continually increasing in wildness. It was swelling, in the known way; it was swelling for the revenge of its...
Tell me, are you running away from the master? Then wait a little bit and you will learn from the state of affairs themselves that you will be unable to escape even from the hands of his servant, the ocean. For as soon as Jonah set foot on the ship, the ocean raised its waves up high and raised itself to a great height. And just as a considerate handmaid, discovering that her fellow slave has run away because he stole something of her master’s, does not revolt as previously mentioned but submits the individuals who captured him to myriads of troubles until she seizes him and brings him back, likewise, the ocean found her fellow slave and recognized him. .
Jonah surely teaches us that the sea and stars are moved under God’s control. By vainly seeking to flee from God the controller of all things whom none can escape, he aroused the anger of both sky and sea. Nature, which belongs to the almighty Lord, realized that [Jonah] was revolting, and it was afraid to play conspirator by transporting the guilty man safely through its domain; it chained the runaway with winds and waves.
