Albert Barnes Commentary Jonah 1:4

"But Jehovah sent out a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken." — Jonah 1:4 (ASV)

But (And) the Lord sent out - (literally ‘cast along’). Jonah had done all he could. Now God’s part began. This He expresses by the word, “And.” Jonah took “his” measures, “and” now God takes “His.”

He had let him have his way, as He often deals with those who rebel against Him. He lets them have their way up to a certain point. He waits, in the tranquility of His Almightiness, until they have completed their preparations. Then, when humanity has finished, He begins, so that humanity may see more clearly that it is His doing.

“He takes those who flee from Him in their flight, the wise in their counsels, sinners in their conceits and sins, and draws them back to Himself and compels them to return. Jonah thought to find rest in the sea, and behold! a tempest.” Probably, God summoned back Jonah as soon as he had completed all on his part, and sent the tempest soon after he left the shore.

At least, such tempests often swept along that shore, and were known by their own special name, like the Euroclydon off Crete. Jonah too alone had gone down below deck to sleep, and, when the storm came, the mariners thought it possible to put back. Josephus says of that shore, “Joppa having by nature no haven, for it ends in a rough shore, mostly abrupt, but for a short space having projections, that is, deep rocks and cliffs advancing into the sea, inclining on either side toward each other (where the traces of the chains of Andromeda still shown accredit the antiquity of the fable), and the north wind beating right on the shore, and dashing the high waves against the rocks which receive them, makes the location there a harborless sea. As those from Joppa were tossing here, a strong wind (called by those who sail here, the black north wind) falls upon them at daybreak, immediately dashing some of the ships against each other, some against the rocks, and some, forcing their way against the waves to the open sea (for they fear the rocky shore...), the breakers towering above them, sank.”

The ship was like - (literally ‘thought’) to be broken. Perhaps Jonah means by this very vivid image to exhibit all the more his own dullness. He ascribes, as it were, to the ship a sense of its own danger, as she heaved and rolled and creaked and quivered under the weight of the storm which lay on her, and her masts groaned, and her yard-arms shivered. To the awakened conscience everything seems to have been alive to God’s displeasure, except itself.