Matthew Poole and continuators on Jonah 1:14

14 Wherefore they cryed unto the LORD , and said, We beseech thee , O LORD, we beseech thee , let us not perish for this mans life , and lay not upon us innocent blood : for thou, O LORD, hast done as it pleased thee .

Since all their labour and skill to carry the ship to shore▪ was successless, and they saw no remedy, but they must either follow Ionah's advice against himself, or drown with him.

With importunity of mind, and with loud voices too in prayer.

Not now as in beginning of the Tempest every man to his God, but better instructed now they all do cry to Ionah's God, to Iehovah the true God.

They all join in Prayer,

sue to Mercy for Mercy, they plead not innocency, or merit, but pray for mercy, and that free.

All sue to God, not to Saints, or intermediate Daemons.

'Tis repeated to note their vehemency in prayer,

Though he is pointed out by lot, hath advised us hereunto, yet if possible let the tempest cease, and we all be safe, let not him perish, nor we for him, so their first Prayer is for safety to Ionah and all in the Ship.

This the next suit that if God by the continued Tempest do peremptorily and irreversibly require Ionah's Life, a person innocent among them, and had, since he came to them so demean'd himself, so that should they throw him overboard, before they had tryed all kind of means for preserving him, they might be justly accounted barbarous Murtherers, and God would certainly charge innocent blood upon them; This they deprecate with all earnestness and importunity.

Sending the Tempest, arresting the Prophet by it, detecting him by lot, sentencing him by his own mouth, and confirming the condemning sentence by the continuance of the storm, and so leaving us to perish with this offender against thee, or to be thy Executioners, this is thine own doing, and 'tis just because thou doest it:

Though it be secret to us, and strange in our opinion, yet 'tis very just and necessary we know, or it would not please thee it should be so.