The captain approached him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call upon your God. Perhaps this God will consider us, so that we may not perish.”
Jonah relates here how he was reproved by the pilot or master of the ship רב החבל, the master of the rope or roping: ὁ πρωρευς, the prowman, the boatswain. — Sept. Nauclerus, pilot, is the word used by Calvin. — Ed. , inasmuch as he alone slept, while all the rest were in anxiety and fear.
When Jonah was set on ship-board, and under sail for Tarshish, he thought himself safe enough; but here we find him pursued and overtaken, discovered and convicted as a deserter from God, as one that had run his colours. I. God sends a pursuer after him, a mighty tempest in the sea, Jon 1:4.
Commenting on Jonah 1:4-10
So the shipmaster came to him,.... The master of the vessel, who had the command of it; or the governor of it, as Jarchi; though Josephus (d) distinguishes between the governor and the shipmaster: "the master of the ropers" (e), as it may be rendered; of the sailors, whose business it was to draw the ropes, to loose or gather the sails, at his command...