The same expression is used here as at the beginning of verse 10, except that here the sailors’ “fear” is “fear of the Lord.” This looks like a later addition to the text, expanding the reference in the last part of the verse to acts of worship. Good News Translation takes “fear” here in the sense of “terror,” as do Knox and Jerusalem Bible (“dread”), while New English Bible, Moffatt, and others think in terms of religious awe. In verse 9 Jonah confesses that he worships Yahweh, but the combination of intense fear (as in verse 10) with worship of God (as in verse 9) is difficult to translate in such a way as to do justice to both elements. For “fear of the Lord” in the sense of “terror,” see also 1 Sam 12.18; 2 Sam 6.9; and Jer 5.22.
If instead of “fear” or “terror,” one interprets the first part of verse 16 as a reference to “awe,” one may render the clause This made the sailors so afraid of the LORD as “this made the sailors stand in awe of the Lord.” If the reference of the pronoun This must be made more explicit, the clause may be restructured so as to read “What the Lord did caused the sailors to be in awe of him.” Then the resulting clause introduced by that may be expressed as a separate sentence, “As a result, they offered a sacrifice….”
The mention of offering sacrifice might indicate that the narrator thinks in terms of such animals as the sailors might have had with them on board in preparation for a long voyage, or he may be indicating that as a result of the calming of the storm, the ship soon reached dry land, and they offered sacrifice there. Sacrifice was the normal expression of worship, and here the worshipers are foreigners, offering sacrifices to the God of Israel, an element that is omitted by Good News Translation. As frequently, Good News Translation subordinates one element in the verse to another instead of following the Hebrew pattern of coordinating the various actions and leaving the reader to supply the relationship between them.
Since the sacrifice probably took place somewhat later than the calming of the sea, it may be important to introduce a temporal factor; for example, “and as a result, they later offered a sacrifice.”
Offered a sacrifice may be expressed as “killed an animal as an act of worship to the Lord” or “… as a way of worshiping the Lord.” Sometimes the relationship between the sacrifice and worship may be explained quite precisely as “they killed an animal as a gift to the Lord.” In this context also it may be necessary to add “the Lord of Jonah.” If one uses “their Lord,” it might very well refer to some pagan deity.
The final sentence in the verse again refers to a standard element in worship, “made vows” (New English Bible). Good News Translation goes beyond the normal meaning of this expression in saying and promised to serve him (so also Winding Quest and Living Bible). The reaction of the sailors to the wonders they had experienced is not to be understood in terms of a “conversion” to Israel’s religion or the recognition that Yahweh alone is the one true God. Rudolph, page 345, points out the irony of a situation in which Jonah fails to take the initiative in any stage of the developments and has to have his confession of faith dragged out of him, and yet in spite of him the sailors are “filled with the fear of the LORD.”
In making a vow, a person would say in effect to God “If you fulfil my request, I will worship you with an offering.” Here the sailors were already saved from danger, so perhaps they are thought of as fulfilling vows made during the time of their danger.
Promised to serve him may therefore be rendered as “paid their vows to the Lord,” or “gave to the Lord what they had promised him in their vows,” or “… what they had vowed to give him.”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on the Book of Jonah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .