Commentaire sur Jonas 1:4

threatened to be broken—It appears as though it would be broken.

And since Jonah was going against His Will, Gd made a great wind on the sea and there was a mighty storm and about this the psukim explain the reason for the storms. According to the philosophers when there wind blows on the water, the wind tries to get out from under the water according to it's lightweight nature. And the waters heavy nature holds onto the wind and that creates a storm. So therefore the informatoin that "Gd made a wind on the sea" gives the reason for the storm and tells us that the wind did n't hit the sea because of a natural reason because it wasn't the time for the wind naturally, rather Gd with Divine Providence made the wind appear there to cause a storm. And when it says "the ship was thought to be broken" from the storm because it appeared to them that it was breaking. Typically a boat doesn't break in a storm, rather it sinks in it's place. Therefore I am explaining "thought to be broken" as they were scared it would drown because of the mighty waves and the sailors would nt escape, so the sailors tried to bring the boat ashore so it would break on the shore and the men could escape because they wuld be clse t land. So this pasuk "thught to be broken" describes the mindset of the sailors who's goal was to break the boat. But because of the strong wind, the efforts of the sailors to run the boat ashore did not work, because the wind came from the land and pushed the boat into the water.