Jonah 3

Jon 3:1 And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,

And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time - Jonah having been scourged by the Lord for his stubbornness and disobedience, and being humbled under the mighty hand of God, is tried a second time, to go to Nineveh and proclaim to that city what Jehovah would say to him. God employs Jonah again in his service. His making use of us is an evidence of his being at peace with us. Jonah was not disobedient, as he had been. Jonah now obeyed the word of Jehovah. See here the nature of repentance; it is the change of our mind and way, and a return to our work and duty.

Jon 3:2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

Arise, go to Nineveh that great city, and preach (or cry) unto it - God says to Jonah the self-same words which He had said before; only perhaps He gives him an intimation of His purpose of mercy, in that he says no more, “cry against her,” but “cry unto her.” He might “cry against” one doomed to destruction; to “cry unto her,” seems to imply that she had some interest in, and so some hope from, this cry.

Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city - The order runs in the same words as before; and the same discouragements are presented to Jonah, taken from the greatness of the city, the number of its inhabitants, its being the metropolis of the Assyrian empire, and the seat of the greatest monarch on earth, to try his faith; but these had not the like effect as before; for he had now another spirit given him, not of fear, but of a sound mind; he considered he was sent by a greater King, and that more were they that were on his side than the inhabitants of this place, who might possibly be against him:

The preaching that I bid thee - literally, "proclaim the proclamation." Be my herald, and faithfully deliver my message. The word signifies a crier, a herald, a preacher; one that makes proclamation with a loud and earnest cry. Such was John Baptist, Isa_40:3; such was Jesus Christ, John 7:18-37; and such were all his apostles. This is the only notice which Jonah relates that God took of his disobedience, in that He charged him to obey exactly what He commanded

the preaching that I bid thee - declaring and exposing their wickedness, and telling them that in a short time their city would be destroyed. Jonah must not be gratified with any alteration in the message; but he must go with it as it had before been given, or what he now bid, or should bid him; the word of the Lord must be spoken just as it is delivered; nothing must be added to it, or taken from it; the whole counsel of God must be declared; prophets and ministers must preach, not as men bid them, but as God bids them.

Jon 3:3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.

And Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh - ready to obey, as before to disobey. Before, when God said those same words, “he arose and fled;” now, “he arose and went.”

And Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh - In Luk_11:30 it is said that Jonas was not only a sign to the men in Christ's time, but also "unto the Ninevites." On the latter occasion ( Mat_16:1-4) when the Pharisees and Sadducees tempted Him, asking a sign from heaven, He answered, "No sign shall be given, but the sign of the prophet Jonas," Mat_12:39. Thus the sign had a twofold aspect, a direct bearing on the Ninevites, an indirect bearing on the Jews in Christ's time. To the Ninevites he was not merely a prophet, but himself a wonder in the earth, as one who had tasted of death, and yet had not seen corruption, but had now returned to witness among them for God. If the Ninevites had indulged in a captious spirit, they never would have inquired and so known Jonah's wonderful history; but being humbled by God's awful message, they learned from Jonah himself that it was the previous concealing in his bosom of the same message of their own doom that caused him to be entombed as an outcast from the living. Thus he was a "sign" to them of wrath on the one hand, and, on the other, of mercy. Guilty Jonah saved from the jaws of death gives a ray of hope to guilty Nineveh. Thus God, who brings good from evil, made Jonah in his fall, punishment, and restoration, a sign (an embodied lesson or living symbol) through which the Ninevites were roused to hear and repent, as they would not have been likely to do, had he gone on the first commission before his living entombment and resurrection. To the Pharisees in Christ's time, who, not content with the many signs exhibited by Him, still demanded a sign from heaven, He gave a sign in the opposite quarter, namely, Jonah, who came "out of the belly of hell" (the unseen region). They looked for a Messiah gloriously coming in the clouds of heaven; the Messiah, on the contrary, is to pass through a like, though a deeper, humiliation than Jonah; He is to lie "in the heart of the earth." Jonah and his Antitype alike appeared low and friendless among their hearers; both victims to death for God's wrath against sin, both preaching repentance. Repentance derives all its efficacy from the death of Christ, just as Jonah's message derived its weight with the Ninevites from his entombment. The Jews stumbled at Christ's death, the very fact which ought to have led them to Him, as Jonah's entombment attracted the Ninevites to his message. As Jonah's restoration gave hope of God's placability to Nineveh, so Christ's resurrection assures us God is fully reconciled to man by Christ's death.

now Nineveh was an exceeding great city - or "a city great to God"; not dear to him, for it was full of wickedness; not great in his esteem, with whom the whole earth is as nothing; but known by him to be what it was; and the name of God is often used of things, to express the superlative nature and greatness of them, as trees of God, mountains of God, the flame of God, Psa_36:7; it was a greater city than Babylon.

Nineveh was an exceeding great city - literally “great to God,” what would not only appear great to man who admires things of no account, but what, being really great, is so in the judgment of God who cannot be deceived. God did account it great, Who says to Jonah, “Should not I spare Nineveh that great city, which hath more than six score thousand that cannot discern between their right hand and their left?”

Of three days’ journey - i. e., 60 miles in circumference. It would take the prophet three days to walk round upon the walls, and announce from them the terrible message. An Eastern would the more naturally think of the circumference of a city, because of the broad places, similar to the boulevards of Paris, which encircles it, so that people could walk around it, within it . It was a great city. Jonah speaks of its greatness, under a name which he would only have used of real greatness.

Jon 3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Yet forty days and Nineveh overthrown - He prophesied an utter overthrow, a turning it upside down. The close of the forty days and the destruction were to be one. The threat is express. But there was a reserve with God, on condition of repentance.

Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown--The commission, given indefinitely at his setting out, assumes now on his arrival a definite form, and that severer than before. It is no longer a cry against the sins of Nineveh, but an announcement of its ruin in forty days. This number is in Scripture associated often with humiliation. It was forty days that Moses, Elijah, and Christ fasted. Forty years elapsed from the beginning of Christ's ministry (the antitype of Jonah's) to the destruction of Jerusalem. The more definite form of the denunciation implies that Nineveh has now almost filled up the measure of her guilt. The change in the form which the Ninevites would hear from Jonah on anxious inquiry into his history, would alarm them the more, as implying the increasing nearness and certainty of their doom, and would at the same time reprove Jonah for his previous guilt in delaying to warn them.

And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey – It implies that as soon as he came to it, he did not go into an inn, to refresh himself after his wearisome journey; or spend his time in gazing upon the city, and to observe its structure, and the curiosities of it; but immediately sets about his work, and proclaims what he was bid to do; and before he could finish one day's journey, he had no need to proceed any further, the whole city was alarmed with his preaching, was terrified with it, and brought to repentance by it:

Jon 3:5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

And the people of Nineveh believed God - strictly, “believed in God.” To “believe in God” expresses more heart-belief, than to “believe God” in itself need convey. To believe God is to believe what God says, to be true; “to believe in” or “on God” expresses not belief only, but that belief resting in God, trusting itself and all its concerns with Him. It combines hope and trust with faith, and love too, since, without love, there cannot be trust. They believed then the preaching of Jonah, and that He, in Whose Name Jonah spake, had all power in heaven and earth. But they believed further in His unknown mercies; they cast themselves upon the goodness of the hitherto “unknown God.”

And proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth - It was not then a repentance in word only, but in deed. A fast was at that time entire abstinence from all food until evening; the haircloth was a harsh garment, irritating and afflictive to the body. They who did so, were (as we may still see from the Assyrian sculptures) men of pampered and luxurious habits, uniting sensuality and fierceness. Yet this they did at once, and as it seems, for the 40 days. They “proclaimed a fast.” They did not wait for the supreme authority. Time was urgent, and they would lose none of it. In this imminent peril of God’s displeasure, they acted as men would in a conflagration. People do not wait for orders to put out a fire, if they can, or to prevent it from spreading. Whoever they were who proclaimed it, whether those in inferior authority, each in his neighborhood, or whether it spread from man to man, as the tidings spread, it was done at once. It seems to have been done by acclamation, as it were, one common cry out of the one common terror. For it is said of them, as one succession of acts, “the men of Nineveh believed in God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from their great to their little,” every age, sex, condition . “Worthy of admiration is that exceeding celerity and diligence in taking counsel, which, although in the same city with the king, perceived that they must provide for the common and imminent calamity, not waiting to ascertain laboriously the king’s pleasure.” In a city, 60 miles in circumference, some time must needs be lost, before the king could be approached; and we know, in some measure, the forms required in approaching Eastern monarchs of old.

Jon 3:6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

For word came - The form of words implies that what Jonah relates in this verse took place after what had been mentioned before. When it came to him, he disdained not to follow the example of those below him. He was not jealous of his prerogative, or that his advice had not been had; but, in the common peril, acted as his subjects had, and humbled himself as they did. Yet this king was the king of Nineveh, the king, whose name was dreaded far and wide, whose will none who disputed, prospered . “He who was accounted and was the greatest of the kings of the earth, was not held back by any thought of his own splendor, greatness or dignity, from fleeing as a suppliant to the mercy of God, and inciting others by his example to the same earnesthess.” The kings of Assyria were religious, according to their light. They ascribed all their victories to their god, Asshur . When the king came to hear of One who had a might such as he had not seen, he believed in Him.

And he laid his robe from him - This was the large costly upper garment, so called from its amplitude It is the name of the goodly Babylonian garment Jos_7:21 which Achan coveted. As worn by kings, it was the most magnificent part of their dress, and a special part of their state. Kings were buried as they lived, in splendid apparel; and rich adornments were buried with them. The king of Nineveh dreads no charge of precipitancy nor man’s judgment . “He exchanges purple, gold, gems for the simple rough and sordid sackcloth, and his throne for the most abject ashes, the humblest thing he could do.

Sat in ashes--emblem of the deepest humiliation ( Job_2:8; Eze_27:30).

Jon 3:7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:

And he caused it to be proclaimed - literally, “And he cried and said, etc.” The cry or proclamation of the king corresponded with the cry of Jonah. Where the prophet’s cry, calling to repentance, had reached, the proclamation of the king followed, obeying. “By the decree of the king and his nobles.”

Let neither man nor beast – even the animals fasted. Abstinence from all food was enjoined; not only men of every rank and age, but the cattle likewise, horses and camels, they used either for their pleasure or business; their oxen, cows, and calves, of their herd; their sheep, goats, lambs, and kids, of their flocks:

Jon 3:8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth - People think it strange that the horses at Nineveh were covered with sackcloth, and forget how, at the funerals of the rich in the pre-auto age, black horses were chosen and are clothed with black velvet.

and from the violence that is in their hands - the Jewish writers interpret this of making restitution for rapine and violence, which is a genuine fruit of repentance; see Luk_19:8.

Jon 3:8 - And beast - Their horses and camels, both which they adorned with rich and costly clothing, they must now in testimony of an hearty repentance, clothe with sackcloth; the clothing of beasts must witness for men. The violence - Oppression and rapine. In their hands - Which are practised by them.

Jon 3:9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

Who can tell if God will turn and repent? - The Ninevites use the same form of words, which God suggested by Joel to Judah. Joe_2:14 Who knows if He will turn and have pity and leave a blessing behind Him, a food offering and a drink offering to the LORD your God? Perhaps He would thereby indicate that He had Himself put it into their mouths.

Who can tell if God will turn and repent - There is at least a peradventure for our salvation. God may turn towards us, change his purpose, and save us alive. While there is life there is hope; God has no pleasure in the death of sinners; he is gracious and compassionate. Himself has prescribed repentance; if we repent, and turn to him from our iniquities, who knows then whether God will not turn, etc.

Who can tell if God will turn and repent - They are acting on a vague possibility of God's mercy, without any special ground of encouragement, is the more remarkable instance of faith, as they had to break through long-rooted prejudices in giving up idols to seek Jehovah at all. The only ground which their ready faith rested on, was the fact of God sending one to warn them, instead of destroying them at once; this suggested the thought of a possibility of pardon. Hence they are cited by Christ as about to condemn in the judgment those who, with much greater light and privileges, yet repent not Mat_12:41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the proclaiming of Jonah, and behold, One greater than Jonah is here.

Jon 3:10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

And God saw their works - They repented, and brought forth fruits meet for repentance. He did not then first see their sackcloth when they covered themselves with it. He had seen them long before He sent the prophet there, while Israel was slaying the prophets who announced to them the captivity which hung over them. He knew certainly, that if He were to send the prophets far off to the Gentiles with such an announcement, they would hear and repent” God saw them, looked upon them, approved them, accepted the Ninevites not for time only, but, as many as persevered, for eternity. It was no common repentance. It was the penitence, which our Lord sets forth as the pattern of true repentance before His coming Mat_12:41. What Scripture chiefly dwells upon, their repentance was not only in profession, in belief, in outward act, but in the fruit of genuine works of repentance, a changed life out of a changed heart. God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way.

And God repented of the evil - This was no real change in God; rather, the object of His threatening was, that He might not do what He threatened. God’s threatenings are conditional, “unless they repent,” as are His promises, “if they endure to the end” Mat_10:22 And you will be hated of all men for My name's sake, but the one who endures to the end shall be kept safe. It is said that He repented, because He changed that which He seemed about to do, to destroy them. In God all things are disposed and fixed, He knew in advance what He would do, that He would spare Nineveh. He is said to repent, on account of the change, not of the counsel, but of the act.