Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried out, and said, “In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!”
The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least. The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, “Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water; but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv4–9 Jonah here relates what had briefly been said before,…
Jonah here relates what had briefly been said before, — that he went to Nineveh according to the command of God. He shows then how faithfully he executed the duty enjoined on him, and thus obeyed the word of God. Hence Jonah came and began to enter the city and to preach on the first day. This promptness proves clearly how tractable Jonah had become, and how much he endeavored to obey God in discharging his office: for had there been still a timidity in his heart, he would have inspected the city, as careful and timid men are wont to do, who inquire what is the condition of the place, what are the dispositions of the people, and which is the easiest access to them, and what is the best way, and where is the least danger. If Jonah then had been still entangled by carnal thoughts he would have waited two or three days, and then have began to exercise his office as a Prophet. This he did not, but entered the city and I cried. We now then see how prompt he was in his obedience, who had before attempted to pass over the sea: he now takes hardly a moment to breathe, but he begins at the very entrance to testify that he had come in obedience to God.
We hence see with what emphasis these words ought to be read. The narrative is indeed very simple; Jonah uses here no rhetorical ornaments, nor does he set forth his entrance with any fine display of words. Jonah, he says, entered into the city He who is not well versed in Scripture might say that this is frigid: but when we weigh the circumstances, we see that this simple way of speaking possesses more force and power than all the displays of orators.
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He entered then the city a day’s journey, and cried and said, etc. By saying that he cried, he again proves the courage of his soul; for he did not creep in privately, as men are wont to do, advancing cautiously when dangers are apprehended. He says that he cried: then this freedom shows that Jonah was divested of all fear, and endued with such boldness of spirit, that he raised himself up above all the hindrances of the world. And we ought, in the meantime, to remember how disliked must have been his message: for he did not gently lead the Ninevites to God, but threatened them with destruction, and seemed to have given them no hope of pardon. Jonah might have thought that his voice, as one says, would have to return to his own throat, “Can I denounce ruin on this populous city, without being instantly crushed? Will not the first man that meets me stone me to death?” Thus might Jonah have thought within himself. No fear was, however, able to prevent him from doing his duty as a faithful servant, for he had been evidently strengthened by the Lord. But it will be better to join the following verse —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 7, 8, 9 He went forward one day in the city, and…
He went forward one day in the city, and preached, and so he continued till the city was converted.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv4–9 Jon 3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the…
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.
Ver. 4. And Jonah began to enter into the city] Having seen God he now fears no colours, dreads no danger; as neither did Moses, Micaiah, Isaiah, Isa 6:9-12, Paul, Act 21:13, Luther going to Worms. "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men," 2Co 5:11, we forewarn them to flee from the wrath to come, Mat 3:7, we pull them out of the fire of hell, as firebrands, Jdg 1:23.
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A day’s journey] One of the three days, Jon 3:3. Not all the three in one day, for haste, as Jerome would have it.
And he cried, and said] Not fearfully muttering his message, but delivering it with a courage, Boanerges-like, able almost to make his hearers’ hearts fall down and hairs stand upright, as one saith of Master Perkins.
Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown] The word properly noteth a sudden, inevitable, and perpetual destruction, such as was that of Sodom and her sisters, Gen 19:25 Jer 20:16 Isa 13:19 Amo 4:11. Now we must not think that Jonah said no more than is here set down; that he expressed no condition, such as was that, Rev 2:5, "except ye repent"; or that like a madman he ran up and down the city (as one did once about Jerusalem, and another lately about London), repeating and thundering out these words only, inconditis et ineptis clamoribus, with harsh and hoarse outcries. God therefore threateneth that he may not punish, and all his threats are conditional, Jer 18:8, if they repent, he will also. This, if Jonah expressed not, yet the Ninevites understood; for else they would never have repented, but despaired (as Judas with his poenitentia Iscariotica), and defied Jonah as an evil messenger sent against them. They might well enough think that if God had not meant them mercy he would never have forewarned them, never have given them forty days’ respite: the Septuagint cannot be refused for rendering it three days’ (though some have attempted it). It is probable that Jonah omitted nothing that pertained to the preaching of repentance, though here we have it set down in some only. The Hebrews tell us that the mariners also went to Nineveh; and, telling what had befallen Jonah at sea, confirmed his doctrine and sentence against the Ninevites, who thereupon repented. But these, as they affirm without reason, so they may be dismissed without refutation.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv4–9 The former verse gives us intelligence of Jonah’s arrival…
The former verse gives us intelligence of Jonah’s arrival at Nineveh; now, so soon as come, he preacheth.
Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said; to walk through and to preach the dreadful threats of God against Nineveh, and he proclaimed openly and plainly what God commanded; he feared not to tell all what concerned all; he did it with earnestness, as deeply affected with what he spake from God against this mighty city.
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Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown; a very short time, some might think, for this great city; but it is more time than God was bound to give, or than they could deserve, or than God gave to Sodom and Gomorrah, the sins of which cities were no doubt found in Nineveh now Jonah preached, and grew ripe by that time Nahum came to foretell their ruin; see Nahum. The threat is express and peremptory in its form and words; though there be a reserve with God on condition of repentance, which operated in due time, and manifestly proved that God intended mercy to repenting Nineveh, though he threatened an overthrow to impenitent Nineveh. How it should be overthrown is not expressed; some conjecture by a foreign enemy, which carrieth unlikelihood with it; others guess by fire from heaven: but since it was not destroyed we need not inquire how it should have been, and had they not repented the event would have informed us fully.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv4–9 And Jonah began to enter into the city a…
And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey,.... 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:
and he cried; as he went along; he lifted up his voice like a trumpet, that everyone might hear; he did not mutter it out, as if afraid to deliver his message, but cried aloud in the hearing of all; and very probably now and then made a stop in the streets, where there was a concourse of people, or where more streets met, and there, as a herald, proclaimed what he had to say:
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and said, yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown; not by a foreign army besieging and taking it, which was not probable to be done in such a space of time, but by the immediate power of God; either by fire from heaven, as he overthrow Sodom and Gomorrah, their works being like theirs, as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe, or by an earthquake; that is, within forty days, or at the end of forty days, as the Targum; not exceeding such a space, which was granted for their repentance, which is implied, though not expressed; and must be understood with this proviso, except it repented, for otherwise why is any time fixed? and why have they warning given them, or the prophet sent to them? and why were they not destroyed at once, as Sodom and Gomorrah, without any notice? doubtless, so it would have been, had not this been the case. The Septuagint version very wrongly reads, "yet three days", &c. and as wrongly does Josephus (q) make Jonah to say, that in a short time they would lose the empire of Asia, when only the destruction of Nineveh is threatened; though, indeed, that loss followed upon it.
(q) Antiqu. l. 9. c. 10. sect. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv4–8 Shall be overthrown - The threat is express. But…
Shall be overthrown - The threat is express. But there was a reserve with God, on condition of repentance.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 6, 8, 9 Verse 4. Yet forty days] Both the Septuagint and…
Verse 4. Yet forty days] Both the Septuagint and Arabic read three days. Probably some early copyist of the Septuagint, from whom our modern editions are derived, mistook the Greek numerals μ forty for γ three; or put the three days' journey in preaching instead of the forty days mentioned in the denunciation. One of Kennicott's MSS., instead of ארבעים arbaim, forty, has שלשים sheloshim, thirty: but the Hebrew text is undoubtedly the true reading; and it is followed by all the ancient versions, the Septuagint and Vulgate excepted. thus God gives them time to think, reflect, take counsel, and return to him. Had they only three days' space, the denunciation would have so completely confounded them, as to excite nothing but terror, and prevent repentance and conversion.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 7 Jon 3:4. And Jonah began to enter into the…
Jon 3:4. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey — That is, he proceeded into the city as far as he could go in a day. And he cried, Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown — The threat is express; but there was a reserve with God on condition of repentance. And it must be observed, that in most of the threatenings of God there is a condition expressed or understood. This is the general rule for interpreting all such denunciations, as has been observed in the note on Jer 18:8, unless where God makes an express declaration that the iniquity of the people against whom he denounces his judgments is full, and that he will not spare them; or, as it is expressed by our Saviour, with regard to Jerusalem, that the things which belong unto their peace are then hid from their eyes.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv4–9 And Jonah began to enter the city a day’s…
And Jonah began to enter the city a day’s journey - Perhaps the day’s journey enabled him to traverse the city from end to end, with his one brief, deep cry of woe; “Yet forty days and Nineveh overthrown.” He prophesied an utter overthrow, a turning it upside down. He does not speak of it as to happen at a time beyond those days. The close of the forty days and the destruction were to be one. He does not say strictly, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” but, “Yet forty days and Nineveh overthrown.” The last of those forty days was, ere its sun was set, to see Nineveh as a “thing overthrown.” Jonah knew from the first God’s purpose of mercy to Nineveh; he had a further hint of it in the altered commission which he had received. It is perhaps hinted in the word “Yet” . “If God had meant unconditionally to overthrow them, He would have overthrown them without notice. ‘Yet,’ always denotes some long-suffering of God.” But, taught by that severe discipline, he discharges his office strictly.
He cries, what God had commanded him to cry out, without reserve or exception. The sentence, as are all God’s threatenings until the last, was conditional. But God does not say this. That sentence was now within forty days of its completion; yet even thus it was remitted. Wonderful encouragement, when one Lent sufficed to save some 600,000 souls from perishing! Yet the first visitation of the cholera was checked in its progress in England, upon one day’s national fast and humiliation; and we have seen how general prayer has often-times at once opened or closed the heavens as we needed. “A few years ago,” relates Augustine, “when Arcadias was Emperor at Constantinople (what I say, some have heard, some of our people were present there,) did not God, willing to terrify the city, and, by terrifying, to amend, convert, cleanse, change it, reveal to a faithful servant of His (a soldier, it is said), that the city should perish by fire from heaven, and warned him to tell the Bishop! It was told. The Bishop despised it not, but addressed the people. The city turned to the mourning of penitence, as that Nineveh of old. Yet lest men should think that he who said this, deceived or was deceived, the day which God had threatened, came. When all were intently expecting the issue with great fears, at the beginning of night as the world was being darkened, a fiery cloud was seen from the East, small at first then, as it approached the city, gradually enlarging, until it hung terribly over the whole city.
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All fled to the Church; the place did not hold the people. But after that great tribulation, when God had accredited His word, the cloud began to diminish and at last disappeared. The people, freed from fear for a while, again heard that they must migrate, because the whole city should be destroyed on the next sabbath. The whole people left the city with the Emperor; no one remained in his house. That multitude, having one some miles, when gathered in one spot to pour forth prayer to God, suddenly saw a great smoke, and sent forth a loud cry to God.” The city was saved. “What shall we say?” adds Augustine. “Was this the anger of God, or rather His mercy? Who doubts that the most merciful Father willed by terrifying to convert, not to punish by destroying? As the hand is lifted up to strike, and is recalled in pity, when he who was to be struck is terrified, so was it done to that city.” Will any of God’s warnings “now” move our great Babylon to repentance, that it be not ruined?
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv4–7 Journey. He records what he said the first day,…
Journey. He records what he said the first day, though he seems to have preached many (Theodoret) even during forty days, after which time (Haydock) he expected the city would fall, and therefore retired out of the walls, chap. iv. --- Forty. Septuagint three. St. Justin Martyr, (Dialogue with Trypho) "three, or forty-three." Theodoret thinks that the mistake was made by some ancient transcriber, and has since prevailed in all the copies of the Septuagint. All the rest have forty. St. Augustine (City of God xviii. 44.) believes the Septuagint placed three for a mysterious reason. Origen (hom. xvi. Num.) suggests that the prophet determined the number, and hence God did not execute the threat. (Calmet) --- This and many other menaces are conditional. If men repent, God will change his sentence. (St. Chrysostom; St. Gregory, Mor. xvi. 18.) (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv4–9 a day's journey--not going straight forward without stopping: for…
a day's journey--not going straight forward without stopping: for the city was but eighteen miles in length; but stopping in his progress from time to time to announce his message to the crowds gathering about him.
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. The very solitariness of the one message announced by the stranger thus suddenly appearing among them, would impress them with the more awe. Learning from him, that so far from lightly prophesying evil against them, he had shrunk from announcing a less severe denunciation, and therefore had been east into the deep and only saved by miracle, they felt how imminent was their peril, threatened as they now were by a prophet whose fortunes were so closely bound up with theirs. In Noah's days one hundred twenty years of warning were given to men, yet they repented not till the flood came, and it was too late. But in the case of Nineveh, God granted a double mercy: first, that its people should repent immediately after threatening; second, that pardon should immediately follow their repentance.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On v5 5-9. The effect of the preaching. The effects were…
5-9. The effect of the preaching. The effects were immediate. The Ninevites believed God and humbled themselves before him in sincere repentance.
Believed God — Or, believed in God (Gen_15:6). They regarded him as the supreme God, to whom they owed allegiance. This recognition made them conscious of their past transgressions, and immediately they set about to secure divine forgiveness. How Jonah, a Hebrew, made himself understood in Nineveh is not stated; some refer, in explanation, to Isa_36:11, as if he had used the Aramaic language, but the passage does not prove that in Jonah’s days the common people, either among the Hebrews or among the Assyrians, spoke or understood that language.
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Proclaimed a fast,… put on sackcloth — See on Joe_1:8; Joe_1:13-14.
Greatest… least — In rank as well as in age; all without exception.
For word came — This translation seems to imply that the acts of mourning mentioned in Jon_3:5 were instituted at the royal command, which does not seem to be the thought of the author. The Hebrew is simply, “And the word came”; R.V., “And the tidings reached”; which marks a new step in the proceedings. When the report of Jonah’s preaching and of its effect reaches the king he also immediately humbles himself before Jehovah.
King of Nineveh — For the more common “king of Assyria”; see Introduction, p. 335.
Arose from his throne — In order to descend from it. His acts are recorded in detail, so as to portray more forcibly the humility and sincerity of the king’s repentance.
His robe — The splendid garment of royalty. What a contrast between it and the garment of mourning!
Sackcloth — See references on Jon_3:5 (compare Jer_6:26; Eze_27:30-31).
Sat in ashes — Another sign of deepest mourning (Job_2:8). A.B. Davidson, commenting on the latter passage, says, “By the ‘ashes’ is probably meant the Mazbalah, the place outside the Arabic towns where the zibl, that is, dung and other rubbish of the place, is thrown.”
In addition to this personal renunciation the king proclaimed, by royal decree, a day of fasting and supplication, and exhorted all to bring forth “fruits worthy of repentance,” in the hope that God may yet be merciful.
7a, the introduction to the decree itself, may be rendered more accurately, “And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh. By the decree of the king and his nobles, thus:… .” The first clause contains the words of the narrator; the second those of the heralds by whom the proclamation was made, indicating the authority for the command about to be given.
Decree — The Hebrew word occurs only here in this sense; it is found quite frequently in the Aramaic portions of Ezra and Daniel; evidently it was a technical term for royal edicts, at least for those of Babylonian and Persian kings.
Nobles — The ministers associated with the king in the government.
Man and beast are to join in the fast.
Beast — The domestic animals; defined more closely in “herd nor flock,” that is, cattle and sheep. They are not to taste anything; the beasts are not to be driven to pasture, nor are they to drink water. Both man and beast are to be clothed in sackcloth and “cry mightily” unto God in penitent supplication.
God — The proclamation does not use the name Jehovah.
Turn — The repentance is to be real; a godly sorrow that impels men to turn from their evil ways. Even the Assyrian idolater is represented as realizing the essential requirements of the God of the Hebrews (Mic_6:8; compare Joe_2:13). R.V. presents a more accurate rendering of Jon_3:8 a, “But let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and beast, and let them cry mightily.” Some modern commentators consider “both man and beast” in this passage a later interpolation. If this view is correct, Jon_3:8 speaks of men only, while Jon_3:7 joins the beasts with the men. With reference to the participation of animals in the mourning G.A. Smith says, “The beasts are made to share in its observance, as in the Orient they always shared and still share in funeral pomp and trappings.” Herodotus (Jonah 9:24) records that the Persians, after the fall of their commander, allowed horses and beasts of burden to participate in the mourning.
Jon_3:9 is the concluding portion of the royal edict. The king expresses the hope that the evidences of grief and repentance may move God to stay the judgment.
Who can tell — Perhaps. He does not want to presume too much.
Turn and repent — The same words as in Joe_2:14 (see on Joe_2:13).
His fierce anger — The holiness of God manifests itself in hatred for everything that is impure. The fierceness of the divine wrath is due to the greatness of the wickedness of the Ninevites (Jon_1:2), which the king seems ready to acknowledge.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv4–9 4. And Jonah began to enter into the city]…
4. And Jonah began to enter into the city] Calvin well brings out the moral grandeur of the scene which this verse so simply and briefly describes; the promptitude of Jonah’s action, in entering without delay or hesitation or enquiry, immediately, as it would seem, upon his reaching the city, upon his difficult and dangerous task; his boldness, as a helpless and unprotected stranger, in standing in the heart of “the bloody city,” and denouncing destruction upon it. It was, indeed, to “beard the lion in his den” to adventure himself on such an errand into “the dwelling of the lions and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion’s whelp, and none made them afraid.” (Nah_2:11.)
a day’s journey] “He began to perambulate the city, going hither and thither, as far as was possible, in the first day.” (Maurer.) And as he went he cried. In him was personified the description of the wise King of Israel:
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“Wisdom crieth without;
She uttereth her voice in the streets:
She crieth in the chief place of concourse,
in the openings of the gates:
In the city she uttereth her words,
Saying,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Turn ye at my reproof.”
Pro_1:20-23.
Some have supposed that, as a day’s journey would suffice to traverse from one side to the other a city, of which the dimensions were such as have been assigned (Jon_3:3) to Nineveh, and as, moreover, Jonah is found afterwards (Jon_4:5) on the east side of Nineveh (i. e. the opposite side to that on which he would have entered it in coming from Palestine), we are intended here to understand that he walked quite through the city in a single day, uttering continually as he went “his one deep cry of woe.” The other view, however, is more natural, and it enhances the idea of the impressibility of the Ninevites, and their readiness to believe and repent, which it is evidently the design of the inspired writer to convey, if we suppose that while the preacher himself was seen and heard in only a portion of the vast city, his message was taken up and repeated, and sped and bore fruit rapidly in every direction, till tidings of what was happening came to the king himself (Jon_3:6), and in obedience to the yet distant and unseen prophet, he issued the edict which laid the whole of Nineveh, man and beast, abashed and humbled before the threatened blow.
Yet forty days] “He threatens the overthrow of the city unconditionally. From the event, however, it is clear that the threat was to be understood with this condition, ‘unless ye shall (in the mean time) have amended your life and conduct.’ Comp. Jer_18:7-8.”—(Rosenm.) God’s threatenings are always implied promises.
overthrown] The word is the same as that used of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, both in the history of that event (Gen_19:25; Gen_19:29), and in subsequent reference to it (Deu_29:23 [Heb. 22]). Not necessarily by the same means, (comp. “overthrown by strangers,” Isa_1:7,) but as complete and signal shall the overthrow be. The use of the participle, lit., Yet forty days and Nineveh overthrown, is very forcible. To the prophet’s eye, overlooking the short interval of forty days, Nineveh appears not a great city with walls and towers and palaces, and busy marts and crowded thoroughfares, but one vast mass of ruins.
It may be asked whether the whole of Jonah’s preaching to the Ninevites consisted of this one sentence incessantly repeated. The sacred text, taken simply as it stands, seems to imply that it did. We have indeed here “the spectacle of an unknown Hebrew, in a prophet’s austere and homely attire, passing through the splendid streets of the proudest town of the Eastern world;” but not (except so far as imagination completes the picture) of his “uttering words of rebuke and menace, bidding the people not only to make restitution of their unlawfully acquired property, but to give up their ancestral deities for the one God of Israel.” (Kalisch.) To an oriental mind (and Almighty God is wont to adapt His means to those whom they are to reach) the simple, oft-repeated announcement might be more startling than a laboured address. “Simplicity is always impressive. They were four words which God caused to be written on the wall amid Belshazzar’s impious revelry; Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. We all remember the touching history of Jesus the son of Anan, an unlettered rustic, who, ‘four years before the war, when Jerusalem was in complete peace and affluence,’ burst in on the people at the feast of tabernacles with one oft-repeated cry, ‘A voice from the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the four winds, a voice on Jerusalem and the temple, a voice on the bridegrooms and the brides, a voice on the whole people;’ how he went about through all the lanes of the city, repeating, day and night, this one cry; and when scourged until his bones were laid bare, echoed every lash with ‘Woe, woe, to Jerusalem,’ and continued as his daily dirge and his one response to daily good or ill-treatment, ‘Woe, woe, to Jerusalem.’ The magistrates and even the cold Josephus thought that there was something in it above nature.” (Pusey.)
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv4–7 (4) And Jonah began to enter into the city…
(4) And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey.—This is apparently equivalent to And Jonah entered the city, and walked for a day through it. To enter on a minute inquiry as to whether his course was straight or circuitous seems trivial. The writer has no thought of furnishing data for ascertaining the exact dimensions of Nineveh, but only of producing a general sense of its vast size.
Yet forty days.—The conciseness of the original, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh overthrown,” forcibly expresses “the one deep cry of woe” which the prophet was commissioned to utter. “This simple message of Jonah bears an analogy to what we find elsewhere in Holy Scripture. The great preacher of repentance, St. John the Baptist, repeated doubtless oftentimes that one cry, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Our Lord vouchsafed to begin His own office with those self-same words. And probably, among the civilised but savage inhabitants of Nineveh that one cry was more impressive than any other would have been, Simplicity is always impressive. They were four words which God caused to be written on the wall amid Belshazzar’s impious revelry: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. We all remember the touching history of Jesus, son of Anan, an unlettered rustic, who, “four years before the war, when Jerusalem was in complete peace and affluence,” burst in on the people at the Feast of Tabernacles with the oft-repeated cry, “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice on Jerusalem and the Temple, a voice on the bridegrooms and the brides, a voice on the whole people;” how he went about through all the lanes of the city, repeating, day and night, this one cry, and when scourged till his bones were laid bare, echoed every lash with “Woe, woe, to Jerusalem!” and continued as his daily dirge and his one response to daily good or ill treatment, “Woe, woe, to Jerusalem!” (Pusey.) Instead of “forty days” the LXX. read “three.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv4–8 Jonah, undeterred by the danger of the enterprise, executes…
Jonah, undeterred by the danger of the enterprise, executes his mission at one, and announces the approaching destruction of the city.
Began to enter into the city a day"s journey. Jonah commenced his day"s journey in the city, and, as he found a suitable place, uttered his warning cry, not necessarily continuing in one straight course, but going to the most frequented spots. At the time of Jonah"s preaching the royal residence was probably at Chalah: i.e. Nimrud, the most southern of the cities. Coming from Palestine, he would reach this part first, so that his strange message would soon come to the king"s ears (ver. 6). Yet forty days. "Forty" in Scripture is the number of probation. (see Gen_7:4,ex Gen_24:18 1Ki_19:8 Mat_4:2) The LXX has, eti treiv hmerai , "yet three days" owing probably to some clerical error, as writing g instead of m . St. Augustine ("De Civit.," 18:44) endeavours to explain the discrepaney mystically as referring to Christ under different circumstances, as being the same who remained forty days on earth after his resurrection, and who rose again on the third day. Shall be overthrown. This is the word used for the destruction of Sodom. (Gen_19:25, 27 Amo_4:11) The prophet appears to have gone on through the city, repeating this one awful announcement, as we read of fanatics denouncing woe on Jerusalem before its final destruction (Josephus, "Bell. Jud:," 6:5:3). The threat was conditional virtually, though expressed in uncompromising terms. In the Hebrew the participle is used, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh overthrown," as though he saw at the end of the specified time the great city lying in ruins. One sees from Isa_36:11, Isa_36:13, that Jonah could readily be understood by the Assyrians.
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Vers. 4-10. A heathen city in sackcloth.
Let us try to realize the scene. An Eastern city sleeps in the rosy morning light. Its moated ramparts tower a hundred feet in air, and, dotted with fifteen hundred lofty towers, sweep around it a length of over sixty miles. Already the gates are open for the early traffic, and conspicuous among the crowd a stranger enters. The stains of travel are on his dress, and he looks with curious awe at the figures of winged colossal bulls that keep silent symbolic guard over the gate by which he passes in. Within, things new and strange appear at every step. The houses, sitting each in its own grounds, are bowered in green. The streets are spanned at intervals with triumphal arches, whose entablature is enriched by many a sculptured story. On every eminence is a palace, or monument, or idol temple, guarded by symbolic monsters in stone, and adorned in carving of bas-relief with sacred symbols. The markets fill, the bazaars are alive with multifarious dealing, soldiers and war chariots parade the streets, and the evidences of despotic power and barbaric wealth and heathenish worship, with their inevitable accompaniments of luxury, corruption, and violence, abound on every side.
The stranger is deeply moved. Surprise gives place to horror, then horror warms into righteous indignation; and with trumpet voice and dilating form and eye of fire he utters the words of doom, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed." Through street, and park, and Barrack, and bazaar the direful message rings. There is momentary incredulity, then swift alarm, then utter consternation. Like wildfire the news, and with it the panic spreads. It reaches the nobles in their palaces. It penetrates to the king upon his throne. It moves society to its depths. And the result is the scenes of mourning and self-abasement our text records.
I REPENTANCE COMES READILY TO UNTUTORED MINDS. Never did preacher see better or speedier fruit of his labours than Jonah did in heathen Nineveh. By a single sermon but a few sentences long he sent the entire city into penitence and sackcloth. Granted that there was much to account for this in the preaching itself. It was bold and oracular and explicit, and spoken with the conviction that is most of all contagious. It was enforced by such a narrative of his own recent history as made him nothing less than a sign to the men of Nineveh. (Luk_11:30) Granted too "the great susceptibility of Oriental races to emotion, the awe of one Supreme Being which is peculiar to all the heathen religions of Asia, and the great esteem in which soothsaying and oracles were held in Assyria from the very earhest times" (Keil). Yet still the repentance, so widespread, so real, so sadden, has in it something phenomenal in the religious sphere. Not thus did the prophets and their utterances move the Jews. They "beat one, and killed another, and stoned another," and disregarded all as a general rule. (Mat_21:35) A greater than Jonah, the Truth himself, spoke to them, and spoke in vain. (Mat_12:41) Unbelieving and lengthened contact with truth had no doubt produced the exceptional hardness of the Jewish nature. The works done in vain in the gospel hardened Chorazin or Bethsaida would, as we know, have Brought Tyre and Sidon to repentance in dust and ashes. Even filthy Sodom would have cleansed its way, and been spared on earth, had it seen the mighty works by which Capernaum was yet utterly unmoved. (Mat_11:20-24) So when the soil of the Jewish nature, plied with the truth seed till trodden hard by the sowers" feet, refused utterly to produce, the apostles found a fertile seed bed in the virtu soil of the Gentile mind. (Act_13:44-48) An analogous fact is the success of Christ among the common people, (Mar_12:37) when the scribes and Pharisees, who were more familiar with revelation, remained uninfluenced almost to a man. (Joh_7:48, Joh_7:49) It would seem as if Divine truth, like potent drugs with the body, is effective most of all in its first contacts with the soul. Lengthened and frequent contact with truth, if it does not regenerate, only thickens the spiritual skin, and much hearing means little heeding as a general rule.
II REPENTANCE IMPLIES A RELIEF OF THE TRUTH. (Ver. 5) Belief of the truth is a logical first step to every religious attainment. (Heb_11:6) Truth is the revelation of things as they are of character, of destiny, of duty. Until that has been received there can be no spiritual beginning. While not only danger but the disease itself is disbelieved in, the patient will take no step toward cure. "He that cometh to the Lord must believe that he is." This is the least modicum of knowledge conceivable in any intelligent comer. So he that comes away from sin must believe that sin is. Unless he does, and until he does, he has no reason for moving. He that comes by repentance and faith, moreover, must believe in the propriety and dutifulness of these acts. Forecasting the possible result of Timothy"s ministry in the turning of the wicked, Paul says, "If God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." This aspiration brings out the point exactly. Repentance and the acknowledging of the truth imply and involve each other. Impenitence is largely the result of incredulity. If a man really believed what God says about sin its demerit, deformity, and destroying character the grief and hatred and turning which constitute repentance must arise. The impenitent man either does not believe God at all, or he gives him a weak and heedless credence that is never acted on, and so is practical disbelief. Let God"s word of dogma, God"s word of promise, be truly and adequately believed, and God"s word of precept will be infallibly obeyed. A man may contemplate his sin indifferently and commit it with even pulse, but the power to do so means that the Scripture testimony against it has been silenced, or the witness put out of the court of conscience altogether. "It is to be observed that faith operates differently according to the matter believed, When faith looks to the redeeming love of Christ, faith worketh by love. "We love him who first loved us." When faith looks to the infinite wrath of God, faith worketh fear, and we "flee for refuge to the hope set before us." When faith looks at Christ, beating in his love the wrath from which he calls us to flee, faith worketh by grief; and, "looking on him whom we have pierced, we mourn." And all these operations of faith love, fear, grief enter into that repentance unto salvation which true faith produces" (Martin).
III REPENTANCE IS AT ONCE DEEPENED BY FEAR AND SWEETENED BY HOPE. The Ninevites feared to "perish" through the "fierce anger" of God, yet hoped he might "turn away" from it and "repent." Fear is a rather ignoble emotion, but it is not without its place and power in the religious sphere. A man"s life, in the widest sense, is his most precious trust. To gain the whole world would not compensate for the loss of it. Hence the universal instinct of self-preservation. "All that a man hath will he give for his life." And by appealing to this instinct, as it so often does, the Scripture assumes its lawfulness. (Luk_13:3 Mat_10:28) The less of soul and body in hell is a loss unparalleled and irreparable, and which it would be madness not to fear. The Ninevites feared it. Their dread of it was a chief cause of the penitence they showed. And naturally so. To a man as yet unspiritual, the bearing of his sin on his own fate is the supreme consideration. When he becomes better he will be amenable to higher motives, but fear as opposed to carnal security, is always a prominent factor in the early stages of the religious life. But the Ninevites repentance did not spring from fear alone; it based on hope as well. "Who can tell," etc.? (ver. 9). The hope here was far from assured. It was a mere glimmer in the soul Yet still it was hope. Escape was deemed not impossible, that was all And there was a shadow of ground for hope, which the keen eye of the doomed did not fail to detect. They had an intuitive idea that God would make some difference between a penitent city and an impenitent one. Then the catastrophe was not to come for forty days, and, in the granting of so long a respite, they would see the door left open for a possible change before its close. Besides, Jonah"s own deliverance in s more dire extremity still, and of which he evidently told them in his preaching,would (Luk_11:30) suggest the possibility of a like escape to them with like repentance. If the preacher had been saved in tits very moment of imminent death, the fact was ground of hope to the people who had forty days" reprieve. Thus the faith in which the Ninevites" repentance originated "wrought by fear and hope combined. The evil dreaded was sufficient to break and humble all their pride. And the hope they entertained was sufficient to prevent their fear from turning into mere despair" (Martin). It is the element of hope in it that marks off the sorrow which worketh only death from the sorrow which worketh repentance to salvation. There is a persuasion of men which bases on the terrors of the Lord, and a beseeching of them also by the mercies he has shown. And what is this but to make fear and hope the limbs of a stable arch to carry the repentance "that needeth not to be repented of"?
IV REPENTANCE INCLUDES GRIEF FOR THE PAST AND REFORMATION FOR THE FUTURE. The Ninevites "put on sackcloth," etc., and "turned them every one from his evil way." There was Compendious logic in this. Sackcloth and ashes were the conventional livery of abasement and grief, (2Co_7:9, 2Co_7:10) and these have a distinct place in the spiritual connection. (Joe_2:13) But they must be spiritual. Not the result of wounded pride, or baffled purpose, or ruined prospects. These things are utterly carnal. They involve no sense of sin"s demerit, no horror of its impurity. They are merely aspects and expressions of selfishness. Every detected rogue can see that he has blundered in his sinning, and from that standpoint grieves. Saul does it, exclaiming, in the bitterness of failure, "I have played the fool exceedingly." But the sorrow "after a godly sort" is a radically different thing, and done in a different spiritual atmosphere altogether. And David crying with contrite and humbled spirit, "I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me," is a perfect moral contrast. His is a sorrow that has God in it. Sin is viewed in its relation to God, from God"s standpoint, and with feelings like to God"s. Job sorrowed thus with God when he said, "Now mine eye sooth thee; wherefore I abhor myself," etc. Such sorrow has hope in it, and so "the promise and potency" of a reformed life. Under its impulse the Ninevites "turned every one from his evil way." Reformation is the work meet for repentance the crystalline form revealing the genuine metal. "Numbers will do everything in religion but turning from sin to the Saviour; and where this is not done, all the rest is lost labour their religion is hypocrisy, their hope is mere delusion, and their latter end is bitterness and woe; for all who refuse to depart from sin must perish in sin. In vain shall we fast for sin, if we do not fast from sin; and what blessings can all our prayers bring down while we refuse to turn from our evil ways?" (Jones).
V REPENTANCE CRIES TO GOD IN PRAYER. The words of Jonah were like an earthquake in the vast city. From king to beggar there was consternation and dismay. The destroying armies of heaven were at hand. Men can neither disbelieve, nor doubt, nor resist, nor fly, nor survive. What remains but to submit and beg for mercy the last resort of the sinner, but the very first command of God? And so the king descends from his throne, and the beggar rises from his straw, and a stricken universal cry for help goes up in the ear of Heaven. In such an exercise true repentance is at home. Prayer is the spontaneous, the instinctive expression of the soul"s new found need. A true sense of sin, together with an apprehension of God"s mercy in Christ which all genuine repentance includes, leads logically to prayer. Given a sick man thoroughly alarmed, and a willing physician accessible, and the application for help will infallibly follow. "On bender knees, replete with godly grief, See where the mourner kneels to seek relief; From his full heart pours forth the gushing plea, God of the lost, be merciful to me!" The light of life descends in heavenly rays, And angels shout and sing, "Behold, he prays!
VI REPENTANCE IS TO BE NATIONAL WHEN THE SIN IS NATIONAL. The Ninevites" was a "public, general, royal fast." So when the Divine judgments menaced Jerusalem in the reign of Jehoiakim, all the people proclaimed a fast. (Jer_36:9) Then it was observed by all the people in accordance with a royal edict. So Jehoshaphat "feared and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah" (2Ch_20:3) when Moab and Ammon invaded the kingdom. In the nature of the case, the repentance must correspond to the transgression. The people must repent who have sinned, and in the character and relations in which the sin has been committed. That their action in the matter was suggested and shaped by royal edict detracted in nothing from the value of the Ninevites" repentance. The obligations of religion rule every relation of life. Each community ought to be religious, and the rulers of each to consider their office sacred to the accomplishment of this result. Monarchs should reign for the glory of God, and they do so when they "take order" for the observance of religious worship with due regard to the prerogatives of the Church, and to the right of private judgment. "It is an evil and dangerous principle that would exempt the rulers of a kingdom from being in subjection in their public capacity to the Word of Christ, and from being under obligation in their government to rule for the promotion of his kingdom. It strikes at the root of all family as well as national religion; and while it would confine Christ to the separate consciences of individual men, it would refuse him the right to govern the households and communities into which in Providence they are combined" (Martin). The practical lesson of this is read to us by Jesus Christ. (Luk_11:32) The existence of saints in the world is a virtual condemnation of all the sinners. With similar privileges and opportunities, why are these spiritually changed, and those not? Unless the believers have done more than their duty, the unbelievers have fallen woefully short. Every saint in a Christian congregation will stand up in the judgment a silent but damning witness against its unconverted members who remain so under equal inducements to repentance. And the case is worse when the balance of privilege was on the unbelievers" side. It was so as between Nineveh and Israel. The one was brought to repentance by means incomparably less than those which had proved entirely inoperative with the other. It will be so as between each of them and us, if we are blind to our greater light, and insensible to our more potent spiritual agencies. "A greater than Jonah is here greater in person, greater in office, greater in power, and greater in influence. Have we resisted him? Have we withstood his mightier striving? Then who so inexcusable, who so hopeless, as we? What guilt so deep, what condemnation so great, as ours? J.E.H. (Heb_10:28)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 8, 9 Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Jon_3:4
Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
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The knell of Nineveh
Sardanapalus puts off his jewelled array, and puts on mourning, and the whole city goes down on its knees, and street cries to street, and temple to temple. A black covering is thrown over the horses, and the sheep, and the cattle. Forage and water are kept from the dumb brutes so that their distressed bellowings may make a dolorous accompaniment to the lamentation of six hundred thousands souls. God heard that cry. He turned aside from the affairs of eternal state, and listened. He said, Stop! I must go down and save that city. It is repenting, and cries for help).
I. The precision and punctuality of the Divine arrangement. God knew exactly the day when Ninevehs lease of mercy should end. He has determined the length of endurance of our sin.
II. Religious warning may seem preposterous. To many still it is more a joke than anything else. Men boast of their health, but I have noticed that it is the invalids who live long. In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.
III. God gives every man a fair chance for his life. The iniquity of Nineveh was accumulating. Why did not God unsheath some sword of lightning from the scabbard of a storm-cloud and slay it? It was because He wanted to give the city a fair chance. And God is giving us a fair chance for safety, a better chance than He gave to Nineveh.
IV. When the people repent, God lets them off. While Nineveh was on its knees, God reversed the judgment. When a sinner repents (in one sense) God repents (in another). Then repent, give up your sin and turn to God, and you will be saved. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
God has many preachers
God has many preachers that are not in human flesh. For instance, fever is a terrible Elijah. When the cholera came to London it was a Jonah in our streets. Many then began to think who would have gone blindfold down to perdition. When poverty visits some mens houses, and they can no longer indulge in drunkenness and gluttony, then they bethink themselves of their Fathers house, and the hired servants who have bread enough and to spare. Omnipotence has servants everywhere; God can make use of even the ills of life to work eternal good.
A warning cry in the city
It was a great and wonderful thing that was wrought that day when Jonah began to enter into the city. The great capital was suddenly startled by a voice of warning in her streets. A strange, wild man, clothed in a rough garment of skin, moved from place to place, and announced to the inhabitants their coming doom. Had the cry fallen on them in their prosperous time, it would probably have been heard with apathy and ridicule. But coming as it did when their glory had declined; when their enemies, having been allowed a breathing space, had taken courage, and were acting on the offensive in many quarters, it struck them with fear and consternation. It was a single day, apparently, that was marked by such wonders in the city of Nineveh. The prophets one days journey is supposed to have carried him about nineteen miles. The repentance of the men of Nineveh prolonged, in Gods mercy and providence, the continuance of their city for more than a hundred years. (Archdeacon Harrison.)
Divine threatenings
I. Divine threats are conditional It is with them in this respect as it is with the promises recorded in the Scriptures. The appropriate condition is implied, whether it is mentioned or not, in all the promises, and in all the threats which are recorded in the Scriptures as coming from God.
II. Divine threats are merciful. The threat fulminated against Nineveh was the means of bringing the Ninevites to repentance, and saving their city from destruction, as it was intended to be. It is the preachers consolation that the Divine threats are always merciful. Observe also the suitableness of Jonahs preaching. It might be said, was not Jonahs preaching quite as likely to amuse or annoy the Ninevites as to effect a reformation on their part? They were certainly more likely to be annoyed than amused. If not mobbed and molested in the streets, the magistrate might be expected to deal with him as a disturber of the peace. But nothing of this kind occurred.
1. Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites of Jehovahs power.
2. Of Jehovahs justice.
3. Of Jehovahs mercy.
Observe, too, how the preaching of Jonah was supplemented in Nineveh. The manner in which this royal proclamation was produced deserves consideration. It was not produced by the king alone, but by the king and his nobles. The drift of the proclamation may be regarded as either imperative or hortatory. It counselled the people to fast, to cover them selves with sackcloth, to pray, to reform their manner of life, to associate the very brutes with their appeal to God. Observe, the reason which the proclamation gives for acting as it counsels is couched in very plaintive terms. Who can tell? etc. This was language equally removed from despair and presumption. (S. C. Burn.)
The repentance of Nineveh
The great city rises before us, most magnificent of all the capitals of the ancient world--great even unto God It included parks, and gardens, and fields, and people, and cattle within its vast circumference. Twenty miles the prophet penetrates into the city. He has still finished only one-third of his journey through it. His utterance, like that of the wild preacher in the last days of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, is one piercing cry, from street to street, from square to square. It reaches at last the king on his throne of state. The remorse for the wrong and robbery and violence of many generations is awakened. The dumb animals are included, after the fashion of the East, in the universal mourning, and the Divine decree is revoked.
I. The penitent prophet. Recall the indications of his penitence given in his prayer (chap. 2.). And note the signs in his obedient attitude, and his readiness at once to do Gods commands. Truly penitent people give up their own wilfulness, and cheerfully submit and obey. If we have not this spirit we may be quite sure that our penitence has neither been sincere nor thorough. Picture the prophet setting to his work.
II. The penitent city. Note the signs of earnestness and sincerity. All classes joined in the penitent acts. They united in prayer. They put away their sins. The king showed the good example. What a picture! A whole people prostrate before the God of judgment!
III. Gods relation to both. Long-suffering to both. Forgiving to both. A prayer-hearer to both. Describe--How very strange it was that Jonah, though himself a forgiven man, was offended with God for making Nineveh a forgiven city. Our own sense of Gods mercy in forgiving us, ought to make us very hopeful about others, and very thankful when we find that Gods grace reaches also to them. There is joy among the angels over one penitent, and we should share their joy. (Robert Tuck, B. A.)
The excitement produced by Eastern prophets
Orientals are still impressed, more or less readily, by the appearance of holy men, such as their own dervishes, whose enthusiasm, in some cases, where high sincerity inspires them, is much like that which marks a true prophet in all ages. The name dervish, Dr. Wolff tells us, means one who hangs at the gate of God, awaiting His inspiration; and the ecstasy of some of the class may be compared to that of which we read, for example, of Micah, who, we are told, went about stripped and naked, and howled like the jackals, and roared like the ostrich. I do not suppose that Jonah bore himself thus, but the fact that such appearances as those of Micah were familiar over all Asia must have opened the way for his influence in Nineveh. We may suppose him showing himself in such a garb as that of Elijah, or others of the prophets,--his hair streaming down his shoulders, his outer dress a rude sheepskin mantle. He may have arrived in the disastrous time after the death of Shalmaneser II., when the nations conquered by that great monarch, from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean, were, in most cases, in rebellion, and troubles oppressed the Nineveh palaces. Wandering over the open spaces, with their mansions and huts, and through the lanes and bazaars of each part of the city, he terrified the crowd by a piercing, monotonous wail, in a dialect which, though intelligible in a short sentence on the Tigris, must have sounded barbarous and uncouth,--Yet forty days, an Nineveh shall be overthrown. His appearance proclaimed him a holy man, and he might have been sent, in these dark times, by the gods. (Cunningham Geikie, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v4 Jon_3:5. Believed] Lit. in God, in his word; trusted…
CRITICAL NOTES.]
Jon_3:5. Believed] Lit. in God, in his word; trusted in him. Sackcloth] The attire of deep mourning, irritating to the body. Fasting and sackcloth customary in humiliation (1Ki_21:27; Joe_1:13). Penitence universal.
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Jon_3:6. Word] The matter; report of Jonah’s preaching, and its effects in the city. Nineveh never so moved and shaken. Laid aside] The king approved the proclaimed fast, disdained not to follow the example of the people, but humbled himself with them in common peril. Some think that Sardanapalus was the king, whose motto was—“Eat, drink, play: after death there is no pleasure.”
Jon_3:7. Nobles] The government of Nineveh was not an absolute monarchy. The nobles probably originated the decree, and the king confirmed it (cf. Daniel 6). Beast] “It was no arbitrary, nor wanton, nor careless act of the king of Nineveh to make the dumb animals share in the common fast. It proceeded probably from an indistinct consciousness that God cared for them also and that they were not guilty” [Elzaz].
Jon_3:8.] Two remedies suggested. Cry] to God in prayer. Turn] Reform; for prayer, without amendment of life, is a mockery (Psa_56:8; Isa_58:6). Violence] Nineveh’s chief sin (Nah_3:1). The Assyrian records are nothing but a register of military campaigns, spoliations, and cruelties [Layard]. “Nineveh and Babylon.”
Jon_3:9. Tell] (cf. Joe_2:14): to act on a mere possibility of mercy, an instance of strong faith in idolaters. We have better hope of pardon (Job_33:27; Jer_31:18).
Jon_3:10.] God saw and removed judgment threatened; but there was no change in him (Num_23:19; Jas_1:17). This repentance showed a susceptibility in the Ninevites for the word of God, and a willingness to forsake ungodly ways. They reprove and condemn many more highly privileged (Luk_11:32).
HOMILETICS
JONAH’S PREACHING.—Jon_3:4-5
We linger not on the stir and excitement which the preaching of Jonah would create. Business would be suspended, and crowds would gather round him. The brief and alarming cry would toll forth, yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Here we have a description of Jonah’s ministry.
I. It was divinely suggested in its matter. “The preaching that I bid thee.” He carried no philosophy or scientific theories, no inventions of his own; but uttered the denunciation given him. The minister may not be specially guided like the prophet and the apostles, but a revelation is given from God. “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.” The mind of God is discovered in the Scriptures. Here “God speaks much, and man little,” says Chrysostom. We must preach not morality, but the gospel.
II. It was intensely earnest in its spirit. Jonah was no statue in the streets, but a living man. “The spirit and manner of a minister often affect more than the matter,” says Cecil. “To feel is the readiest way to the hearts of others.” “All men are orators when they feel; the language of the heart has an unction and an energy which no eloquence or sublimity can reach,” says Bishop Hopkins. The words of Channing are weighty—“Earnestness should characterize the ministry; and by this I mean, not a louder voice or a more vehement gesture; I mean no tricks of oratory; but a solemn conviction that religion is a great concern, and a solemn purpose that its claims shall be felt by others. The life and sensibility which we would spread should be strong in our own breasts. This is the only genuine, unfailing spring of an earnest ministry.” There must be no weakness of heart, no feebleness of effort. “Cry against it.”
III. It was wisely practical in its aim. Jonah intended and earnestly desired to produce a reformation of life. If the preacher is to be a man of power he must arrange his thoughts, point his language, and embue his spirit with unction. He must get at the consciences of men. An ancient father wept at the applause given to his sermons, felt that his words had not gone deep enough, and exclaimed, “Would to God they had rather gone away silent and thoughtful.” Nathan said to David, “Thou art the man.” The truth must be driven home, the heart searched, and men roused to repentance. The word must strike and stick. One remarks that “every action is done by the touch.” In preaching, this doctrine is true. Massillon’s hearers carried away the arrows fastened in their consciences, thought themselves to be singled out, and never regarded others. Peter’s audience “were pricked to the heart” by his earnest practical appeal.
IV. It was wonderfully successful in its results. Nineveh penitent is not only a splendid specimen of the power of the Divine word, but a wonderful achievement of an earnest man in proclaiming it. What Demosthenes did in the Athenian Senate, what Augustine, Chrysostom, and Luther achieved in days of old, may be done yet by the right men. The revivals of Pentecost, of Whitfield and Wesley, are not to be regarded as isolated facts beyond accomplishment now. The moral need is the same, and the word of God can satisfy it. Multitudes remain untouched by the most successful preacher. In our largest cities are people living in idleness and vice. The preacher must go forth to warn and urge men to repentance, lest while they “cry peace and safety, sudden destruction come upon them.”
“The great proclaimer, with a voice
More awful than the sound, of trumpet, cry’d
Repentance, and heaven’s kingdom nigh at hand
To all baptized” [Milton].
NINEVEH WARNED AND NINEVEH REFORMED.—Jon_3:4-8
Jonah’s message was like a thunderbolt in the guilty city. It was a short, most impressive, and successful sermon. It produced results which the preaching of Noah for 120 years did not produce, and which have never been equalled since.
I. Nineveh warned. Jonah had no long address to give, nor many persuasions to offer. He had only to repeat one terrible denunciation. “Yet forty days, and Nineveh overthrown.”
1. The judgment was great. “Overthrown.” Overthrown by neighbouring nations whom they had made enemies by oppression? by conspiracy, revolt, and massacre within? by floods, fire, or brimstone from heaven? by earthquake shivering its defences, overturning its proud palaces, and burying everything in ruins? None can tell. God has evils to let loose, arrows in his quiver, which men know nothing of. A guilty conscience forebodes the worst of judgments. No plan can defend, and no city escape, when he determines to punish.
2. The judgment was imminent. Only “forty days.” It may begin before they are over, but destruction will be complete at the end of them. It is a fact that great cities and kingdoms have been unexpectedly and suddenly overthrown. Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh and Babylon, are solemn warnings in history. Shortness of time between threatening and execution should give weight to the message, and motives to repentance.
3. The judgment was morally necessary. Nineveh was reaping what she had sown. This death suspended over the heads of nearly a million people was not a physical nor political necessity. It was God’s righteous act and vindication of moral law. “The violence” of Nineveh demanded a moral check, a Divine judgment. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
“Justice, like lightning, ever should appear
To few men’s ruin, but to all men’s fear” [Swenam].
II. Nineveh reformed. Sometimes searching appeals, solemn warnings, and striking events, leave no influence behind them. But, in Nineveh, a revolution happened without bloodshed and strife, memorable in its history.
1. It was repentance springing from a right principle. They “believed God.” Believed in his existence and government over the universe; believed in his purpose and power to carry it out. They believed in his justice and mercy towards men. They believed Jonah’s word to be a message from God to them. The approaching judgment was real, and though no promise of mercy was expressed, yet they looked to God in faith. If men would believe in God, social corruption would be checked; selfishness and ambition would cease to rule; hatred, violence, and murder would be cured.
2. It was repentance encouraged by the royal court. Alarm and sorrow may fill the city, and the king and courtiers be exempt. But mighty potentates cannot always be secure. In the greatest despotism, a popular movement cannot be altogether disregarded. The word must come to the king. Truth will besiege the palace-gates, and the monarch who defies it will lose his kingdom and crown. This king was the most powerful and despotic of the day. But he is subdued by a greater power than his own. He joins the people in confession and prayer, sets an example in reformation, and robes himself in “the king-becoming graces.”
3. It was repentance prevalent in all ranks. “From the greatest of them even to the least;” “both man and beast” were influenced by the messenger. Kings and common people, serfs and priests, were moved, and bowed in humiliation before their offended God. The city was one in sin, and one in sorrow. Individual opinion and acts must be restrained for the common good. The earnest cries of the people, and the lowing of the hungry cattle, adds solemnity to the scene (Est_4:1-4; 2Ch_20:13). “Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down: for your principalities shall come down, even to the crown of your glory.”
4. It was repentance marked by signs of sincerity. Faith will produce works, true penitence will evidence itself in amendment of life.
(1) It was accompanied by fasting. Man and beast were to abstain from food. The irrational creatures which share the effects of sin, and minister to the wants of man, were to excite him to mourning, and add to the general depression. Nineveh was to learn, as we should, not to sin by ill-treatment of them, nor to forget that in their present condition we find a memorial of guilt, and a reason for humiliation. This fast (a) was universal, (b) and publicly proclaimed. If fasts are not specially enjoined by God, yet cities and nations may find it helpful to set apart days of fasting and prayer.
(2) It was accompanied by putting on sackcloth and ashes. All classes united in religious duties, confessed guilt, laid aside their ornaments, and prayed to God for deliverance. There was a visible expression of sorrow in the rough, dark, coarse garb which reproves mourning apparel fashionable in cut, elaborate in ornament, and unsuitable in colour.
(3) It was accompanied by outward reformation. They did not think of mocking God by merely abstaining from food, and changing their dress. Outward forms convict of hypocrisy if not followed by change of heart and conduct. “Let them turn every one from his evil way,” &c. Every one had an evil way, and the proclamation was a general acknowledgment of it. The king and the court specify one notorious sin. “The violence that is in their hand” (cf. Nah_2:11-12; Nah_3:19). Special iniquity, “besetting sins,” must be given up. All are exhorted to individual repentance and amendment of life. “Cease to do evil, and learn to do well.”
(4) It was accompanied by earnest prayer. (a) They were to cry. Feeling, not form, was required, (b) To cry vehemently with all their strength and soul. (c) To God, not to idols, which they worshipped; to the true God who alone can help them. Sloth and indifference are unbecoming in fasting and prayer. Some professed Christians depend upon punctual attendance, formal ceremonies, and ecstatic feelings. “Rend your hearts, and not your garments.” Religious duties should be serious and earnest, sincere, and acceptable.
NINEVEH’S REPENTANCE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE.—Jon_3:5-9
The repentance of Nineveh is one of the most singular events in history. A great and proud city suddenly smitten into the most profound humiliation, from the greatest of its inhabitants to the least—from the king on the throne to the meanest citizen,—is a spectacle to which history affords no parallel. Cities, countries, and communities have oftentimes, with not a little unanimity, given themselves to humiliation and fasting. But there is no event on record that can at all be compared with the fast and repentance of Nineveh. The repentance of Nineveh may be considered—first, in its essentials; and secondly, in its circumstantials. We confine our attention to the essentials. Here the origin and nature of this repentance calls for consideration.
I. The origin of Nineveh’s repentance.
1. First, This repentance was prompted by faith. They believed Jonah to be a messenger from God; and they believed his message. The hand of God is seen in this, and his power and gracious influence on their hearts. Observe how their faith wrought in a manner suitable to the position in which they were placed. “They proclaimed a fast.” Generally, faith worketh according to the nature of the thing believed. If that which is believed be something dreadful and alarming, it worketh by fear; and if any possibility of escape seem left, it prompts to the embracing of whatever means may realize it. This element of fear was the leading element in the repentance of Nineveh. “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?”
2. Secondly, an element of hope mingled to bestir them to exertion. Absence of hope excludes possibility of repentance. Had they viewed their doom as inevitable they would have been paralysed, infuriated, or still more estranged from God. Some faint hope remained. “Who can tell if God will turn?” &c. The Ninevites might gather hope,—
(1) From the general consideration that all threatenings are warnings; uttered, in order, if possible, not to be executed.
(2) From the history of Jonah himself. They knew of his original commission, disobedience, pursuit, punishment, and forgiveness. He was a sign to them. They saw in his deliverance hope of forgiveness through penitence and prayer. II. The nature of their repentance. The city underwent a sudden and striking reformation. Their haughtiness and pride were abased; their contempt of God abandoned; their luxury, cruelty, violence, and unrighteousness were given up. And God looked on with approbation. Such is the fast that the Lord calls for; not a formal, ceremonious, outward solemnity; but a spiritual and moral reformation, outwardly evidenced and certified by new obedience. This affords a proof of God’s unspeakable goodness, and an encouragement to sinners to repent and turn to God [Martin].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Jon_3:6. The humbled court. The rich and the great are not often penitent before God. Those who enjoy the good things of this life feel no need of religion. Not many mighty, not many noble, are called (1Co_1:26). It is said that the Countess of Huntingdon thanked God for the letter “m” in this text. I. A court influenced by the preaching of the Word. The Word has strange effects in places, and upon men, that are most unlikely. Where we look for little, God can create much. The successor of a proud race of tyrants feels the truth proclaimed by a forlorn man, trembles in spite of walls and guards, in the presence of courtiers and nobles (Psa_76:12; Jer_13:18). II. A court setting the example in self-reformation. In all kinds of governments the court has a mighty influence. Its fashions and etiquette prevail, its laws and religion are the standard of the people. Here the court was in harmony with the spirit of the people. Rank, station, and wealth were nothing to the safety of the city. The authority of God was supreme in the palace; and in the fast and the prayers the king and princes took the lead in its acknowledgment. Rank is truly kingly when ennobled by Divine grace.
This great king could not but know himself to be a great sinner; and that his sins had done much hurt:—
1. By imputation: for the people oft pray for their rulers’ follies, as in David’s days (2 Samuel 24).
2. By imitation: for magnates are magnets, they draw many by their example; and as bad humours flow from the head to the body, so do bad rulers corrupt the rest [Trapp].
Jon_3:8. Man in his luxury and pride would have everything reflect his glory, and minister to pomp. Self-humiliation would have everything reflect its lowliness. Sorrow would have everything answer to its sorrow. Men think it strange that the horses at Nineveh were covered with sackcloth, and forget how, at the funerals of the rich, black horses are chosen, and are clothed with black velvet [Pusey].
The mighty cry. The Easterns are given to expressions of feeling in anger, sorrow, or devotion. But this cry denotes—
1. Intense earnestness: not merely asking or seeking, but a cry. An agony, as one in deep distress, or intently engaged in solemn pursuit (Gen_32:24-26).
2. Deep fervour. It was not only a cry, but a mighty cry. There was deep contrition for sin, and strong desire for pardon. Faintheartedness and feeble prayers gain no blessing. The effectual fervent prayer avails much. The prayer that stirs and labours for its ends (Jas_5:16; Heb_5:7).
3. Great confidence. They believed that God could and would help them. They turn away from idols, and look to the God of mercy.
4. Great perseverance. Not once, but continually, did they cry, and felt the necessity of Divine protection day by day. We must always come to God humbly, fervently, and incessantly. “O Lord, to Thee will I cry.”
Nineveh’ s repentance. Its nationality. Its expressions. Its efficacy [Martin].
The repentance of the Ninevites a model of a genuine national repentance.
1. It hears God’s proclamation, and asks not why? (Jon_3:1-4).
2. It springs from faith, and is accompanied by faith (Jon_3:5-9).
3. It bows itself under the curse of the common guilt, and not a single person asks, “How much have I deserved?” (Jon_3:6).
4. It is united with the purpose of amendment [Lange].
HOMILETICS
WHO CAN TELL?.—Jon_3:9
This was the forlorn hope of Nineveh. I shall notice three things.
I. The miserable plight in which the men of Nineveh found themselves. They were like those in the days of Noah; ate and drank, builded and planted. They fell into abominable sins, and their vices probably rivalled those of Sodom. But their boasting was cut off, and the sound of their mirth ceased. They discovered their great sin. Added to this, they had information as to the shortness of their days. “Forty days.” The shortness of time should rouse us from slumber. The third thing was the terrible character of the judgment.
II. The scanty reasons they had for their hope. Notice in Jonah’s message, there was no proclamation of mercy. It was one short sentence of doom. Another thing would cut off their hope—they knew nothing of God except, it may be, some dreadful legends they had heard of his terrible acts. They lacked another encouragement which you and I have. They had never heard of the Cross. Jonah’s preaching was very powerful, but there was no Christ in it.
III. We have stronger reasons to compel us to pray, and more comfortable arguments to urge us to trust. Refer to the Scriptures. Remember David, Manasseh, and Saul of Tarsus. Your only hope lies in the mercy of God. Cling to it tenaciously. Remember, for your encouragement, God delights to save. Men object not to an expensive thing if it bring them honour; but if honour goes with a thing they are ready enough to do it. If God saves you, it will honour him. In prayer you ask for that which glorifies God and benefits yourself. Come, humble sinner, and cry to Christ, and he will have mercy upon thee [Spurgeon].
NINEVEH’S HOPE AND NINEVEH’S REPRIEVE.—Jon_3:9-10
Hope is the gift of God, and a powerful principle in the human mind. It is the ground of support in trouble, and the mainspring of all effort. Fill the earth with hope, you fill it with light, life, and exertion. Where hope dies a man is buried in gloom; where it lives he looks forward, and strives for better things. “I do hope good days,” says Shakespeare.
I. Nineveh’s hope. “Who can tell?” are words which express some faint nope. But hope rests on some foundation. If not, it is rather presumption, and will disappoint. What were the grounds of Nineveh’s hope?
1. The light of nature would prompt them to hope. It is something not to despair. Nil desperandum we cry. There is hope in a peradventure. But there are human feelings from which to judge of the feelings of God towards us. The tender parent is reluctant to punish the penitent child. We argue from the knowledge of God within us that he may be merciful.
“The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope.” [Shakespeare.]
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” [Pope.]
2. Jonah’s message might encourage hope. Why forty days? If God had been determined to destroy us, would he have given any time, any respite at all? There must be some secret thoughts of mercy, though not revealed to us. If God’s messenger speaks of only judgment, God’s conduct indicates forbearance. Let us indulge hope, improve our time, and seek deliverance by fasting and prayer. “Who can tell?”
3. Jonah’s history would encourage hope. Here is a man whom they knew to have been disobedient, punished and saved. If God had mercy upon him, why not upon us? The forgiveness of some is a ground of hope to others. Paul was a pattern of God’s mercy to men. Jonah was a sign, an outward symbol of hope, to Nineveh. At any rate, if they must perish, it could be no worse to perish in repentance than in wickedness. Who knows? was the anxious question. God only knew. If they acted thus in the darkness of heathen idolatry, what will become of many living in the light of gospel day? You have better hope than Nineveh. “If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.”
II. Nineveh’s reprieve. The night begins to wear away, and the day to dawn on the city. They repent, and God repents of the evil which he had threatened. Nineveh guilty was destroyed by the penitence of its inhabitants, and Nineveh reformed was preserved by the mercy of God. “God repented of the evil,” &c. This is not the place for the discussion of different questions concerning the character and the government of God. There is no change in his purpose, and no contradiction in his word. We are repeatedly assured that if we turn to him, he will be gracious to us (Job_33:27; Jer_31:18; Eze_18:27). Luther says: “I stick to this rule, to avoid such questions as entangle us with the throne of the Divine majesty as much as I can. It is much better and safer for me to stay down by the cradle of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has become man, than to puzzle one’s self with the Deity.”
1. God observed the conduct of the Ninevites. “God saw their works.” He discerned their feelings, and noticed their acting. Their repentance, prayer, and fasting were approved by him. Though the amendment might be temporary and external with many, yet this showed some faith in his word, fear of his name, and desire for his mercy. He honoured, accepted, and rewarded it. There is no imposing upon God. He knows the heart, and observes the life. The finest profession without practice provokes him to anger; but the penitent suppliant moves him to mercy. “Return unto me, and I will return to you.”
2. God granted a reprieve to the Ninevites. The whole city was preserved, and not one was put to death. “It was not his repentance altering their predicted fate, but their repentance accomplishing his compassionate purpose.” For God to destroy a penitent, reformed people, would have been apparently as inconsistent as to save the wicked city in its impenitence. “That the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee; shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” When Nineveh afterwards filled up the cup of its iniquity, the threatened destruction came, and so complete was the overthrow that we are only now learning that the shapeless mounds of the desert covered the palaces of mighty kings. In its repentance Nineveh is an encouragement to seek God’s mercy; in its overthrow a warning to all those who provoke his wrath. “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up, and to pull down, to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do them.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Jon_3:9. Who can tell? In the development of this hope within the heart of Nineveh we behold the truest exercise of faith in God. It was not speculation, but a true confidence in the Supreme Being, as arbiter of the moral destiny of men, that inspired and retained this hope. In the development of this hope we behold the first dawn of a new life. The Ninevites are true to their better nature, humble and expectant. They work out in their conduct convictions placed by God in their hearts. Their characters rise into new light, and receive the beauty of a heavenly life. In the development of this hope we behold a due recognition of the anger of God. Had they not credited the Divine wrath, their faith would have been untrue to fact, and their reformation of character not according to the circumstances of the case. They believed in a Deity capable of anger and destruction; the former of which they had excited, and the latter of which they had narrowly escaped [Exell].
As soon as prayer took possession of them, it both made them righteous, and forthwith corrected the city which had been habituated to live with profligacy, and wickedness, and lawlessness. More powerful was prayer than the long usage of sin. It filled that city with heavenly laws, and brought along with it temperance, loving-kindness, gentleness, and care of the poor [Chrysostom].
Jon_3:10. The repentance of God is included in his gracious decree. It is the harmonizing of wrath and forgiveness, justice and love. Wrath is not the final end; but it has for its end and object, love. Woe to him who makes light of the wrath of God: he can never taste of love [Lange].
Works.
1. God looks not at outward performance. “Bring forth fruits meet for repentances.”
2. To be acceptable to God we must renounce all sins. The sins of the city and the sins of individuals. If we regard iniquity in our hearts, God will disregard us (Psa_66:18).
3. God will bless feeble efforts to forsake sin and reform life. Temporal favours are a type of spiritual blessings, and temporary repentance an image of true penitence. If men through fear of judgment depart from evil and avert temporal evils, what will repentance unto life gain?
Learn:—
1. That God may intend mercy amid darkness and judgment.
2. But men, sensible of their sins and desert, are often uncertain whether he will have mercy or not. The Christian in affliction and the penitent sinner seeking mercy, put the question, “Who can tell?”
3. By keeping the mind in suspense between hope and fear, judgment and mercy, God stirs up to greater diligence. Be not disheartened nor deterred from duty in trouble. God will hear prayer. The answer will be (a) certain, (b) seasonable, and (c) compassionate.
“Repentant tears.” [Shakespeare.]
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Jon_3:5. Fast. They did not wait for 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. Men do not wait for orders to put out a fire, or to prevent it from spreading. Whoever proclaimed a fast, it seems to have been done by acclamation; one common cry out of the one common terror [Pusey].
Jon_3:5-6. The message first kindles in the humbler hearts. Poor men, and humble men, do not think what immense compensation they thus have for poverty, straits, and toils, in being kept, as to natural condition, so much nearer God and the powers of his gracious kingdom. God’s messengers reach them easily. Rich men, and those standing on the elevated places of society, do not think how the earthly advancement is apt to be counterbalanced by the spiritual disadvantage [Raleigh].
“The pride of kingly sway.” [Shakespeare.]
Jon_3:7-8. We double the greater part of our faults by the excuses which we make use of to justify them—excuses which are a kind of patches when a rent is made, far more unseemly and misbecoming than the rent itself [Seed].
“If hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
I tender it here; I do as truly suffer
As e’er I did commit.” [Shakespeare.]
Violence.
“Grieved at his heart when, looking down, he saw
The whole earth filled with violence.” [Milton.]
Jon_3:9. Who can tell?
“They have more in them than mortal knowledge.” [Shakespeare.]
Jon_3:10. Doom changed. This is ever God’s manner, when men change their deeds to change his doom; when they renounce their sins, to recall his sentence; when they repent of the evil they have done against him, to repent of the evil he had said he would do against them. Never was a man truly and inwardly humbled, but God in the riches of his special mercy (in Christ) truly pardoned him [Bp. Sanderson].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v9 (See Scofield "Zec 8:14")
repent
(See Scofield "Zec 8:14")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4, 6, 8 after a day's journey he called out
after a day's journey he called out
Possible meanings are 1) "after Jonah walked a day's journey he called out" or 2) "while Jonah walked on the first day, he called out."
Read full note →
after a day's journey
"after a day's walk." A day's journey is the distance that people would normally travel in one day. AT: "after Jonah walked for one day"
he called out and said
"he proclaimed" or "he shouted"
forty days
"40 days" (See: Numbers)
They all put on sackcloth
Why people put on sackcloth can be stated more clearly. AT: "They also put on coarse cloth to show that they were sorry for having sinned" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
from the greatest of them down to the least of them
"from the most significant to the least significant people" or "including all the important people and all the unimportant people"
translationWords
believe
preach
fast
sackcloth
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4–7 3:4 Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!…
3:4 Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed! Jonah’s message apparently did not include a contingency clause—e.g., “But if you repent, God will not destroy you” (note the king’s uncertainty in 3:9). Jonah knew, however, of God’s desire for people to repent rather than be destroyed (3:10; 4:2).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.