Reflections on Jonah 3

Jonah 03 (Contemporary English Version)


1. Once again the LORD told Jonah
   
2. to go to that great city of Nineveh and preach his message of doom.
   
3. Jonah obeyed the LORD and went to Nineveh. The city was so big that it took three days just to walk through it.
   
4. After walking for a day, Jonah warned the people, "Forty days from now, Nineveh will be destroyed!"
   
5. They believed God's message and set a time when they would go without eating to show their sorrow. Then everyone in the city, no matter who they were, dressed in sackcloth.
   
6. When the king of Nineveh heard what was happening, he also dressed in sackcloth; he left the royal palace and sat in dust.
   
7. Then he and his officials sent out an order for everyone in the city to obey. It said: None of you or your animals may eat or drink a thing. Each of you must wear sackcloth, and you must even put sackcloth on your animals. You must also pray to the LORD God with all your heart and stop being sinful and cruel. Maybe God will change his mind and have mercy on us, so we won't be destroyed.
   
8. (SEE 3:7)
   
9. (SEE 3:7)
   
10. When God saw that the people had stopped doing evil things, he had pity and did not destroy them as he had planned.
    

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As I read through Jonah, my thoughts are as much or more on its message to the Israelites as on Jonah's message to the Ninevites. Chapters 1 and 2 relate a message of deliverance concerning Jonah's rebellion and repentance, communicating that God will also divert the pending judgment on Israel if she will repent. Chapter 3 picks up this theme of repentance and deliverance with Nineveh.

Jonah 3:2 contains a call from God similar to that of 1:2 - "Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh." Jonah's escapade in running away from God's call to him didn't change anything except Jonah's heart. God still intended for him to go to Nineveh, but now Jonah's heart was willing. So, as verse 3 tells us, he got up and went to Nineveh without further delay. What happens when he got to Nineveh is an amazing account. First of all, Nineveh was "an extremely large city." It was a three-day walk just to go across the city. I live in a city of 3 million people and could walk across it in about 1 1/2 days. Though it would not be accurate to compare geographic size to population, Nineveh, no doubt, had a sizable population as well. Jonah simply began to walk through the city and proclaim the message that "In 40 days Nineveh will be over thrown." Amazingly, the people believed him. Would I pay much attention to a stranger from another country who showed up and began to preach doom? I'm not so sure. Adding to the amazement of this repentance by the Ninevites is the reputation these Assyrians had for being a cruel and violent people. We have to wonder if God had prepared their hearts in some way to hear this message.

It seems that as Jonah walked through the city proclaiming his message of destruction that the people responded immediately, proclaiming a fast and dressing in sackcloth as a sign of their repentance. People from "the greatest to the least" responded in this manner to his message. Eventually word got to the king and he issued a decree for everyone to do what they were already doing - to dress in sackcloth and to fast. However, his decree also included for them to "call out earnestly to God" and to turn from their evil ways and from "the violence they were doing."

I find several points about this to be both amazing and interesting. First, I find it amazing that the king, without hesitation, responded in the same manner as the people. Secondly, it was amazing that the king openly acknowledged the evil ways and violence of the people. I find it of interest that he did not have to define what the evil ways were from which they must turn. We legislate laws in our nations in part to define what we consider to be right and wrong. Here the king legislated through his decree that they were to turn from evil and violence, but he did not define what that meant. Do we not inherently know what is evil?

In reading this we wonder how genuine their repentance might have been. It seems so incredible for a people to immediately respond to a message of this nature they have heard for the first time, and from a stranger who has earned no credibility with them. Our clue to the genuineness of their actions, however, is provided in the last verse of the chapter. "Then God saw their actions--that they had turned from their evil ways--so God relented from the disaster He had threatened to do to them. And He did not do it." If God was satisfied with the genuineness of their repentance, who are we to say otherwise?