1–4. Jonah’s Preaching

1. the second time] Like St Peter (John 21:15-17), Jonah is not only forgiven, but restored to his office, and receives anew his commission.

Ch. Jonah 3:1-10. Jonah’s Preaching and its result

Sent a second time by God on a mission to Nineveh, Jonah promptly obeys, Jonah 3:1-3 a. He enters into Nineveh and delivers his message, Jonah 3:3 b–4. The Ninevites believe God and repent, Jonah 3:5-9; and are spared, Jonah 3:10.

2. that great city] Calvin explains this repeated mention of the greatness of Nineveh (comp. Jonah 1:2), as intended to prepare Jonah for the magnitude of the task before him, lest when he came face to face with it he should be appalled and draw back. But perhaps the true key is to be found in Jonah 4:11, where the same expression “the great city” occurs as an argument for God’s compassion. It is on no mean errand of mercy, not to save a few only from destruction, that I bid you go.

preach unto it the preaching] Lit., cry to it the crying. The word is rendered cry, Jonah 1:2.

3. arose, and went] Before, he arose and fled. He is still the same man. There is still the same energy and decision of character. But he is now “as ready to obey as before to disobey.”

was] It has been asserted that the use of the past tense here, “according to all sound rules of interpretation, must be understood to imply that, in the author’s time, Nineveh existed no longer,” (Kalisch). Nothing, however, can safely be determined from the use of a tense in such cases. The clause “Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city,” &c., is evidently a part of the narrative, and prepares the way for Jonah 3:4. It simply states what Nineveh was, and what Jonah found and saw it to be, when he visited it. It is not a historical note, like that which is introduced with reference to the building of Hebron, Numbers 13:22. St John writes (John 5:2) “Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep-gate a pool.” It might be argued (as it has been) that because he uses the present tense, Jerusalem must have still been standing when he wrote his Gospel. Yet it might with equal force be concluded (and it is a proof of the unsatisfactory nature of this sort of criticism) that because he says that Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem (John 9:18), that “Jesus went forth with His disciples over the brook Kedron, where was a garden” (John 18:1), and that “in the place where He was crucified there was a garden” (John 19:41), the city and its environs were already laid waste when he wrote.

exceeding great] Lit., great to God. The expressions of this kind which occur in the Bible may be divided into two classes. They all alike spring out of the devout habit of the Hebrew mind, which recognises God in everything, and sees Him specially in whatever is best and greatest upon earth. But this habit of mind finds expression in two somewhat different ways. Sometimes, at the contemplation of what is more than ordinarily grand or beautiful, the pious mind rises at once to God, and recognises Him in His works. A thing so great, so fair, must be the work of His hands. “By the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the Maker of them is seen.”

“Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven

Beneath the keen full moon?…

God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,

Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!”

Hence such expressions as “mountains of God,” Psalm 36:6; “cedars of God,” Psalm 80:10; “trees of Jehovah,” Psalm 104:16; the explanation being added in the last of these instances (comp. Numbers 24:6), “which He hath planted.” The other class of expressions are those in which the excellence of the object contemplated appears to suggest to the mind that it will bear the scrutiny of God’s judgment, that even before Him, or as referred to Him, it is what the writer asserts it to be. To this class the expression here belongs. “Nineveh was a city, great, not only to man’s thinking, but to God’s.” (Comp. ch. Jonah 4:11.) In like manner we have, “a mighty hunter before the Lord,” Genesis 10:9; “fair to God,” Acts 7:20.

of three days’ journey] The most probable and most generally received opinion is that these words refer to the circuit of Nineveh, and that the writer intends by them to say that the city was so large, that it would take a man, walking at the usual pace, three days to go round it. This would give about 60 miles for its circumference. See note B.

NOTE B. NINEVEH

It is evidently the design of the writer of this Book to give prominence to the vast size of Nineveh. when he speaks of it, it is with the constant addition, “the great city,” (Jonah 1:2; Jonah 3:2; Jonah 4:11), and the addition is justified by the statements that it was “great to God,” that it was a city “of three days’ journey,” and that it contained “more than sixscore thousand persons unable to discern between their right hand and their left, and also much cattle” (Jonah 4:11). In seeking to verify this description and to identify, with some reasonable degree of probability, the Nineveh of Jonah, we have first to determine what is meant by the expression “a city of three days’ journey.” It has been held that the “three days’ journey” describes the time that would be occupied in traversing the city from end to end; along “the ‘high street’ representing the greatest length or ‘the diameter’ of the town, which ran from one principal gate to the opposite extremity.” (Kalisch.) But unless we are prepared to regard the “figures given in the text” as “the natural hyperboles of a writer who lived long after the virtual destruction of the city, and who, moreover, was anxious to enhance the impressiveness of his story and lesson, by dwelling on the vastness of the population whose fate depended on their moral regeneration” (Ib.), we shall find it difficult to accept the gratuitous assumption that Nineveh is here described as a city “about fifty-five English miles in diameter,” with a “high street” fifty-five miles long. Nor is it more satisfactory to suppose that by a city of three days’ journey is meant a city which it would require three days to go all over. No intelligible idea of size could possibly be conveyed by such a definition. Adopting, then, the more reasonable view that the “three days’ journey” refers to the circumference of the city, and estimating a day’s journey at about twenty miles, we have Nineveh here described as comprising a circuit of about sixty miles. Whether this large area was inclosed by continuous walls we cannot certainly say. One ancient writer, indeed, (Diodorus Siculus) asserts that it was, and that the walls were “100 feet high, and broad enough for three chariots to drive abreast upon” (Dict. of Bible, Article Nineveh); and he, moreover, gives the dimensions of the city as an irregular quadrangle of about 60 miles in circuit. But without relying too much upon his testimony, which may be regarded as doubtful, we may conclude that an area such as has been described was sufficiently marked out to be known and spoken of as the city of Nineveh. This vast area was not, however, completely covered as in the case of our own cities, with streets and squares and buildings. That was a feature unusual, and almost unknown, in the ancient cities of the East. It was perhaps the feature which, belonging to Jerusalem by virtue of the deep ravines by which it was surrounded, and which “determined its natural boundaries,” and prevented its spreading abroad after the fashion of other oriental cities, called forth the surprise and admiration of the Jews after their return from Babylon. “Jerusalem,” they exclaim, “(unlike Babylon where we so long have dwelt) is built as a city which is compact together.” Like Babylon, Nineveh included not only parks and paradises, but fields under tillage and pastures for “much cattle” (Jonah 4:11) in its wide embrace. The most probable site of the city thus defined will be seen by reference to the accompanying plan. It lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris in the fork formed by that river and the Ghazr Su and Great Zab, just above their confluence. The whole of this district abounds in heaps of ruins. Indeed, “they are found,” it is said, “in vast numbers throughout the whole region watered by the Tigris and Euphrates and their confluents, from the Taurus to the Persian Gulf.” “Such mounds,” it is added, “are especially numerous in the region to the east of the Tigris, in which Nineveh stood, and some of them must mark the ruins of the Assyrian capital.” (Dict. of the Bible.) Four of these great masses of ruins, which will be found marked on the plan, Kouyunjik, Nimrud, Karamless, Khorsabad, form together an irregular parallelogram of very similar dimensions to those mentioned in the text. From Kouyunjik (lying opposite Mosul) on the Eastern bank of the Tigris, a line drawn in a S. E. direction, parallel to the course of the river, to Nimrud is about eighteen miles. From Nimrud, in a northerly direction, to Karamless is about twelve. The opposite sides of the parallelogram, from Karamless to the most northerly point Khorsabad, and from Khorsabad to Kouyunjik again, are about the same. These four vast piles of buildings, with the area included in the parallelogram which they form, are now generally identified with the site of the Nineveh which Jonah visited. For fuller particulars the reader is referred to Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Article Nineveh, and to the well-known works of Mr Layard and Professor Rawlingson.

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.” (Nahum 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:

“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.”

Proverbs 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 (Jonah 3:3) to Nineveh, and as, moreover, Jonah is found afterwards (Jonah 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 (Jonah 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. Jeremiah 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 (Genesis 19:25; Genesis 19:29), and in subsequent reference to it (Deuteronomy 29:23 [Heb. 22]). Not necessarily by the same means, (comp. “overthrown by strangers,” Isaiah 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.)

5–10. The Happy Result of Jonah’s Preaching

5. believed God] Or, believed in God. Three things their faith certainly embraced. They believed in the God of the Hebrews, as the true God. They believed in His power to execute the threat which He had held out. They believed in His mercy and willingness to forgive the penitent. And this was marvellous faith in heathen, contrasting favourably with that of the chosen people. “So great faith” had not been found, “no not in Israel.” What they knew of the Hebrews and their God (for doubtless they recognised in Jonah a Jewish prophet) may have contributed to the result. That they knew also the miraculous history of Jonah’s mission to them, and so were the better prepared to credit him, appears to be plainly taught us by our Lord. It is difficult to understand how Jonah should have been “a sign unto the Ninevites,” corresponding in any way to the sign, which by His resurrection the “Son of man” was to “the men of that generation,” (Luke 11:30 with Matthew 12:38-41,) unless they were aware that he had passed, as it were, through death to life again, on his way to preach to them. How that information reached them we have no means of judging certainly. Of course it may have come to them from the lips of Jonah himself, though we have seen reason (see note on Jonah 3:4) to regard that as improbable. Alford speaks of “his preaching after his resurrection to the Ninevites, announcing (for that would necessarily be involved in that preaching) the wonderful judgment of God in bringing him there, and thus making his own deliverance, that he might preach to them, a sign to that people.”

6. For word came unto] Rather, And the tidings reached, R.V. The introduction of the word “for” for “and” in A.V. is of the nature of a gloss. Our translators appear to have taken the view that Jonah 3:5 states generally the effect of Jonah’s preaching upon the Ninevites, and that Jonah 3:6-9 relate more particularly how the fast mentioned in Jonah 3:5 was brought about. “They proclaimed a fast,” I said, “and it was by a royal edict that they did so, for the report of what was going on was brought to the king, and he too was moved like his people, and both inaugurated in his own person and instituted by his authority a national fast.” The statement in Jonah 3:5, however, is not necessarily proleptical. It may be intended by the writer to describe the effect produced in each district of the city as Jonah reached it, before the Court had any knowledge of what was going on. The people were first impressed, and then their rulers. The tide of penitence and humiliation rose higher and higher, till it reached and included the king and his nobles, and what had been done by spontaneous action, or local authority, received the final sanction and imprimatur of the central government. Whichever view be adopted, the literal translation should be retained.

he arose from his throne, &c.] It is in favour of the view that the people did not wait for the royal edict to commence their fast, that the king himself seems to have been the subject of immediate and strong emotion, as soon as the tidings reached him. He first, as by a resistless impulse, humbled himself to the dust, and then took measures, out of the depth of his humiliation, that his subjects should be humbled with him.

The outward form which the humiliation both of king and people took was that common in the East (comp. Ezekiel 26:16; and see Dictionary of the Bible, Article Mourning), as we know both from sacred and secular writings. In the case of the king of Assyria it is the more remarkable both because of his characteristic pride as “the great king” (2 Kings 18:19; 2 Kings 18:28), and because of the pomp and luxury with which he was ordinarily surrounded. No greater contrast could well be conceived than between the royal “robe” and “sackcloth,” or between the heap of “ashes” and the king’s “throne.” “In the bas-relief I am describing,” writes Layard, “the dress of a king consisted of a long flowing garment, edged with fringes and tassels, descending to his ankles, and confined at the waist by a girdle. Over this robe a second, similarly ornamented and open in front, appears to have been thrown. From his shoulders fell a cape or hood, also adorned with tassels, and to it were attached two long ribbons or lappets. He wore the conical mitre, or tiara, which distinguishes the monarch in Assyrian bas-reliefs, and appears to have been reserved for him alone … Around the neck of the king was a necklace. He wore ear-rings, and his arms, which were bare from a little above the elbow, were encircled by armlets and bracelets remarkable for the beauty of their forms. The clasps were formed by the heads of animals, and the centre by stars and rosettes, probably inlaid with precious stones.” (Nineveh, abridged edition, 1851, p. 97.)

Of the throne the same writer says, “The thrones or arm-chairs, supported by animals and human figures, resemble those of the ancient Egyptians, and of the monuments of Kouyunjik, Khorsabad and Persepolis. They also remind us of the throne of Solomon, which had ‘stays (or arms) on either side on the place of the seat, and two lions stood by the stays. And twelve lions stood there, on the one side and on the other, upon the six steps.’ ” 1 Kings 10:19-20. (lb. p. 164.)

his robe] The same word is used of Achan’s “goodly Babylonish garment,” Joshua 7:21, which this may have resembled. But it is also used of a garment of rough hair-cloth, Genesis 25:25; Zechariah 13:4, and of Elijah’s hairy “mantle,” or cloak, 1 Kings 19:13; 1 Kings 19:19. The root-meaning of the word is size, amplitude.

7. and published] This word is not a participle, though likely to be taken for one in the A.V. It is literally, “And he caused a proclamation to be made, and said, &c.

the decree] The word here used is not properly a Hebrew word. It occurs frequently in the Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra to denote a mandate or decree of the Babylonish and Persian monarchs. Dr Pusey rightly sees in the employment of it here a proof of the “accuracy” of Jonah as a writer. He observes, “This is a Syriac word; and accordingly, since it has now been ascertained beyond all question that the language of Nineveh was a dialect of Syriac, it was, with a Hebrew pronunciation (the vowel points are different here from those in Daniel and Ezra), the very word used of this decree at Nineveh.”

and his nobles] Lit., his great men, or grandees, Proverbs 18:16. We have a similar association of his nobles with himself by Darius the Mede, when he caused the stone which was laid upon the mouth of the den, into which Daniel had been cast, to be sealed “with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel” (Daniel 6:17). In the present case, however, it would seem that it was not in the exercise of a constitutional right, but by a voluntary act on the part of the king, that the nobles were associated with him in the edict which he issued. Kalisch observes, “It would be unsafe to infer from this passage that the nobles were in some manner constitutionally connected with the government of the kingdom, and thus tempered its arbitrariness, as we know now from the monuments, no less than from the records of history, that ‘the Assyrian monarch was a thorough Eastern despot, unchecked by popular opinion, and having complete power over the lives and property of his subjects, rather adored as a god than feared as a man.’ ” (Layard, Nin. and Babyl. p. 632). May not this association of his nobles with himself have been “fruit meet for repentance,” an abdication, in some sort, of the haughty arbitrariness of his power, an humbling of himself “under the mighty hand of God”?

saying] The decree, thus introduced, extends to the end of Jonah 3:9.

man nor beast, herd nor flock] The Hebrew word for “beast” here means tame or domestic animals, and probably refers only to “beasts of burden,” horses, mules, and the like. So Ahab says to Obadiah when the famine was in Samaria, “peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we be not deprived of beasts” (1 Kings 18:5). “Herd and flock” will then be an additional clause, not amplifying, but distinct from “beast,” and the covering with sackcloth, in Jonah 3:8, will thus be confined to those animals which were in man’s more immediate use, and many of which, with their gay and costly trappings and harness, had been the ministers of his pomp and pride, or, as employed in war, had been the instruments of his “violence.” The extension of the fast to all, and of the sackcloth to some at least, of the animals in Nineveh, is probably without exact parallel in extant history. The Speaker’s Commentary rightly points out that “the voluntary fasting of animals, wild as well as tame, at the death of Daphnis, described by Virgil, Eclog. v. 24–28, which has often been referred to, is plainly a mere poetic fancy.” But the description in the text is quite in keeping with the common instinct and practice of mankind. Men have always been wont to extend the outward signs of their joy or sorrow to everything under their control. Our dress, our food, our houses, our equipage, our horses, our servants, all wear the hue of the occasion for which they are employed. “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). In the extreme case of Nineveh, the instinct may well have been indulged to an extreme. Like all other common instincts of our nature, it had a true origin, for the destiny of man and of the lower creation is inseparably connected (Genesis 1:26; Genesis 1:28; Romans 8:19-23). The effect upon the Ninevites of seeing “their deserts set before them as in a mirror or a picture” (Calvin), all that belonged to them involved with them, through their guilt, in a common danger with themselves—all creation, as it were, threatened and humbled for the sin of its lord—may well have been to incite them powerfully to repentance. The appeal to the compassion of Almighty God, who “preserveth man and beast” (Psalm 36:6; comp. ch. Jonah 4:11), may well have been strengthened by the mute misery of the innocent beasts (Joel 1:20) But, apart from these considerations, the requirements of the history are fully satisfied by regarding the act of the king of Nineveh as instinctive, called for by the urgent circumstances of the case, and coloured by the demonstrativeness of oriental character.

8. and cry mightily] These words are to be restricted to “man.” They do not include, as some have thought (comparing Joel 1:18; Joel 1:20), “beast” as well. The addition “mightily” favours the restriction, and so also does the exact order of the Hebrew: “Let them be clothed with sackcloth, man and beast (the parenthesis is inserted here as qualifying what precedes only), and let them cry … and let them turn,” &c.

let them turn] The prominence of the moral element in the repentance of heathen Nineveh is very striking. Complete as was the outward act of humiliation, the king’s decree implies that it would be worthless without a corresponding moral reformation. The tenth verse tells us that it was to this that God had respect, “He saw their works, that they turned from their evil way,” and the heathen king seems clearly to have understood that it would be so. Here again, the favourable light in which these heathen show, in comparison with the chosen people, is most marked. Frequent and indignant is the remonstrance of the Hebrew prophets against the attempt of their countrymen to gain the favour or avert the displeasure of Almighty God by fasting and sackcloth, while the heart remained unchanged and the life unrenewed. “Is it such a fast that I have chosen?” is God’s own indignant question to His people by the prophet Isaiah (ch. 58).

the violence that is in their hands] “Violence” was their chief sin, as all we learn of the Assyrians, both from sacred and secular history, shows. Comp. Nahum 2:11-12; Nahum 3:1, and Isaiah 10:13-14. The form of expression, in their hands, the hand being the instrument of violence, is the same as in Psalm 7:3 (Hebrews 4), and elsewhere.

9. Who can tell] Comp. Joel 2:14, where the Hebrew is the same. Calvin well explains the doubtful form assumed by the king’s decree. “How can it be,” he asks, “that the king of Nineveh repented earnestly and unfeignedly, and yet spoke doubtfully of the grace of God?” I answer, that there is a kind of doubt which may be associated with faith; that, namely, which does not directly reject the promise of God, but which has other things as well in view.… No doubt the king of Nineveh conceived the hope of deliverance, but in the mean time he was still perplexed in mind, both on account of the preaching of Jonah, and on account of his consciousness of his own sins … The first obstacle (to his immediate certainty of forgiveness) was that dreadful preaching, Nineveh after forty days shall perish.… Then again, the king, no doubt when he pondered his sins might well waver a little.”

God will turn] Lit., the God, i. e. the One supreme God. See note on Jonah 1:6, and comp. 1 Kings 18:39. This acknowledgment by the Assyrians of Jehovah, the God of the Jews, as “the God” is all the more remarkable, because, as Kalisch points out (though he unhappily sees in the description of this chapter, not an historical fact, magnifying the grace of God and the efficacy of true repentance, but the “aspiration” of a later writer for “that time when ‘the Lord shall be One and His name One’ ”), it is contrary to all else we know of them. “The prophet Nahum declares distinctly, among other menaces pronounced against Nineveh, ‘Out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image’ (Jonah 1:14; comp. Jonah 3:4); the Books of Kings state by name the Eastern idols Nibhaz and Tartak, Nergal and Ashima, Adrammelech and Anammelech (2 Kings 17:30-31); in the remarkable account of Sennacherib’s war against Hezekiah, the former, through the mouth of one of his chief officers, bitterly taunts the Hebrew king with his futile reliance on his national god, whose nature the Assyrian understands so little that, in his opinion, Hezekiah must have incurred Jahveh’s wrath, for having deprived him of all the heights and of all the altars except that solitary one in Jerusalem; and he places, in fact, Jahveh on the same level of power with the gods of Hamath and Arpad, or any Syrian idol (2 Kings 18:22; 2 Kings 18:30; 2 Kings 18:33-34). And, on the other hand, all Assyrian monuments and records, whether of a date earlier or later than Jeroboam II., disclose the same vast pantheon which was the boast of king and people alike—Asshur, ‘the great lord ruling supreme over all the gods,’ with his twelve greater and four thousand inferior deities presiding over all manifestations of nature and all complications of human life; for the Assyrians at all times saw their strength and their bulwark in the multitude of their gods, and considered that nation feeble and defenceless indeed, which enjoyed only the protection of a single divinity.”

10. that they turned from their evil way] “See what removed that inevitable wrath. Did fasting and sackcloth alone? No, but the change of the whole life. How does this appear? From the prophet’s word itself. For he who spake of the wrath of God and of their fast, himself mentions the reconciliation and its cause. And God saw their works. What works? that they fasted? that they put on sackcloth? He passes by these and says, that everyone turned from his evil ways; and God repented of the evil which He had said that He would do unto them. Seest thou that not the fast plucked them from the peril, but the change of life made God propitious to these heathen? I say this, not that we should dishonour, but that we may honour fasting. For the honour of a fast is not in abstinence from food, but in avoidance of sin. So that he who limiteth fasting to the abstinence from food only, he it is who above all dishonoureth it. Fastest thou? Show it me by thy works.” St Chrysostom, On the Statues, Hom. iii. 4, quoted by Pusey.

God repented] When we regard the relations of Almighty God to men and His dealings with them from the divine side, so far as it is revealed to us and we are able to comprehend it, then they are all foreseen and planned and executed in accordance with His perfect foreknowledge. Then there is no place for repentance, no room for change. “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world.” But when we alter our stand-point, and regard them from the human side, when from the pure heights of contemplation we come down to the busy field of action, free scope is given in the aspect in which God then presents Himself to us for human effort and prayer and feeling, then His purpose waits upon our will. Both of these sides are freely and fearlessly set forth in Holy Scripture. On the one side, “God is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent” (Numbers 23:19). With Him “is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). On the other side we read, “It repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart” (Genesis 6:6); “God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them, and He did it not.” Both views are equally true, and they are in perfect harmony with each other, but Holy Scripture never attempts to harmonise them, nor is it wise for us to attempt to do so; we cannot look upon both sides of the shield at once.

he did it not] It is obvious that this statement, and indeed the whole account of the repentance of the Ninevites, is to be taken within the limits which the history itself prescribes. There is nothing here to contradict the subsequent relapse of the Ninevites into sin, their filling up the measures of their iniquities, and the consequent overthrow of their city and extinction of their national life. But none of these things are here in view, the present fills the whole picture, and fills it grandly. They are sinners. They are threatened. They repent. They are saved.

The fact that no reference has been discovered amongst extant Assyrian monuments to the mission of Jonah and its results may be reasonably accounted for. The Assyrian records of this particular period are singularly meagre in comparison of those of the immediately preceding and succeeding reigns. The subject-matter of this event in the national history is not such as the monuments are wont to record. Wars and victories and material works chiefly occupy them. Moral reformation is foreign to their theme. The marvellous manner in which recent discoveries have come in confirmation of the statements of Holy Scripture leave it open to us, however, to believe that some such confirmation of the history of Jonah may yet reach us from secular sources.