Nineveh’s Turning

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you. So Jonah set out for Nineveh, in accord with the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an awesomely great city; it took three days to walk through it. Jonah began his journey through the city, and when he had gone only a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh: “By decree of the king and his nobles, no man or beast, no cattle or sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. Man and beast alike must be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; they all must turn from their evil way and from the violence of their hands. Who knows? God may again repent and turn from his blazing wrath, so that we will not perish.” When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.

Jonah 3:1-10

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Runaway Prophet

Jonah, the reluctant prophet from Israel, preferred death to divine mercy on his enemies. From the moment the Lord commanded him to denounce the Assyrians in Nineveh, he fled in the opposite direction. Determined to evade his mission, Jonah boarded a ship to Tarshish, “from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1:3). 

Jonah’s self-will threatened to capsize the ship in a tumultuous storm. More God-fearing than the prophet, the sailors tried to save themselves and Jonah from disaster by rowing mightily to shore, but in vain. In prayerful desperation, they heeded Jonah’s words by casting him into the sea.

Nineveh Repents

After three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish, Jonah finally prayed to the Lord in despair. “When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord” (Jonah 2:7, ESV). Unlike the pagan Ninevites, “who pay regard to vain idols,” Jonah identified with Israel, God’s chosen people, for “Salvation belongs to the Lord!” (Jonah 2:8-9, ESV). 

Vomited out by the fish, Jonah finally delivered God’s message to the Ninevites: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4) When the Ninevites put on sackcloth and fasted, turning from their evil way, the Lord lifted his wrath from the nation.

Meanwhile, Jonah fumed and sulked.

“O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Jonah 4:2-3 (ESV)

Universal Mercy

God’s universalism and generosity toward the non-Israelite nations displeased Jonah exceedingly. So the Lord sent a plant over his head to shade him and then killed it with a worm. Jonah again declared that “it is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:8). The Lord showed the petulant prophet the narrowness of his heart compared to the infinite caverns of divine mercy, which extend even to irrational brutes.

“You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

Jonah 4:10-11 (ESV)

Traditional Chinese Translation

《尼尼微的轉向》
當約拿的警告開始響起時，
尼尼微一天之內就發生了翻天覆地的轉變。