Jonah 3
IT is a humbled, obedient servant of God that we now see taking his long journey (his own willfulness had made it longer) to the capital city of the Assyrian kingdom. It is only in the measure in which we who are the Lord’s realize that we ourselves are objects or vessels of mercy that we can rightly make known a message of God to man. Had Jonah been dealt with according to his deserts, he should have perished in the sea or in the belly of the great fish, but he was raised up as a monument of God’s grace, with a message to deliver for Him.
Nineveh was a very large city for that day; its site is on the east of the river Tigris, opposite the present city of Mosul, center of Mesopotamian oil fields. Enough of the ancient ruins remain to reveal that the west side of the Assyrian capital (then bordering the river, which has changed its channel) was 272 miles in length. Along the north side, the city wall stretched in a straight line for 7000 feet; the southern wall was less than half that length, —3000 feet, and the eastern one was a little over three miles long.
It would have taken Jonah at least three days to go through all the streets repeating his direful message, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”, but he had hardly covered one-third of the town when the people, conscience-stricken, believed God (verse 5). It was no merely surface repentance, but real, as verses 5-10 show.
“The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas....”
All classes were affected, from the greatest to the least, and the message of God was even carried within the royal palace to the king on his throne.
All of Nineveh was speedily clad in sackcloth—even the beasts—and the king, whom we may suppose to be the ruler of all Assyria, it is said that he descended from his royal throne and sat in ashes. Under his decree both eating and drinking were suspended while prayer was made to God; and of what value would that be, did they not also turn, everyone, from his evil way, and from the violence that was in their hands? Would God turn from His purpose, from His fierce anger?
Has there ever been a time when true repentance did not touch the heart of God? Never! Only let it be said that opportunity for repentance is only afforded in life; the rich man in torment (Luke 16:23-3123And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. 25But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. 26And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. 27Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: 28For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. 29Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. 30And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. 31And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. (Luke 16:23‑31)) prayed for some relief from his suffering, and for a messenger to go to his father’s house, but no word indicative of repentance came from him; there is no passing from torment to heaven’s joys.
God saw their works, the fruit of a changed heart, and Nineveh’s day of doom did not come until the time of Nahum’s prophecy, —about two hundred years later.
ML 03/14/1937