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Volume 25 Number 10 October 2023	Page 5

Book of Jonah Chapter Three:
The Repentance of the Men of Nineveh

Emanuel Daugherty

The Lord commissioned Jonah to preach at Nineveh, but he didn’t go. Instead, a great fish swallowed Jonah and later vomited him up. Then, the Lord recommissioned Jonah to go to Nineveh. Therefore, Jonah arose and went, having been given a second opportunity to be God’s messenger.

“Nineveh, that great city…” (1:1; 3:2) comprised more than “sixscore thousand” (120,000) innocents (4:11 KJV). The total population was approximately 600,000. “An exceeding great city of three days journey” (3:3). Herodotus said that Nineveh was 480 stadia in circuit, larger than Babylon and about 60 miles in circumference. The walls were 100 feet high with 1,500 lofty towers (Kitto, Vol 6 385). “The size could include the entire administrative district, which included the palaces of present and former kings outside of Nineveh proper” (Kearley class notes). We read in Genesis 10:8-11 of a man named Nimrod who went forth into Assyria and built “Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, and Calah. And Resen between Nineveh and Calah (the same is the great city)” (ASV). Keil maintains that these four places composed a large “composite city” consisting of “a range of towns, to which the name of the (well known) great city of Nineveh was applied” (Keil).

Jonah entered into the city a day’s journey and began to cry against it. His message was brief: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4 KJV). “So the people of Nineveh believed God” (Jonah 3:5). Note that the number of people who believed is not stated, but enough of them did to the effect that God spared this great city. Some people question whether such a great number of people could have repented in such a short time. But consider the following:

1. “If there is no logical reason to doubt the historicity of the book of Jonah, then its testimony as to the moral reformation of the part of the Ninevites must stand. There is no evidence against such a concept” (Wayne Jackson).
2. However, skeptics say, “The conversion of an entire city in so short a time is psychologically impossible.” Really? Does not psychology know of mass psychoses? Did not Orson Welles’ purely fictional broadcast of a Martian invasion of America (October 30, 1938) terrify millions of Americans and “spread wild disorder and terror from coast to coast,” so that “police headquarters, newspapers, and radio stations were swamped with anguished calls…,” “whole neighborhoods were evacuated as inhabitants rushed into the streets with wet handkerchiefs pressed to their noses to defend themselves against poison gas,” “families huddled in desperate prayer”? (Laetsch 236, quoted from the Readers Digest, February 1951, 17.)
3. Geike Cunningham states that Assyria was torn with revolts and strife and was in a state of general decline from about 800 B.C. until Tiglath-Pileser II (745-727) (Cunningham183-184). These events could have contributed to the reaction of the citizens of Nineveh to Jonah’s doomsday preaching.
4. Also, would it not be reasonable that Jonah’s experience in the fish preceded him to Nineveh? Learning of the storm, the lots, the calm, the fish and the survival of Jonah would have had a great bearing on the minds of the Ninevites. If Jonah was a sign to the men of Jesus’ day, was he not a sign as well to his own generation? He would have been living testimony of what God could do – in His wrath as well as concerning salvation.
5. It must be understood, furthermore, that the repentance was a moral change from their evil ways and violence. The Ninevites, like all Gentiles, were responsible to God according to the law of nature (i.e., the law of the heart, Romans 2:12-16). Thus, they were not accountable to God via the law of Moses but only coming to belief in the one true God.
6. Consider the fact that Jesus said they repented (Matthew 12:41; 16:4)! Jesus indicated that the repentance by the men of Nineveh at the preaching of Jonah would condemn the men of Jesus’ generation. If the repentance of the Ninevites did not happen, then there is no validity to Jesus’ analogy. Jesus said of Himself that He is greater than Jonah. Yet, it doesn’t take much to be greater than fiction if Jonah is fiction!
7. God saw their works; their works were evidence of their change of heart, reflected in their changed belief, attitudes and way of life. James says works that God commands are works that save (James 2:22, 26; John 6:28). The works of the Ninevites were sufficient enough that God spared them from the destruction which was in store for them.

Was the repentance of the Ninevites sincere? There is no reason not to accept the divine record. God’s Word says they (1) believed God (Jonah 3:5). (2) Jesus said they repented (Matthew 12:41) and (3) that these penitent men are going to point the finger of accusation on Judgment Day at the Jews of Jesus’ generation who did not repent at the preaching of Him Who is greater than Jonah! (4) The repentance of the Ninevites was sincere enough that God did not bring Nineveh to an end until nearly 200 years later in 612 B.C.

The repentance of the men of Nineveh is a tribute to the power of God’s spoken Word. The words of men such as Hitler and other wicked leaders have stirred nations to commit horrible evil, even world wars! On the other hand, the good Word of God spoken on Pentecost saved some three-thousand souls! It is that same powerful Word of God that has been saving the souls of men and women for more than two-thousand years (Romans 1:16-17). Let’s stop arguing with God’s Word!

Works Cited and Consulted

Cunningham, Geike. Hours with the Bible, Vol. 4. London: Cassell & Co, 1880.

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament. Electronic Database. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2015.

Kitto, John. Daily Bible Illustrations. Vol. 6. New York: Hurst Co., 1858.

Jackson, Wayne. “Jonah: A ‘Fish Story’ or History?” Christian Courier. 20 Sep 2023. <https://christiancourier.com/articles/jonah-a-fish-story-or-history>.

Laetsch, Theodore. Commentary on the Minor Prophets. St. Louis: Concordia, 1970.