Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.” So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command.
Now Nineveh was an extremely large city, a three-day walk. Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In 40 days Nineveh will be demolished!” The men of Nineveh believed in God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth — from the greatest of them to the least. When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he issued a decree in Nineveh:
By order of the king and his nobles: No man or beast, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. Furthermore, both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from the violence he is doing. Who knows? God may turn and relent; He may turn from His burning anger so that we will not perish.
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. (Jonah 3:1-10 — Holman Christian Standard Bible)
Many have dismissed the book of Jonah as Biblical fiction on the basis that a man could not be swallowed by a giant fish and spend three days and three nights in its belly — “that’s the stuff of fairytales”, they say. But to hold this opinion would be a very serious mistake. There is no indication whatsoever that this is a parable, or that any events in this book are anything less than a part of the history of the Jewish people. In fact, Jesus compared Jonah’s experience to His own coming death and resurrection in Matthew 12:40, “as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” — an irrefutable endorsement of Jonah’s story and its importance in the Bible.
Though Jonah was a prophet of God, his view of God was limited. At first he refused to go to Nineveh because he didn’t want the people there to hear his message of repentance, and then when he did go, he got angry when the people repented and God changed His mind. Jonah wanted the city’s inhabitants to be destroyed. He failed to understand that God does not only want to save the good, but the bad also… something that we can also forget if we’re not careful.
Nineveh was an ancient city that had existed for close to 2000 years before Jesus’ birth, and had frequently been the enemy of God and His people. They were not a God-fearing people, and were chosen for destruction because of their extreme immorality and violence. And yet God sent Jonah to announce that they would be destroyed in 40 days (a Biblical period of time that signals renewal or change). He didn’t destroy them right away; He gave them a warning, and by that we can see that God never wanted them to be destroyed at all. Though they were Assyrians, and were not God’s chosen people, God wanted to show them mercy.
The response of the people and the king is shocking. People and animals were ordered to stop eating and drinking, to wear sackcloth (even the animals) as a sign of humility and sorrow for what they had done, and to turn from their wicked ways. Their actions were so sincere that God changed His mind, forgave them, and decided not to destroy their city after all… and people say the God of the Old Testament is cruel and uncaring. God is a god of mercy, and is ready and willing to forgive whenever there is true repentance.
Have you ever been that extreme in your repentance?
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