Chapter Three

1–3. The second mission of Jonah to Nineveh and 4–10. the repentance of the Ninevites.

Jonah 3:1. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, Jonah 3:2. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you. Of the second mission of Jonah to Nineveh it is spoken in the same words as of the first (Jonah 1:1-2); one can suppose that this second “word of the Lord to Jonah” was given in the same form as the first (see note to Jonah 1:1). The content of the prophet’s preaching in Nineveh the second time is not indicated, but a reference is made to the former commandment from God about this: “proclaim to it the message that I tell you” (see note to Jonah 1:2).

Jonah 3:3. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ journey in breadth. “So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.” The prophet obeyed the second voice of Jehovah because the preceding events (the storm at sea, the lot falling on him, being swallowed and cast out by the whale) were for him signs convincing him of the truth and immutability of the revelation he was receiving. “Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ journey in breadth.” On the basis of these words it is often concluded that Jonah’s book was written later in origin. The past tense of the verb used here: “was an exceedingly great city” indicates, it is said, that at the time of the writing of Jonah’s book, Nineveh no longer existed, otherwise it would have been spoken of in the present tense, as for example in Gen 10:12. Moreover, the very remark about the magnitude of the city allegedly is completely unnecessary for Jonah’s contemporaries, who knew well about Nineveh and would be quite appropriate only in the mouth of a writer living after its fall. As for the past tense of the verb, it should be noted that here a form is used, the so-called preteritum. It expresses a thought about the real existence of an object in the described past time without any relation to the present, and therefore this past tense form in no way excludes the existence of Nineveh at the moment the book was written. It is used only in correspondence with the same form of other verbs relating to the same event, so the whole passage can be rendered thus: Jonah arose and went to Nineveh and it proved to be a great city. Describing the magnitude of Nineveh to Jonah’s contemporaries, of whom the majority had not seen this city, and some perhaps had not even heard its name, is as natural as in our time describing various large cities. To conclude on this basis that Nineveh could not exist at the moment of description is possible only from a prejudiced viewpoint. Direct evidence that Jonah’s book was written before the destruction of Nineveh we find in the book of Tobit (Tob 14:8), where Tobit persuades his son Tobias to leave Nineveh, “because Nineveh will be destroyed, as the prophet Jonah said.” Obviously the Israelite captives in Assyria believed that Jonah’s prophecy about the destruction of Nineveh (Jonah 3:4) was only deferred because of the city’s repentance, and in time, seeing the extreme corruption of the Assyrians, expected its fulfillment. In any case, they were familiar with Jonah’s book long before Nineveh’s fall. The remark about Nineveh’s magnitude is supplemented with the words “in the sight of God.” By this the author wished to determine Nineveh’s position in relation to God, to say that it was great in God’s eyes, before God, meaning that there was in it some moral might and greatness. The purpose of such a remark could have been to justify in the eyes of Israeli readers the action described below (Jonah 3:10)—God’s revocation of His determination about Nineveh’s ruin. The magnitude of the city of Nineveh in verse 3 is determined by the words “a three days’ journey.” A day’s journey, that is, the distance one can traverse in the course of one day, among ancient peoples, according to the testimony of Herodotus, was determined at 160–200 stadia, in our measures of length—25–30 versts. Thus, a distance of three days’ journey would equal 75–90 versts. To determine the magnitude of cities and regions, their circumference is usually taken, so one must suppose that in this place the words “three days’ journey” determine the circumference of Nineveh, not its length. If we take for Nineveh an area with circumference of about 80 versts and a diameter of less than 30, these will be precisely the dimensions by which the magnitude of Nineveh is measured by many ancient writers: Strabo, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Xenophon. Thus, the information about Nineveh in Jonah’s book is in agreement with the testimonies of other historical records and contains nothing incredible, as those who understand the expression “three days’ journey” as determining the length of Nineveh try to represent. One must keep in mind also that Nineveh was one of the most ancient cities in the world, that its builders—Nimrod according to Scripture (Deut 10:10-11) or Ninus according to secular history—intended to build a city of outstanding dimensions and magnificence; moreover, that in antiquity cities were not built continuously, but the city limits left considerable area in case of siege for pasture and cultivation, so there is nothing to be surprised at about the magnitude of the city in the description in Jonah’s book. The modern excavations of the ruins of Nineveh on the left bank of the Tigris, near the village of Mosul, once again confirm the evidence of Jonah’s book.

Jonah 3:4. And Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! “And Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey.” The cited words do not indicate that Jonah walked in one direction and traversed in length through the city a distance of one day’s journey (out of three). The Hebrew expression is more accurately rendered: “and Jonah walked about in the city,” meaning not in one straight direction, but as his preaching required. The addition “going a day’s journey” therefore does not stand in connection with the last words of verse 3 (“a three days’ journey”) and does not relate to determining Nineveh’s magnitude, but was made to show the prophet’s zeal in preaching to the Ninevites. Pausing with his preaching on squares, marketplaces, and streets, he nevertheless managed to walk about the city such a distance as an ordinary traveler accomplishes in a day. “And he called out, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” In the Greek, and from it in the Church Slavonic translation, instead of “forty” (days) from the original stands three. This reading must be considered erroneous, because it is incredible that all the events of chapter III and IV—Jonah’s preaching to the Ninevites, their repentance, the king’s decree concerning the forms of penitential mourning, Jonah’s waiting for the fulfillment of his prophecy, and God’s revocation of His determination about Nineveh’s ruin—would have occurred in the brief three-day period. More likely, the Septuagint translators also read “forty” in the Hebrew and translated it; but later copyists, mistakenly replacing the letter “ μ “ denoting forty with the similarly shaped letter γ—three. Jonah’s preaching in Nineveh cannot undoubtedly be limited to a bare prediction of its destruction in forty days. He must have rebuked the wickedness of the Ninevites (see Jonah 1:2) and at the same time pointed to the possibility of salvation through repentance. If the prophet had not done the latter, the Ninevites would not have had such hope (see Jonah 3:8-9), but only despair. But could the prophet Jonah preach to the Ninevites, and moreover so comprehensively and successfully, when they say he did not know their language, did not know their life, their customs, and their sins? He was completely foreign to the Ninevites, and they could not understand him. As for language, one must remember that the Assyrian language belongs to the Semitic family and has great similarity with the Hebrew language, especially this must be said regarding the Galilean dialect which Jonah spoke. From this one can easily imagine that Jonah could learn the Assyrian language, just as educated Ninevites could understand Hebrew. An example of Hebrews knowing Assyrian and Assyrians knowing Hebrew is known to us in Scripture (see 2 Sam 18:26-28). Knowledge of Assyrian life necessary for preaching, the prophet Jonah could easily have acquired. Assyria was only about 200 versts from the boundaries of the Israelite kingdom, and in Jonah’s time it maintained lively political and commercial relations with Israel. The religion of the Assyrians was similar to the religions of the pagan peoples neighboring Israel; the sins of the Assyrians certainly had much that was universal to all humans, and much could be concluded from the outward appearance of the inhabitants and the city. Therefore, not only Jonah, who had personally been in Nineveh, but also prophets who had never seen it, knew and vividly portrayed its moral state (see Nah 1-3; Zeph 2:13-15).

Jonah 3:5. And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. Jonah 3:6. The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Jonah 3:7. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, neither herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, Jonah 3:8. but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Jonah 3:9. Who knows? God may yet relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish. Jonah 3:10. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it. In the cited verses the repentance of the Ninevites following the prophet’s preaching is recounted. Opponents of the historical authenticity of Jonah’s book consider this entire narrative incredible. It is allegedly incredible that a whole vast city should turn to repentance at the preaching of one unknown man, and the participation of the king in this and the issuing of a special decree are also alleged to be incredible; incredible too are said to be the external forms in which the Ninevite’s feeling of repentance was expressed. The cited objection rests to a considerable degree on a subjective sense of the probable and improbable, and in its very nature it is not particularly strong. Indeed, it often happens that reality surpasses our notions of what is probable. Meanwhile, in the prophet Jonah’s narrative, there is nothing exceeding all bounds of probability. Cases of the influence of individual persons on the masses of people, when these masses are infected with a common mood reaching enthusiasm and obey literally every word of the one who has succeeded in placing himself at the head of the movement—are known to all (for example, the inspiration of the French by Joan of Arc in her struggle, the arousal of the peoples to the crusades by Peter the Hermit, etc.). Why could this phenomenon, so consonant with the psychology of the masses, not have occurred in Nineveh? The responsiveness of an Eastern people, heightened in the Ninevites by effeminacy and luxury, their high respect for divination, faith in all kinds of prophecy—created favorable ground for them to respond to the inspired preaching and terrible prophecy of a foreign prophet. An especially powerful impression must have been made on the Ninevites by Jonah’s account of his three-day stay in the belly of the whale; in this miracle they saw for themselves a sign of the prophet’s divine mission and the truth of his preaching, as the Gospel points out: “Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites” (Luke 11:30-31; Matt 12:40). Perhaps they even compared his account with the myths widespread among them of Ea-Oannes, coming forth from the sea to teach people the worship of the gods and a holy life; in such a case, an inspired Jonah with a threatening rebuke and authoritative speech might seem to them to be Oannes himself (this was also aided by the similarity of names). Thus the universal repentance in Nineveh at the word of the prophet is a very probable fact. The participation in this of the king of Nineveh and the issuing by him of a special decree do not diminish the historical probability of the fact. The king of Nineveh, at the same time, was also the high priest, and his nobles held the hierarchical positions following after him, so their participation in the religious fervor that seized the people was inevitable. As for the forms of repentance, here the involvement of domestic animals raises a question. Ancient peoples stood closer to the animal world and believed that the animals themselves could take part in their life, and therefore shared with them both sorrow and joy. Herodotus, for example, recounts that the Persians after the battle of Plataea, when their general Masistes fell, as a sign of mourning clipped the hair of all animals in the camp; the same is true also in the passage we are examining (verses 7–8). This detail can be noted only as a deeply truthful historical feature. In conclusion, it must be said that the historical authenticity of the Ninevites’ repentance at Jonah’s preaching is confirmed by the Gospel. The Savior said that “the Ninevites will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah” (Luke 11:32). Clearly, the Savior and His contemporaries considered the repentance of the Ninevites to be an actual event; otherwise the reference to them would have had no significance.