Welcome back to my study/review of The Book of Jonah. If you missed the previous parts of this study, you can find them HERE.
Jonah 3:1-5
3 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you." 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
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Jonah goes to Nineveh, a notoriously wicked city, and does as God had commanded him. Then - just as he feared - the people of Nineveh believed him and repented. (From The Pulpit Commentaries at verse 1):
Jonah 3:1
The second time. He is forgiven and restored to his office, and the commission formerly given is renewed. Commentators have supposed that he went up to Jerusalem to pay his vows, and that the word of the Lord came unto him there. But all unnecessary details are omitted from the account, and we know nothing about this matter. The beginning of the next verse, "arise," seems to imply that he was then in some settled home, perhaps at Gath-hepher.
The note speculates about how much time passed between Jonah being spit out upon the shore and the command to "Arise." As the note states, though, the debate hardly matters.
As an aside, Nineveh was in the international news a few years ago after ISIS destroyed some of the city's ancient walls and gates. (From the independent)
Recently taken pictures show how Isis have destroyed two of the great gates in an ancient Assyrian citadel in northern Iraq.
These photographs seem to confirm the Nergal and Mashki gates in Nineveh have been bulldozed into rubble.
While the original gates date back over 2,500 years, those just destroyed were replicated in the mid-20th century, National Geographic reported.
Their destruction was confirmed by Dr Michael Danti, the co-director of the Cultural Heritage Initiative (CHI), who works alongside the US State Department to document destruction of cultural and religious sites in the region.
The archaeology professor from Boston University told National Geographic: "We can verify... that the Mashki and Nergal Gates have been destroyed."
He said the images were obtained from trusted sources inside the surrounding Isis-controlled-city of Mosul.
Nergal Gate in the ancient city of Ninevah in northern Iraq (Heritage Images/Getty Images)
The remains of the Nergal Gate after Isis fighters destroyed it (ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives)
Returning to the text and verse 2, continuing in TPC:
Jonah 3:2
That great city (see note on Jonah 1:2). Preaching; rendered "cry" in Jonah 1:2; Septuagint, κήρυγμα. This time the proclamation is unto it, as interested in the message, not "against it," as doomed to destruction (Pusey).
Jonah 3:3
Arose, and went. He was now as prompt to obey as formerly to flee. Was; i.e. when Jonah visited it. Nothing can be argued from the past tense here as to the date of the composition of the book. It is a mere historical detail, and cannot be forced into a proof that Jonah wrote after the destruction of Nineveh. An exceeding great city; literally, a city great to God; πόλις μεγάλη τῷ Θεῷ; great before God—in his estimation, as though even God must acknowledge it. So Nimrod is called (Genesis 10:9) "a mighty hunter before the Lord;" and Moses, in Acts 7:20, is said to have been" beautiful to God." The expression may also mean that God (Elohim, God as Governor of the world) regarded this city with interest, as intended in the Divine counsels to perform an important part. For he is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles (Romans 3:29). Of three days' journey; i.e. in circumference—about sixty miles (see note on Jonah 1:2). Or the writer may mean that it took Jonah three days to visit the various quarters of this huge place. The area of the vast quadrangle containing the remains of the four cities comprised under the name Nineveh is estimated by Professor Rawlinson at two hundred and sixteen square miles. We ought, however, to omit Khorsabad from this computation, as it was not founded till Sargon's time, B.C. 710.
So how big was Nineveh? (from bibleask.org)
Nineveh
Nineveh was one of the oldest cities of the Assyrians and served as its capital at different times. According to the Bible record, it was built by Nimrod (Genesis10:11). Archeological excavations prove its great antiquity. It reached its golden age from the 9th to the 7th century b.c., particularly during the glorious reign of King Sennacherib. Since 612 b.c. when the Babylonians and the Medes completely devastated Nineveh, the city laid in ruins. Even its location was forgotten until it was rediscovered in the middle of the 19th century.
Geography
Nineveh is situated on the eastern bank of the Tigris River opposite of the modern city of Mosul. Anciently, the river ran along the city's western wall and provided extra protection. The river has since diverted its course and now flows about 3/4 of a mile west of the original path.
Size
The size of ancient Nineveh can be clearly determined today because the city wall ruins still stand. Their combined length is about 71/2 mi. (c. 12 km.). The area of 1,640 acres (663.7 hectares) presents on the map the appearance of an irregular and elongated triangle. An octagonal clay prism of Sennacherib, who extended the city after Jonah's time, shows the king's constructions, and names 15 city gates, of which 7 were in the southern and eastern walls, 3 in the northern wall, and 5 in the western wall.
The archeologist Henry Layard discovered one of the northern gates in a fairly good condition. The gate was edged by colossal bulls. Two covering watchtowers are about 60 ft. (18.3 m.). The eastern wall was about 3.2 mi. (5.1 km.) long, the western 2.7 mi. (4.3 km.), the northern 1.2 mi. (1.9 km.), and the southern .5 mi. (.8 km.).
Population
Some have interpreted the reference in Jonah 4:11 to the 120,000 persons who could not discern between their right hand and their left, to mean small children only. Thus, they figured that the total population of Nineveh was from 600,000 – 2,000,000. But since this number of people could not have lived inside Nineveh, they have included other Assyrian cities in their assumption. However, those cities were separate units with their own walls and governments. And they were never included in Nineveh's ancient historical records.
Therefore, in the light of the real size of the city, it may be best to interpret the number of people in Jonah 4:11 as referring to adults who were unable to distinguish between right and wrong. If 120,000 was meant as an estimation of the total population of the city, then that would be a reasonable number, when compared to the modern city of Mosul.
So... it was very big, particularly for the time period. Continuing onto verse 4 in Ellicott's Bible Commentary:
(4) And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey.—This is apparently equivalent to And Jonah entered the city, and walked for a day through it. To enter on a minute inquiry as to whether his course was straight or circuitous seems trivial. The writer has no thought of furnishing data for ascertaining the exact dimensions of Nineveh, but only of producing a general sense of its vast size.
Yet forty days.—The conciseness of the original, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh overthrown," forcibly expresses "the one deep cry of woe" which the prophet was commissioned to utter. "This simple message of Jonah bears an analogy to what we find elsewhere in Holy Scripture. The great preacher of repentance, St. John the Baptist, repeated doubtless oftentimes that one cry, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Our Lord vouchsafed to begin His own office with those self-same words. And probably, among the civilised but savage inhabitants of Nineveh that one cry was more impressive than any other would have been, Simplicity is always impressive. They were four words which God caused to be written on the wall amid Belshazzar's impious revelry: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. We all remember the touching history of Jesus, son of Anan, an unlettered rustic, who, "four years before the war, when Jerusalem was in complete peace and affluence," burst in on the people at the Feast of Tabernacles with the oft-repeated cry, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice on Jerusalem and the Temple, a voice on the bridegrooms and the brides, a voice on the whole people;" how he went about through all the lanes of the city, repeating, day and night, this one cry, and when scourged till his bones were laid bare, echoed every lash with "Woe, woe, to Jerusalem!" and continued as his daily dirge and his one response to daily good or ill treatment, "Woe, woe, to Jerusalem!" (Pusey.) Instead of "forty days" the LXX. read "three."
The wicked, cruel Ninevites believed Jonah, an Israelite prophet, and they repented. The widespread response to Jonah implied - even if it does not state outright - that either he or his office were well known in Nineveh, such that they carried notoriety or respect ahead of them. Continuing in Ellicott:
(5) Believed God.—Or, believed in God. Notice again an implied contrast to the dulness of the Jews, who were "slow to believe" the prophetic warnings addressed to themselves.
Proclaimed a fast.—Apparently on a spontaneous resolution of the people themselves. (See Note to Jonah 3:6.) The fast would no doubt be for one day, according to the Jewish and the general Oriental custom.
Jonah's message caused a national repentance, which took the shape initially of a national fast. We'll see more of the specifics with respect to the King's response in the second half of Chapter 3, in the next post. However, note that the implication of verse 5 is that Jonah's message was first believed by the people.
the people = אִישׁ ʼîysh, eesh; contracted for H582 (or perhaps rather from an unused root meaning to be extant); a man as an individual or a male person; often used as an adjunct to a more definite term (and in such cases frequently not expressed in translation):—also, another, any (man), a certain, champion, consent, each, every (one), fellow, (foot-, husband-) man, (good-, great, mighty) man, he, high (degree), him (that is), husband, man(-kind), none, one, people, person, steward, what (man) soever, whoso(-ever), worthy. Compare H802.
It may be instructive that winning the people first can then lead to gaining support from governing authorities. As Jonah is viewed by Christians as a Typological story about the Gospel, that certainly fits. Christianity toppled the Nineveh of its day - the Roman Empire - by first convincing its people of their need for repentance. Caesar followed the Roman people into the faith, not the other way around.
The latter half of this chapter will show us how the King responded.
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