Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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⚙ Annotations & References ▾
Passage sections 1 ▾
Nineveh Repents narrative 3:1–4:11
Themes 1 ▾
Repentance 10
Events 1 ▾
Jonah and Nineveh c. 780 BC 1
People 1 ▾
Jonah Divided Monarchy 1, 3-4
Places 1 ▾
Nineveh Assyria 3, 5
Speakers 2 ▾
God divine 1 Jonah human 2-10
Typology 2 ▾
Jonah's Mission to Gentile Nineveh 2, 5, 10 Jonah → Christ 5
Historic voices 11 ▾
Antiquities of the Jews 1× 1, 5 Homilies on the First Epistle to the Corinthians 1× 4 City of God 1× 4 Summa Theologica 1× 4 Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans 1× 5 1 Clement (Letter to the Corinthians) 1× 5 Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses) 1× 8 Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible 1× 1-6, 8-10 John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible 1× 1-10 Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament 1× 1, 5, 10 Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary 1× 3-10
Manuscript witnesses 5 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325 Codex Alexandrinus A c. AD 400-440 Aleppo Codex (Crown of Aleppo) c. AD 930 Leningrad Codex (Codex Leningradensis) AD 1008
Cross-references 55 ▾
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What is Jonah 3 about?

Restored to his commission, Jonah received the word of the LORD a second time and at last went to Nineveh, that exceeding great city, entering it to proclaim the plain warning, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." The Ninevites believed God, and from the greatest of them to the least they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, while the king himself rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, and sat in ashes, decreeing that man and beast turn every one from his evil way. When God saw their works and that they turned from their wickedness, He repented of the evil He had said He would do, and spared the city. That a pagan enemy of Israel should so readily repent, and that God should so freely relent, displays the heart of the book, that His mercy reaches even the nations Israel most feared, and that no repentant sinner stands beyond the reach of His compassion.

Historical backdrop

Jonah son of Amittai prophesied in the days of Jeroboam II, when Assyria was passing through a spell of weakness and Nineveh, on the east bank of the Tigris, was already an ancient and fearsome city though not yet the empire's capital. To the west lay the open Mediterranean and the Phoenician sea lanes that ran all the way to Tarshish at the far edge of the known world, and from the port of Joppa a man could buy passage on a cargo ship bound that way. East stood the Assyrian metropolis whose armies would within a generation begin to devour Israel itself.

Matthew Henry on Jonah 3
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on Jonah 3
The Church Fathers on Jonah 3

Jonah 3

Jonah Chapter 3
3

1And the word of Jehovah came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 2Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

3So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of Jehovah. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days’ journey. 4And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

5And the people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. 6And the tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water; 8but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and beast, and let them cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands. 9Who knoweth whether God will not turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 10And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil which he said he would do unto them; and he did it not.

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What is Jonah 3 about?

Restored to his commission, Jonah received the word of the LORD a second time and at last went to Nineveh, that exceeding great city, entering it to proclaim the plain warning, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." The Ninevites believed God, and from the greatest of them to the least they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, while the king himself rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, and sat in ashes, decreeing that man and beast turn every one from his evil way. When God saw their works and that they turned from their wickedness, He repented of the evil He had said He would do, and spared the city. That a pagan enemy of Israel should so readily repent, and that God should so freely relent, displays the heart of the book, that His mercy reaches even the nations Israel most feared, and that no repentant sinner stands beyond the reach of His compassion.