Jonah 3
DOYLYJonah 3:4
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- And Jonah began to enter &c.] And when Jonah had spent one day in his preaching, and had gone through one-third part of the city, crying, and saying, There are yet but forty days to come, ere Nineveh, except it repent, shall be destroyed; the people of Nineveh believed that word of God, delivered to them by his Prophet, &c. Bp. Hall.
The fame of the wonderful works, which God had wrought for the Jews, was spread over the Eastern parts of the world. This might make the Ninevites hearken to a man of that nation, that came to them as sent by God. And it is likely that he gave them an account of the miraculous circumstances which attended his own mission. But without question a sense of their own guilt, and their deserving whatever punishment Heaven could inflict, was a principal reason that moved them to have a regard to the Prophet’s message. And by the men of Nineveh’s repenting “at the preaching of Jonas,” God designed to upbraid the stubbornness of his own people, and shame them, as it were, into repentance, for fear the men of “Nineveh should rise in judgment with them,” as our Saviour speaks of the Israelites in his own time, Matt. xii. 41. W. Lowth.
- — Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.] That is, unless it repent. In the whole course of Scripture, God’s threatenings, and his promises also, have ever a condition annexed to them in his purpose: which condition, though it be not ever, indeed but seldom, expressed, yet is it ever included, and so to be understood. All God’s promises, however absolutely expressed, are made on the condition of obedience; and all his threatenings, however absolutely expressed, on the condition of impenitence. See Jer. xviii. 8; Ezek. xxxiii. 11. When He says, Abimelech shall die for taking Sarah, understand it, unless He restore her; see Gen. xx. 3. 7: “Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” understand it with this reservation, unless they repent. The Ninevites understood it so; else it had been in vain for them to have repented at all, out of an hope of preventing the judgment by their repentance, as their speeches shew that they did. For “who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?” ver. 9. Bp. Sanderson.
Jonah 3:6
- — the king of Nineveh.] Archbishop Usher sup-
Jonah 3:7
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— neither man nor beast.] Abstaining for some time from our daily food signifies most naturally that we are unworthy of it, and can take no comfort in it, whilst we are under the Divine displeasure. And as anciently every thing of importance was denoted, especially in the Eastern countries, by actions as well as by words, this was probably the original purpose, for which men used fasting. And it was then sometimes extended to children and cattle in token that the parents and owners of them had forfeited the dearest blessings and most valuable conveniences of life. See also Joel ii. 16; Judith iv. 10. Abp. Secker.
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— taste any thing:] The Eastern mode of fasting was abstinence from food till the evening, 2 Sam. i. 12. Abp. Newcome.
Jonah 3:8
- — let—beast be covered with sackcloth.] In token of publick sorrow and humiliation. W. Lowth.
— and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn &c.] Natural religion instructed them, that their earnest prayers without true amendment would not avail them before God: nor would their repentance be thought sincere, unless they restored to the true owners what they had gained by violence and injustice. W. Lowth.
Jonah 3:10
- — and God repented of the evil, &c.] See the note on ver. 4. A sincere and effectual repentance will stay God’s hand, and infallibly turn Him from the fierceness of his anger: insomuch that after He had fixed and determined the very day for the destruction of Nineveh, yet as soon as “He saw their works, that they turned from their evil way,” He presently “repented of the evil,” &c. In this case God does not stand upon the reputation of his Prophet, by whom He had sent to them so peremptory a message; but his mercy breaks through all considerations, and rejoiceth against judgment; for He cannot find in his heart to ruin those, who by the terror of his judgments will be brought to repentance. Abp. Tillotson.
This is ever God’s manner, when men change their deeds, to change his doom; when they renounce their sins, to recall his sentence; when they repent of the evil they have done against Him, to “repent of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them.” Search the Scriptures; and say if things run not thus, as in the most ordinary course; God commandeth, and man disobeyeth; man disobeyeth, and God threateneth; God threateneth, and man repenteth; man repenteth, and God forbeareth. Nineveh, prepare for desolation; for
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