Jonah 3
PATARGtTHEXT. Jonah is sent again to the Ninevites, and preacheth to them with good success.
Jonah 3:3
Jy OW Nineveh tvas an exceeding great city, of three days’ journey. The Hebrew reads, A city great to* God; so the mountains of God are the same with great mountains, Psal. xxxvi.‘G. and the cedars of God are translated goodly cedars, Psal. lxxx. 10. Diodorus Sieulus informs us, that Nineveh was four hundred and eighty furlongs in compass, which makes sixty of our miles: (see Dr. Prideaux, ad A. C. 612.) so that it was bigger than, Babylon; which, according, to his account, was but forty-eight. Diodorus’s account agrees with the description the prophet gives us, that it was three days’ journey in compass: twenty miles was a day’s journey in common computation for a foot-traveller. (See Casaubon’s notes upon Strabo, lib. i. p. 35.)
Jonah 3:4
Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. God was pleased to allow them sufficient time to repent, and give some proof of their reformation. The copies of the LXX. read, three days: it is no easy matter to guess at the occasion of the mistake, although Is. Vossius is willing to believe that this was the original reading. (See his book de LXX. Interp. cap. 23.) Some copies of Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Tryplio, (p. 31G. edit. Lond.) read forty-three days; but that number is probably owing to the copiers, who joined the two readings of the Hebrew and LXX. together.
Jonah 3:5
So the people of Nineveh believed God, &c. The fame of the wonderful works 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 for his 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 up in judgment against them; as our Saviour speaks of the Israelites in his own time, Matt. xii. 41. Verl G. For word came unto the king of Nineveh.] Archbishop Usher, in his Annals, ad A. M. 3233. supposes this prince to have been Pul the king of Assyria, Nineveh being then the capital city of that empire; who afterward invaded the kingdom of Israel, in the days of Menahem; (2 Kings xv. 19.) it being very agreeable to the methods of Providence, to make use of a heathen king that was penitent, to punish the impeniteney of God’s own people, Israel. And he arose frtim his throne, and laid aside his robe from him.] He laid aside all his state, and put on the habit of a penitent.
Jonah 3:6
Itventdoivn to the bottom of the mountains, &c. I went down to the bottom of the sea, where the foundations of the mountains lie. (See Psal. xxiv. 2.) I found myself enclosed on every side, so that I had no prospect of deliverance. Ver! 7. My prayer came in unto thee, into thy holy temple.’] My prayer reached unto heaven, the place of thy peculiar residence. (See Psal. xi. 4. xviii. 6. cii. ID. Micah i. 2. Habak. ii. 20.)
Jonah 3:7
Let neither man nor beast — taste any thing. Such general shows of sorrow add to the solemnity of the humiliation, and may be proper to work upon men’s minds, and bring them to a true contrition.’
Jonah 3:8
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. They that seek to or trust in idols, often called by the names of vanity and lies, (see Psal. xxxi. 6. Jer. x. 8. xvi. 19.) forsake him who alone is able to shew mercy to them, and preserve them in the time of danger. But let man and beast 6e covered with sackcloth.] The covering horses and mules with sackcloth adds to the solemnity of a funeral: in like manner, their mournful garb was an affecting circumstance in this public sorrow and humiliation. Let them cry mightily unto God; yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that’is in their hands.] 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.
Jonah 3:9
But I will sacrifice to thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that which I have vowed. I will offer to thee those thanks which I solemnly promised to pay in the time of my trouble, and which will be as acceptable to thee as the fattest sacrifices of slain beasts. (See Psal. 1. 14. cxv. 17, 18. Hos. xiv. 2.) Who can tell if God will turn and repent?] Compare Joel ii. 14. 2Sam.xii.22. Even wicked men, upon their repentance, are apt to conceive hopes of obtaining mercy.
Jonah 3:10
And the Lord spake unto the fish, &c. God’s almighty power is represented in Scripture as bringing things to pass by his bare will and command. (See Gen. i. 3. Rom. iv. 17.) Huetius (Demonst. Evang. prop, iv.) supposes, that Jonah’s deliverance from the whale’s belly gave occasion to the Greek story of Arion, who, after he was cast into the sea, was conveyed by a dolphin to the port of Corinth. And God repented of the evil which he said he would do unto them; and he did it not.] According to the general declaration he hath made of his will in this case Jer. xviii. 1. therefore the threatenings of temporal evils are to be understood conditionally; viz. unless the execution of them is suspended by men’s repentance.