Jonah 3

This is the third of the four chapters of the Book of Jonah. After praying in the belly of the fish in Jonah 2, Jonah is brought to dry land and is called once again to go to Nineveh, the city he had fled from in chapter 1.

Outline

• Verses 1–4: The word of the LORD comes to Jonah a second time. This time Jonah obeys and enters Nineveh, a great city "of three days' journey," walking a day's journey into it and crying, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."
• Verses 5–9: The people of Nineveh believe God and proclaim a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. The king also rises from his throne, lays aside his royal robe, and sits in ashes. Together with his nobles, the king issues a decree that neither man nor beast is to eat or drink, that all are to be covered with sackcloth, and that everyone is to turn from his evil way and from violence, saying, "Who can tell if God will turn and repent?"
• Verse 10: God sees that they have turned from their evil way, relents, and does not bring the calamity He had spoken of.

Key Verses

• Jonah 3:1 "And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time": the commission is given again to the prophet who had disobeyed.
• Jonah 3:5 "So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast": this verse depicts the repentance of an entire Gentile city.
• Jonah 3:10 "And God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not": this becomes the reason for Jonah's anger in Jonah 4.

Characters and Places

• Jonah: the prophet, introduced as the son of Amittai.
• The king of Nineveh: not named in the text.
• Nineveh: a great city of Assyria.

Points for Reflection

• Interpreters differ on how to reconcile the statement that God "repented" with God's immutability (Malachi 3:6). Interpreters in the Calvinist tradition generally regard it as describing God's action in human terms and explain the announcement of destruction as a warning carrying an implicit condition: it would be withdrawn upon repentance (Jeremiah 18:7–8). Other interpreters place greater emphasis on God's genuinely responding to human responses.
• The king's words, "Who can tell," resemble the language of Joel 2:14.
• Assyrian records do not attest such a mass repentance or royal decree. For this reason, some read the account as a historical event, while others read it as a didactic narrative.
• In the New Testament, Jesus states that the people of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah and uses this to rebuke the people of His own generation (Matthew 12:41; Luke 11:32).

In the Korean Church

• The chapter is frequently used as a sermon text on the themes of repentance, fasting, and the "second chance."
• The story of Jonah is also widely taught in church school.