Jonah's Predicament

Believer’s Bible Commentary Introduction

“The book is unique in that it is more concerned with the prophet himself than with his prophecy. The condition of his soul, and God’s loving discipline of him, instruct and humble the reader.”

—George Williams

Jonah/Zephaniah Study Outline

Although only forty-eight verses long, the book of Jonah is packed with spiritual truths. Among the major themes found in the book are:

• The sovereignty of God. By working out His plans in spite of Jonah’s failures, God shows Himself to be the sovereign Lord of history.

• Mercy and grace. God is compassionate to whomever He wants to be.

• Responsibility. Simple head knowledge of God is insufficient. All who are given a task by God have a responsibility to perform that task to the best of their ability and devotion.

• Servanthood. By disobeying God’s call, Jonah provides a negative example of servanthood.

• Repentance. God’s prophets did not simply hawk divine judgment but spoke to encourage people to repent.

• Missions. God wants to reach out to people everywhere. Human narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and apathy will not stand in His way.

A New Commentary on Holy Scripture: Including the Apocrypha (Introduction and Notes)

[The Book of Jonah serves] to enlarge the current conception of God, and to revive in Israel a sense of responsibility towards the world outside. Jehovah is universal Lord; no nation, however heathen or remote, lies beyond His care; He is ready to welcome their repentance; and upon Israel He bestows, not His exclusive favour, but the task of furthering His purpose for all mankind. Even a prophet has to be corrected in order that Jehovah’s will may be carried out; cf. the similar cases in Nu 20:10–13, 22; 1 K 13, 19:4 ff.; Jer 14:10 ff,. 15:10–21, 20:14–18.

Themes and Literary Structure

. . . the pervading theme in Jonah is God’s gracious extension of His mercy to gentile nations

other important themes are also evident.

The sovereignty of God over life, elements, and circumstances is clearly stressed in the descriptions of the storm (1:4), the fish (1:17), the plant (4:6), and the worm (4:7).

[The] challenge the nationalistic pride of Israel and her failure to comprehend the nature of her missionary task and the purpose of God to bestow his loving kindness upon all peoples.

The change in Jonah’s own attitude is symbolic of the change God required of Israel as a whole.

- Nelson’s Complete Book of Bible Maps and Charts, Revised (Themes and Literary Structure)

There is every reason to believe that this book was written by Jonah himself. It gives an account of

(1) his divine commission to go to Nineveh, his disobedience, and the punishment following ( 1:1-17);

(2) his prayer and miraculous deliverance ( 1:17-2:10);

(3) the second commission given to him, and his prompt obedience in delivering the message from God, and its results in the repentance of the Ninevites, and God's long-sparing mercy toward them (ch. 3);

(4) Jonah's displeasure at God's merciful decision, and the rebuke tendered to the impatient prophet (ch. 4). Nineveh was spared after Jonah's mission for more than a century.

—Eaton’s Bible Dict., Pocket Bible, Laridian.

Jonah’s First Commission (1:1 - 2:10)

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi Chapter 1

Modern research into the cuneiform inscriptions confirms the Scripture account, that Babylon was founded earlier than Nineveh, and that both cities were built by descendants of Ham, encroaching on the territory assigned by God, in his divinely-appointed distribution of races, to Shem (Gen. 10:5, 6, 8, 10, 25,

Jonah/Zephaniah Big Steps in the Wrong Direction (vv. 1–3)

Nineveh, located above the upper Tigris River, was some five hundred miles northeast of Jonah’s hometown, Gath-hepher in Galilee (cp. 2 Kings 14:25). Joppa, the Mediterranean port to which he fled, lay to the southwest. The ruins of ancient Nineveh are near modern Mosul in Iraq, while ancient Joppa lies within the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi (Chapter 1)

Nineveh—east of the Tigris, opposite the modern Mosul. The only case of a prophet being sent to the heathen. Jonah, however, is sent to Nineveh, not solely for Nineveh’s good, but also to shame Israel, by the fact of a heathen city repenting at the first preaching of a single stranger, Jonah, whereas God’s people will not repent, though preached to by their many national prophets whom God hath sent, rising early and sending them.

God Calls & Joshua Deserts (1:1-3)

Jonah goes AWOL

Jonah/Zephaniah (Big Steps in the Wrong Direction (vv. 1–3))

God also called Jonah to “arise,” leading us as readers to expect only the best from him. Instead Jonah “went down,” first to Joppa and then onto a ship heading west (1:3). By arising to “go down,” Jonah not only disobeyed God but also sought to renounce his divine call.

What happens when a soldier deserts in battle?

Jonah/Zephaniah Big Steps in the Wrong Direction (vv. 1–3)

Jonah, God’s servant and prophet, renounced his divine call and fled. This was tantamount to open rebellion against God. Would suchblatant rebellion be punished, or would God be patient with His recalcitrant prophet?

He may be court marshaled, shot, punished & given a dishonorable discharge ??

God’s Judgment on Jonah (1:4-17)

How does God handle Jonah?

Jonah’s Prayer (2:1-9)

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 2

the belly of Sheol A figure of speech referring to the depths of the ocean. The chaos of the sea was associated with drawing closer to the underworld or (she’ol in Hebrew; see note on Gen 37:35).

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi (Chapter 2)

But ‘what looked like death became safe keeping’ (Jerome).

out of the belly of hell — Sheol, the unseen world, which the belly of the fish resembled.

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi (Chapter 2)

Remarks.—1. The time of Jonah’s prayer was when the three days and nights were all but passed. Feeling himself still safe, though entombed so long in the fish’s belly, he takes his preservation so far as an earnest of God’s purpose to grant him final deliverance. Secure that God, who had done so much, would fulfil the rest, he offers thanksgiving as though his prayers were heard, and he already delivered from his living sepulchre. A sense of God’s favour restored to us, notwithstanding our transgressions, opens in thanksgivings the heart which had been closed with the fear of His anger. 2. It is a sure mark of grace when a man can pray unto the Lord as “his God.” Jonah felt God to be such to him, as manifested by His inspirations, His chastisements, and now, lastly, by His mercy. Therefore he finds cause for thanks to his God, . . .

God Delivered Jonah (2:10)

The New King James Version (Chapter 2)

the LORD spoke to the fish

How do you think God spoke to the fish?

Where do you Jonah was put ashore?

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi (Chapter 2)

dry land—probably on the coast of Palestine.

God’s Second Commission to Jonah (3:1 - 4:11)

Jonah’s Obedience to the 2nd Call (3:1-4)

?How soon did Jonah receive the 2nd commission? Where was he?

A. We don’t know but the implication is that it was right away. Still on the shore? But if later, maybe back home?

Faithlife Study Bible (Chapter 3)

The city is described as great (as in 1:2)—a common mark of exaggeration (hyperbole) in Jonah with the great wind (1:4), the great storm (1:12), and the great fish (1:17).

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi (Chapter 3)

Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. The commission, given indefinitely at his setting out, assumes now, on his arrival, a definite form, and that severer than before. It is no longer “a cry against” the wickedness of Nineveh, but an announcement of its ruin in forty days. Cf. ch. 1:2, “Cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me.”

forty days -This number is in Scripture associated often with humiliation.

It was for forty days that Moses, Elijah, and Christ fasted.

Forty years elapsed from the beginning of Christ’s ministry (the antitype to Jonah’s) to the destruction of Jerusalem.

The more definite form of the denunciation implies that Nineveh has now almost filled up the measure of her guilt.

The change in the form which the Ninevites would hear from Jonah, on anxious inquiry into his history, would alarm them the more, as implying the increasing nearness and certainty of their doom, and would at the same time reprove Jonah for his previous guilt in delaying to warn them. The very solitariness of the one message, announced by the stranger thus suddenly appearing among them, would impress them with the more awe. Learning that, so far from lightly prophesying evil against them, he had shrunk from announcing a less severe denunciation, and therefore had been cast into the deep and only saved by miracle, they felt how imminent was their peril, threatened as they now were by a prophet whose fortunes were so closely bound up with theirs. In Noah’s days 120 years of warning were given to men, yet they repented not till the flood came, and it was too late. But in the case of Nineveh God granted a double mercy: first, that its people should repent immediately after threatening; second, that pardon should immediately follow their repentance. ‘The conversion of a whole people so immediately was a miracle of grace, exceeding even the miracle of nature wrought in Jonah’s entombment in and resurrection from the great fish. Of course, all were not savingly converted; but all for the time sincerely humbled themselves for their sins.

— A. R. Fausset, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments: Jeremiah–Malachi, vol. IV 579–580.

Faithlife Study Bible (Chapter 3)

proclaim to it

If Jonah delivered a literal message to Nineveh, he probably would have spoken Aramaic, a common language used in trade and diplomacy in the ancient Near East. Isaiah 36:11 indicates that the educated elite in Israel and Judah could speak Aramaic in the late eighth century BC.

Results of Jonah’s Obedience (3:5-10)

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi Chapter 3

The very solitariness of the one message, announced by the stranger thus suddenly appearing among them, would impress them with the more awe. Learning that, so far from lightly prophesying evil against them, he had shrunk from announcing a less severe denunciation, and therefore had been cast into the deep and only saved by miracle, they felt how imminent was their peril, threatened as they now were by a prophet whose fortunes were so closely bound up with theirs.

Jonah Preaches God’s Message of Impending Judgement

The People of Nineveh Repent

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi Chapter 3

The very solitariness of the one message, announced by the stranger thus suddenly appearing among them, would impress them with the more awe. Learning that, so far from lightly prophesying evil against them, he had shrunk from announcing a less severe denunciation, and therefore had been cast into the deep and only saved by miracle, they felt how imminent was their peril, threatened as they now were by a prophet whose fortunes were so closely bound up with theirs.

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi Chapter 3

However they came to know Jonah’s history, he was a sign to them at once of wrath, if they should disregard the message from God, and mercy, if they should regard it

3:5

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi Chapter 3

So fasting and clothing in sackcloth were customary in humiliation. Cf. in Ahab’s case, parallel to that of Nineveh, both receiving a respite on penitence (1 Ki. 21:27; 20:31, 32; Joel 1:13)

3:6

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi (Chapter 3)

instead of being jealous at the initiative having been taken by the people,[the king] at once humbled himself after his people’s example

3:7

3:10a Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way

3:10b God relented

Jonah’s 2nd Recorded Prayer (4:1-3)

With the Word Bible Commentary Jonah 4

JONAH 4

If God wanted only to save the city of Nineveh, the book would have ended at chapter 3. But there was still more work to do, for God wanted to save His servant from himself. Jonah was an angry man (vv. 1, 2, 4, 9) who wanted to see Nineveh destroyed. Like the elder brother, he stayed outside and vented his bitterness (Luke 15:25–32).

The basic problem was that Jonah was not completely yielded to God. His mind knew God’s truth, and his will obeyed God’s orders; but he did not do the will of God “from the heart” (Eph. 6:6). He obeyed only because he was afraid of what God might do to him. His was not a ministry of love.

When we are angry with God, everything in life gets out of perspective, and we say and do selfish things. Things become more important than people, and comfort more important than ministry.

But God is long-suffering and tenderly deals with us to bring us to Himself. It is essential in Christian service to be happy with the will of God. Each of us should be able to say, “I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 4

4:1–11 The final scene finds Jonah sulking outside of Nineveh, angry over God’s compassion on the city following the universal repentance of man and beast (3:7–10). Jonah appears to be waiting in hope that God will destroy the city (v. 5)

Why was Jonah so displeased and angry?

Believer’s Bible Commentary A. Jonah’s Petulant Prayer (4:1–3)

Jonah was angry that Israel’s Gentile enemies had been spared.

Believer’s Bible Commentary A. Jonah’s Petulant Prayer (4:1–3)

Most of Israel’s enemies were severely dealt with by God, and the people of Israel expected their enemies’ destruction—not their salvation. Even though Jonah, as a preacher, understood that God was gracious and merciful, he also knew that countries like Assyria were usually reserved for annihilation by God. For God to show mercy to Assyria (one of the worst of Israel’s enemies in the OT economy) seemed totally wrong to the average Israelite.

4:3 or 11?

In response to the likely scene of commotion and ridicule around the disciples inability to cast out the demon and possessing a young boy, “. . . Jesus answered and said, 'O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.’ ” (

Luke 9:41)

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi Chapter 4

Jonah’s repugnance to the mission to Nineveh was probably mistaken patriotism, which set the welfare of his country above the will of God. It is true, Ivalush or Pul, who, it is thought, was then reigning at Nineveh, was destined soon to be the first punisher of Israel under Menahem

Jonah/Zephaniah Big Steps in the Wrong Direction (vv. 1–3)

Jonah opens with God’s call to speak out against human wickedness (1:1–2). God told Jonah to cry out against Nineveh, the mighty Assyrian city

What was the “wickedness” of Ninevah

Jonah/Zephaniah An Encounter with Some Sailors (1:1–16)

According to 2 Kings 14:25, Jonah the son of Amittai (1:1) was both a “servant” and a “prophet” of God who ministered during the reign of Jeroboam king of Israel. This Jeroboam, the second of Israel’s kings with that name (2 Kings 14:23–29; cp. 1 Kings 12:25–14:20), reigned from 781 to 753 B.C. During his reign ancient Israel experienced a time of political and economic revival as the fortunes of the once mighty Assyrian Empire declined. Jeroboam was able to expand Israel’s borders “from the entrance of Hamath” (in modern northern Syria) “to the Sea of the Arabah” (the Dead Sea). Israel’s northern border thus extended as far as it had been under Solomon (cp. 1 Kings 8:65).

Do you think he expected them to repent?

Was he waiting and hoping God would destroy them? Even if he preached with the wrong motive would God honor His Word?

Phil. 1:15-17 15 Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: 16 The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; 17 but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Php 1:15–18.

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi (Chapter 4)

A lesson to us that if we could in any particular alter the plan of Providence, it would not be for the better, but for the worse (Fairbairn

God Rebukes Jonah (4:4-11)

A. R. Fausset, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi (Chapter 1)

The dove symbolizes mourning love. He desired to be known among his people as one who lovingly mourned over them. Even his unloving zeal against Nineveh, which was to be the destroyer of his people, was due to the intense love he bore to his own people. His truthfulness in recording so faithfully all that was unfavourable of himself shows that he was truly the son of Amittai in the sense of that name. His faith was strong; but his zeal, like that of James and John, against the adversaries of his people, was in a wrong spirit. (Luke 9:51–56; see note, ch. 4:2, end).

4:6 God prepared a plant - Just as He had prepared the “great fish!”

Believer’s Bible Commentary

The Lord prepared four things for the unsubmissive prophet: (1) a great fish (1:17); (2) the plant (4:6); (3) a worm (4:7); and (4) a vehement east wind (4:8).

Faithlife Study Bible (Chapter 4)

4:6 a plant Possibly the castor oil plant, a gourd that grows quite rapidly in hot climates. This plant grows to a height of 12 feet and has large leaves. For the term yeman, “appointed,” see note on Jonah 1:17.

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 4

To teach Jonah a lesson, God sends a leafy plant to provide him with shade but then destroys the plant by means of a worm. Jonah’s grief-filled reaction to the loss of the plant reflects how he should have responded to the very idea that the entire population of a city was about to be wiped out by God’s wrath

4:9

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 4

he asked that he could die The third time Jonah longs for death (see 1:12; 4:3).

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi Chapter 3

The brute creatures share in the evil effects of man’s sin (ch. 4:11, “Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand … and also much cattle;” Rom. 8:20, 22): so they here, according to Eastern custom, are made to share in man’s outward indications of humiliation

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 4

do not know right from left This phrase may be a figure of speech for those who have no knowledge of God, indicating spiritual and moral ignorance.

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi Chapter 3

God’s “tender mercies are over all His works” (Ps. 145:9); God “preserves man and beast” (Ps. 36:6)

Principles to Take Away

With the Word Bible Commentary Jonah 3

God wants to work in us as well as through us.

Believer’s Bible Commentary D. Object Lesson on God’s Sovereign Mercy (4:6–11)

The lesson of this little book is that God loves the world—not just the Jews, but the Gentiles as well.

Jonah/Zephaniah An Encounter with God (4:1–11)

Both Jonah and Jesus preached that God’s plan of salvation included the Gentiles. But both ministered among a people who believed that God was interested only in the Jews (or the Israelites).

Jonah/Zephaniah An Encounter with God (4:1–11)

God then drove to the point. Jonah had been upset over something as insignificant as a single plant; should not he also be concerned over the eternal destiny of 120,000 people who, without knowledge of God, “cannot discern between their right hand and their left?” (v. 11, NKJV). Jonah’s priorities were tragically wrong. The object lesson pointed to God’s love and compassion for everyone.

The book of Jonah ends with God’s third question of the chapter. Jonah’s answer is not given, although it is predictable in light of the bitterness of his previous answers (cp. 4:4, 9). In the end the prophet apparently still ran from God, not yet wanting (or able) to come to terms with Someone who was much bigger than his preconceived notions could ever have imagined. God’s final question waits to be answered by readers of the book who dare to see themselves as Jonah and who complete Jonah’s story in their own journeys through life.

A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. IV: Jeremiah–Malachi (Chapter 3)

Remarks.—

1. An interval seems to have elapsed before Jonah was sent a second time to Nineveh. The gracious purpose of God in allowing this interval was probably to give time for the news of the miracle concerning Jonah to reach Nineveh, whose fate was so intimately connected with that of the prophet.

2. Jonah, after such contumacy, might have seemed unworthy to be again accredited as the Divine messenger. But the severe discipline which he had undergone was the preparation designed by God to adapt him for a high trust: and the same Divine grace which not only restored Peter after his grievous fall, but also entrusted him with the charge to feed Christ’s sheep and lambs, qualified Jonah, too, after his restoration, for fulfilling aright the difficult and responsible mission to heathen Nineveh. So entirely can God transform vessels of filthy clay into vessels of honour to His glory. 3. As Jonah previously “arose and fled,” so now “he arose and went.” The truly converted ought to show, at least, as much energy in serving God as they had shown before in serving their own self-will. The same Saul of Tarsus, who was “exceeding zealous of the traditions of his fathers” (Gal. 1:14), was, when converted, the self-denying, indefatigable apostle of the Gentiles, Paul. 4 What encouragement to penitents the case of Nineveh holds out! In the forty days’ respite, before the execution of the judgment threatened against that guilty city, the repentance of its citizens averted the descending stroke. 5. One day’s preaching of God’s minister sufficed to bring a whole people to their knees. The simple cry, awfully impressive in its simplicity, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” was blessed by the all-conquering grace of God to their conversion. How the penitent Ninevites will condemn in the judgment those of us who, not merely for one day, but for all our days, have been privileged with the far-clearer Gospel message, and yet remain impenitent and unbelieving! 6. Jonah was in his own person, as Jesus saith, “a sign unto the Ninevites.” His history preached more powerfully than even his awfully monotonous dirge-like cry. If God took vengeance for his neglect of the Divine call, so surely, thought they, will He take vengeance on us, if we heed not his solemn threat. On the other hand, the fact of God’s sending a messenger to them at all, and not destroying them at once, without warning, gave them a gleam of hope. The particular messenger, too, whom God selected for the purpose, who had suffered so much, and who had experienced so miraculous a deliverance, in order to constrain him to go to Nineveh, gave its citizens additional encouragement to sue for mercy. 7. The emergency was so urgent, and the time for repentance so short, that the people of themselves, “from the greatest of them even to the least of them,” without waiting for their king’s command, proclaimed a fast. As, when a large building is on fire, men do not stand on etiquette, but instantly try with all their might to extinguish the flames, so the men of Nineveh, aware that much time would be lost if they waited to comply with the ceremonial customary in approaching an eastern king, and far removed, as many of them were, in the vast city, from the quarter where the palace stood, immediately adopted the only measures likely to obtain deliverance from the impending ruin. The king, too, in the general danger, was not ashamed to follow the example of his subjects. The greatest potentate, as he then was, in the world, he instantly abased himself before the King of kings. Laying aside his gorgeous robe of state, he wrapped himself in sackcloth, and exchanges his royal throne for a seat in ashes, outdoing even his people in the depth of his humiliation. As it has been well said, ‘The king had conquered enemies by valour: he conquered God by humility’ (Maximus, in Pusey). How his zeal, and that of his people, rebukes the half-heartedness of faith and penitence on the part of most of us! Many wish so to repent as not to part with their favourite pleasures, luxuries, and worldly vanities. That penitence is little worth which is willing to make no sacrifices. The true penitent, in times of fasting and mourning, seeks that the outward man may reflect the sincere repentance of the inward man. 8. The King of Nineveh urged all his people to “cry mightily unto God” (v. 8). Faint prayer pierces not beyond the clouds. It is ‘mighty crying,’ as that of men thoroughly in earnest, which prevails. It is the spiritually violent that take heaven by a holy force (Matt. 11:12). 9. Fasting and praying, in order to be acceptable before God, must be accompanied with a renunciation of all sin. If we regard iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us (Ps. 66:18). Prayer without the sincere purpose of reformation would be hypocrisy. Reformation without prayer would be presumption. Whilst we “turn every one from his evil way,” and from whatever sin there has been “in our hands,” let us never forget that God alone, by His Spirit, can turn us, if we are truly to be turned. 10. Besides our general and common sins, each one has his own besetting sin. This, in particular, he must put away, in order that his repentance may be a sincere one. Repentance hates and quits the sins of which it repents. To keep the gain of sin is to incur the loss of heaven. Restoration of unjust gains must be made at all costs: as the Hebrews used to say, ‘He who hath used a stolen beam in building a great tower, must pull down the whole tower, in order to restore the beam’ (Kimchi). 11. The King of the Ninevites used the very same plea in addressing them as that which the prophet Joel suggested to the people of Judah, “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?” (v. 9.) The thought must therefore have been suggested to the King of Nineveh by the same gracious Spirit who inspired Joel. None ever venture all on God’s mercy and are disappointed. If, on a vague possibility of mercy, the Ninevites were so vehemently earnest in suing for it, how much more reason have we, Christians, to come boldly, yet humbly, to the throne of grace, in the assurance that our prayers are not one of them lost, because Jesus “was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification”! (Rom. 4:25.) The well-grounded hope of pardon and peace for believing penitents is the best encouragement for all to seek in order that they may find. So free and full are all the promises of God in Christ, that none need despair. 12. It is not said that God looked to their outward fasting, however proper, as an indication of mourning: this may be; but “God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way.” We must not only fast for sin, but fast from sin. A changed life, flowing from a changed heart, is what God regards. 13. God’s unchangeable principle is to deal with men according to their doings. Righteousness is like the pole, to which the magnetic needle always points. When it seems to shift from side to side, the change that seems to be in its direction is really not in it, but in the direction of the ship in which it is. When God repents of the evil (v. 10) that He said He would do unto men, the change is not really in Him, but in them. Were He not to change His mode of dealing with them, when they have changed their dealings towards Him, He would be really changing from His own immutable righteousness. His threats are expressed absolutely, without the condition being expressed, in order to mark the absolute inviolability of His principle that sin unpardoned brings inevitable punishment, and that the sinner may be the more roused to flee from the wrath to come. To us there is no certainty of life for a day, whereas the Ninevites had a forty days’ respite ensured to them. How alarmed sinners would be if they were sure that they had not forty days to live! Will any, then, remain impenitent, though he is not sure of living a single day?

A. R. Fausset, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments: Jeremiah–Malachi, vol. IV (London; Glasgow: William Collins, Sons, & Company, Limited, n.d.), 581–582.

Jonah/Zephaniah Questions to Guide Your Study

QUESTIONS TO GUIDE YOUR STUDY

1. In what ways does the conversion of the sailors in chapter 1 prefigure the conversion of the Ninevites in chapter 3?

2. When Jonah objected to God’s gracious protection of Nineveh, God put Jonah in Nineveh’s place. How? What was this intended to teach Jonah?

3. How does God’s justice fit with His compassion?

4. With whom in the story of Jonah do you identify the most? Why?

Perhaps the biggest miracle in the book of Jonah is not that the fish was able to save Jonah from drowning nor that a city as evil as Nineveh could repent and turn to God. Rather, the biggest miracle is that God wants to save everybody—even someone as obstinate and self-righteous as Jonah.