Jonah 3.4-When Jonah Began To Enter Nineveh, He Announced That At The End Of Forty Days, It Would Be Overthrown
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday November 9, 2010
Jonah: Jonah 3:4-When Jonah Began To Enter Nineveh, He Announced That At The End Of Forty Days, It Would Be Overthrown
Lesson # 39
Please turn in your Bibles to Jonah 3:1.
This evening we will note Jonah 3:4, which records that when Jonah began to enter Nineveh, he announced that the city would be overthrown at the end of forty days.
Jonah 3:1, “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.’ 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. 4 Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’” (NASU)
Verse 4 is a temporal clause joining two actions performed by Jonah, namely, it joins Jonah entering the city of Nineveh with his proclamation to the city that it would be overthrown at the end of forty days.
“Began” is the third person masculine singular hiphil active imperfect form of the verb ḥā∙lǎl (חָלַל) (khaw-lal), which is used in a temporal sense meaning “to begin” in the sense of initiating a process, which in our context, is the prophet Jonah proclaiming that Nineveh would be overthrown at the end of forty days.
This verb is not just speaking of the moment Jonah entered the city of Nineveh rather it refers to his entire first day of walking through the city and proclaiming his message from the Lord.
“To go through the city” is composed of the preposition le (לְ) (lamed), “to” and the qal active infinitive construct form of the verb bô(ʾ) (בֹּוא) (bow), “go” and the preposition be (בְּ) (beth), “through” and the articular feminine singular form of the noun îr (עִיר) (aw-yar), “the city.”
The verb bô(ʾ) means “to enter” and is used with Jonah as its subject indicating that when Jonah began to “enter” the city of Nineveh, he proclaimed that the city would be overthrown at the end of forty days.
Like the verb ḥā∙lǎl, this verb does not refer to the moment Jonah entered the city of Nineveh but rather it refers to his entire first day of walking through the city, which is indicated by the expression that follows it “one day’s walk.”
The preposition be, “through” is used with the verb bô(ʾ), which means “to enter” indicating that the preposition means “into.”
This indicates that when Jonah began to enter into Nineveh, he proclaimed that the city would be overthrown by God at the end of forty days.
The ESV, NIV and NET all interpret the preposition in Jonah 3:4 this way.
“One day’s walk” refers to Jonah’s entire first day of walking through the city, which would include meetings with the city’s officials including the presentation of gifts to the city’s dignitaries as Stuart points out.
Many scholars object to the historical reliability of this story because of the alleged language barrier between the Assyrians and Israel’s prophet Jonah indicting the unlikelihood that Jonah could communicate to the Ninevites.
However, if an Assyrian official could speak to the populace of Jerusalem in Hebrew in 701 b.c. (2 Kgs 18:26–28), there is no reason to doubt that a Hebrew prophet could speak to the populace of Nineveh in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the day, fifty years earlier. (The New American Commentary: Amos, Obadiah, Jonah; page 258)
Ezekiel 3:4-7 implies that Israel’s neighbors would listen to an Israeli prophet if he was sent to one of them.
Jonah 3:4, “Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’” (NASU)
The statement “yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown” is composed of five words in the Hebrew.
Undoubtedly, this short message was repeated over and over by Jonah.
The message gives no reason for the destruction.
However, the repentance by the Ninevites indicates that their collective conscience convicted them, not to mention the Holy Spirit as well.
There was no explicit call for repentance.
However, the fact that the message declared there would be an interval of forty days before the city was overthrown implied a call for repentance on the part of the Ninevites.
If the Lord wanted to destroy the city, He did not need to have Jonah issue this proclamation to the citizens of Nineveh.
So it was assumed by the audience that the Lord wanted the citizens of this wicked city to repent from their sinful conduct.
Therefore, this proclamation from the Lord delivered by Jonah to the Ninevites was taken by the Ninevites as an invitation to repentance.
Thus, this proclamation in Jonah 3:4 is not a prophecy but rather a warning thus refuting those who contend that this was a false prediction.
It was a warning implying the condition of repentance.
The book of Jonah does not say that this is a prophecy.
Jeremiah 18:7-8 helps us to understand what was taking place in Jonah 3:4.
Jeremiah 18:7, “There are times, Jeremiah, when I threaten to uproot, tear down, and destroy a nation or kingdom. But if that nation I threatened stops doing wrong, I will cancel the destruction I intended to do to it.” (NET)
Jonah 3:4, “Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’” (NASU)
“Yet” is the adverb ʿôḏ (עֹוד) (ode), which denotes limited temporal continuation (BDB 728 s.v. עוֹד 1.a; Gen 29:7; Isa 10:32)” and means “at the end of” as indicated by the expression “forty days” (NET Bible).
Some translate the word “yet” thus making the statement “yet in forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown.”
Either way, both interpretations indicate an interval of time before a future event.
The forty days would allow time for repentance, which is exactly how the Ninevites would understand the proclamation since if God simply wanted to destroy the city, He would not have had Jonah issue this proclamation.
“Forty days” refers to a specific period of forty days in which the Ninevites can repent and if not, the city would be overthrown.
The number forty in Scripture is used in relation to testing.
This is how it is used in Genesis 7:17 in relation to the flood in the days of Noah and is used of Moses on Mount Sinai in Exodus 24:18.
In 1 Kings 19:8, Elijah traveled forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb.
The Lord was in the desert being tempted by Satan forty days in Matthew 4:2.
“Will be overthrown” is the feminine singular niphal passive participle form of the verb hā∙p̄ǎḵ (הָפַךְ) (haw-fak), which is ambiguous since it can signify “judgment, a turning upside down, a reversal, a change, a deposing of royalty, or a change of heart.”
Therefore, Jonah’s message from the Lord can be interpreted by the Ninevites as “at the end of the forty days Nineveh will be destroyed” or “at the end of the forty days Nineveh will have a change of heart.”
This ambiguity is indicated by the fact that the Lord said He would do this at the end of forty days, which as we noted left room open for repentance.
If the Lord was determined to destroy the city, He would not have given the Ninevites a warning.
The Lord didn’t need forty days to muster up the power and resources to destroy the city since He could do it immediately.
So the Lord told Jonah that Nineveh would be changed, turned upside down but whether for good or evil, he did not know and neither did the Ninevites, which adds to the irony of the book of Jonah.
In Jonah 1:2, the Lord told Jonah to announce judgment against it but the ambiguity of hā∙p̄ǎḵ in Jonah 3:4 indicates that the Lord is attempting to give Jonah a little more information than he would like.
The Lord intends to judge the city of Nineveh if they don’t repent and if they do repent, He will relent, which of course, Jonah did not want.
Jonah forgot that he benefited from this aspect of the Lord’s character and nature and grace policy.
Undoubtedly, based upon Jonah’s reaction to Nineveh’s repentance as recorded in Jonah 4:2-3, Jonah felt that he was delivering a message of doom to the Ninevites but the Lord had other plans in that He intended to overthrow the city in the sense of giving them a change of heart.
So the verb means that Nineveh was going to be overturned, either in the sense of being destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah or have a change of heart by discontinuing their sinful conduct as a nation.
The graciousness of the Lord in forgiving sin and the compassion of the Lord are the glory of God, which the Lord revealed to Moses in Exodus 33:18-19 and 34:5-7.
Here in dealing with the Ninevites, the Lord had a perfect opportunity to express His glory.
