The second half of the book of Jonah is similar to the first. Both halves begin with God telling Jonah to go and preach in Nineveh. Both halves go on to describe Jonah's interactions with nonbelievers from outside Israel, first with the sailors on the boat and then the citizens of Nineveh. And both halves conclude with Jonah talking to God—in the first from the belly of the fish, and in the second on the outskirts of Nineveh.
And this second half of Jonah is a second chance for Jonah. Like he had done for Abraham and Moses and David and Peter, God had given Jonah an opportunity after failure. And—at least at first glance—it does not end well. We will get to that next week.
But Jonah was in God's school, relearning his God. And in this next episode, Jonah learns that the predominant attribute of God is his loving compassion. As I've been saying throughout our time in Jonah, the prophet knew this about God in a way, but God's nature needed to seep into Jonah's. Even though God had shown him amazing grace and steadfast love in the belly of the fish, Jonah struggled to embrace God's grace and love for others. Jonah was unhitched from what he knew about the gracious, merciful, patient, and loving God—and God was doing all he could to reconnect his man (Jonah 4:2).
And this book is designed to get us to connect our lives and actions to God's nature as well. What is God like? The answer should inform the way we live. And today, in this third major movement of Jonah, we discover that God is compassionate. Jonah told God he knew of him as one who "relents from disaster," and that is precisely what God will do here (Jonah 4:2). But how does God's compassion work?
1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying,
2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”
3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth.
4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:1–4)
1. He Warns (Jonah 3:1-4)
In an episode about God's compassion, it might seem odd to consider the beginning. God sent his prophet into town to declare a (very) brief word of judgment: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown" (4). Eight words in English, but only five in Hebrew.
We immediately wonder if there was more to Jonah's message. Did he give them any additional words of hope? Did he instruct them to repent? Did he unpack his short prediction so they could know how to apply it?
The passage doesn't give us direct answers to our questions. But there are some clues that the message might have consisted of more than a mere announcement that they were doomed.
First, there is God's description of the city as an exceedingly great city (3). It is a remark about Nineveh's size, but the original language could mean a great city to God. [^1] And though many modern believers have a hard time with city culture and life, God will show Jonah that he had a special place in his heart for this large city (Jonah 4:11).
The second clue this message might have pointed to the possibility of forgiveness is the forty-day timeline Jonah gives them (4). It is not hard to imagine how someone might interpret that as a forty-day window to turn from the evil they were engaged in.
A third clue is found in the final word of the message—"overthrown" (4). Nineveh understood this as a warning, but many scholars have pointed out that this word has a dual meaning in Scripture—it can mean to be overturned in destruction or turned by repentance. And the Ninevites seemed to think there was a glimmer of hope that God had said it in this way.
The final clue I'll mention is that they eventually repented of their violence, which might indicate that Jonah specifically preached against it (8).
It's also possible they came under the conviction of the Spirit without Jonah's help, but perhaps Jonah said a bit more than is mentioned here. Either way, the emphasis is on the stark and clear message of warning.
When we think of God's compassion, this might not be the first element that comes to mind. Many think of these warnings in Scripture as threats—as if God could turn off his holiness and allow evil, sin, and guilt to somehow go unpunished if he wanted to. He cannot. His nature is to vanquish all that is broken and evil and unholy forever. His aim is to remove it—but he does not do that without warning.
Jonah's prophetic word is less like the loud threatening of a schoolyard bully and more like the warnings posted around a power plant. There is righteous power within God, and the Ninevites had been so cruel for so long that they were now going to be shocked with his judgment. But God was willing to warn them, and the warning was meant to produce repentence.
At the end of this episode, God will unleash his compassion on the Ninevites and withhold this judgment. But not before they first repented of their crimes. And for them to repent of their crimes, they needed to hear a warning judgment. We don't even know why they were so ready to hear it—some wonder if recent natural disasters or some of their spiritual practices opened them up to an oracle from a figure like Jonah—we aren't told why they responded, but we are meant to see the importance of the warning. It was step one.
This warning element is a major reason we are often shy to share the good news, the gospel, of Christ. We know it is good news because of the bad news. It is good news with a warning. Without God's salvation, we are doomed to a forever without God. It might be forty days from now, it might be forty years from now, but unless we receive Christ, judgment is coming. And this bad news is often uncomfortable for us to share, but it is part of God's compassion to tell the truth to a broken humanity.
5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water,
8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” (Jonah 3:5–9)
2. He Waits (Jonah 3:5-9)
The Anti-Jonah
So Jonah began declaring God's message, and the people of Nineveh believed God (5). It is the same way Abraham's belief was described, and he is considered the father of faith (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3). I mention this because some wonder if Nineveh's repentance was legitimate. In later years, their society reverted to its evil practices. Later Jewish prophets cried out against Nineveh when they did, so some have wondered if the revival described here was genuine. Jesus seemed to think so:
"The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here." (Luke 11:32)
And what radical repentance it was! It began with the people (5). This was not a legislated morality from the top down. They didn't have to pass laws that hindered people from doing evil. It all started with the populace before making its way up to the king/governor of Nineveh. Everyone clothed themselves with garments that symbolized mourning and contrition.
And once the king did hear about it, he issued a proclamation for everyone to stop what they were doing. He wanted everyone to call out mightily to God (8). His thought: "Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish" (9). He even made the city's livestock wear sackcloth, which was perhaps the equivalent of flying our flags at half-mast or painting our funeral cars black.
Why did they respond in this way? Perhaps, as I mentioned earlier, Jonah had said more than the words recorded in this chapter. But one thing is certain: God was moving in the people of Nineveh.
God produced this massive revival. God was, as Paul said in 2 Timothy, "granting them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 2:25). God was at work in their midst, giving them hope that he might turn from his anger. And God was waiting—at least forty days—for them to turn.
In A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, when the Ghost of Christmas Future showed Ebenezer Scrooge his lonely future, Scrooge said:
"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it thus with what you show me." [^2]
He hoped he could change course and experience a different outcome. It seems the Ninevites were hoping for the same. Fortunately for them (and us), God's nature is to respond when we repent. Notice what God said through the prophet Jeremiah:
"If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it." (Jeremiah 18:7–8, ESV)
God is saying, "Here is something unchangeable in me. I will warn, but when people repent, I respond. It is who I am." And this hope that God would reverse course drove the Ninevites to reverse their own course. As one author said, "The hearts of the violent can be overthrown by the mere possibility of God’s compassion" [^3]
But we must note two facets of their repentance. First, everyone in the story is an anti-Jonah. Consider the king. When Jonah was told to declare God's judgment in Nineveh, his first reaction was to arise, hop into a boat, get under the covers, and go to sleep. When the king heard of God's judgment, he arose, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes (6). He did the opposite of Jonah.
Now, consider the people. With only one prophet who spoke a (very) brief prophecy, they responded with zeal. When God gave Jonah (very) clear directions, Jonah did not obey God as they did. He did the opposite of the people. Nineveh and the king's obedience were a rebuke to Jonah.
It is possible this was also a rebuke to Israel. They had many prophets and an entire Bible of revelation from God, but they often wandered from him.
And perhaps the Ninevites' response is meant to sting us a little as well. We have our leather-bound Bibles, Bible applications on our phones, and more free resources to understand and apply the Bible than any generation in the history of humanity. But what are we doing with that understanding?
A Colony Of Heaven
But I also want you to notice what their repentance produced. They turned from the violence in their hands (8). This is important—Jonah preached the truth, and they responded by refusing to treat others violently any longer.
Some churches make the mistake of only emphasizing one and not the other. So some will emphasize serving the community, feeding the hungry, and sheltering the poor, while others will emphasize preaching the truth of the word. But both the preaching of the truth and the pursuit of a biblical version of justice are required. The truth of the word should lead to transformed lives that seek to transform the world.
When we live this way, we are living out our new citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20). We are operating as "a colony of heaven in a country of death."[^4]
So, as God waited, the Ninevites did what God wants every generation and people group to do—they called upon him (8). What did God do?
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. (Jonah 3:10)
3. He Responds (Jonah 3:10)
God's Nature
God noted the response of the Ninevites to Jonah's meager preaching. As they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster he said he would do (10).
Some, knowing God is immutable (or cannot change), see a problem with how God behaved here. They can't see past the anthropomorphic language—these human terms are an attempt to describe the actions of a majestic God. Some even take passages like this one and teach that God has not sovereignly set the future according to his will.
But I've already highlighted the Jeremiah 18 passage where God stated that he would not judge a nation he'd promised to judge if they repented (Jeremiah 18:7-8). This seems to be the implied nature of his judgment—it doesn't have to be!
God is not changing here; he is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). But Nineveh was changing in relation to God. Because of their repentance, they had shifted from being under God's judgment to "under God's unchanging love and forgiveness." Just as shifting from one side of a pillar to another changes your view of the pillar but does not change the pillar, so Nineveh's shift changed their experience of God, but not God.[^5]
But what this passage seems to show us is that God's overriding and primary attribute is compassion. Yes, he is righteous, so warnings of judgment must come. But when people respond to those warnings with repentance, God's compassion kicks in. It is beautiful compassion, one that dances harmoniously with his wrath inside his holiness. In our modern time, many have wanted a compassionate God who is spineless and permissive. That's not compassion; that's a jellyfish.
Juli Slattery said it well: "Instead of worshipping a God of compassion, we have made compassion a god unto itself, ignoring God’s call to righteousness and holiness. I can be moved by compassion to excuse and condone almost any sin." [^6] And people often do—even in the name of Christ—they will approve of sins God clearly denounces in his word and in the general revelation of the cosmos. But God's compassion is not an impotent weakness that settles for life as it is, but a powerful force that can transform the willing.
God Saves?
So God saved the Ninevite people because of his compassionate love. As Jonah confessed during his prayer in the belly of the fish, "salvation belongs to the Lord" (Jonah 2:9). And God saves because he is driven by compassion.
But some might object that all God did in this episode was save the Ninevite people from himself. He sent his prophet with a message of doom, and God saved the city from that doom when they repented. So God was only saving them from himself.
In one sense, the assessment that God was only saving Nineveh from himself is untrue. When God pronounces judgment as he did through Jonah, it is a declaration of what sin is already doing to people. God would overthrow them, which is exactly what their violence was already doing from within. There is no way that Assyrian society could have endured for many more generations—their manner of life was so violent and brutal it was killing them slowly. Their bad way of life was destroying them already, and God's forty-day timeline merely expedited the process.
But, in another sense, the assessment that God saved Nineveh from himself is true. As a holy and righteous God, God is rightly angered by humanity's sinful actions. The Bible teaches that his slow and longsuffering anger is stored up against all evil. He will destroy it all because he is—in a pure and righteous way—angry about it. So, in one sense, God saved Nineveh from himself when, in his compassion, he relented from his judgment.
And God does the same today. Cultures and societies have chosen ways of living that are slowly killing those cultures and societies. Just as ancient Rome died from within, so modern societies are dying a long death because of the philosophies on which they are built. This long death is God's judgment. As Paul wrote, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people" (Romans 1:18a, NIV). It is being revealed. Look around; a society without God eventually burns from within.
But God does more than institute this long death. The compassionate forgiveness of God is available to us because he sent his Son to die in our place. The Son gladly embraced this mission, and because he died for our sins while he himself was completely sinless, and because he rose from the dead, all who believe in him can be cleansed by him. God came to die, not for the good people, the best people, or the perfect people, but for us. If you trust Christ, the Father will see you as he sees himself.
In the book and movie The Green Mile, John Coffey is a wrongfully accused inmate on death row. [^7] But he has a supernatural gift. Through human contact, he can take in the sickness or disease of others by transferring it to someone else or taking it on himself, which he often does. To take it on himself causes him to convulse in great pain. He can help, but not without great personal cost.
Well, a greater than John Coffey has come. He rescued us through great personal cost. God's compassion cost him dearly. Because he is holy, he could not merely dismiss our guilt. If he did that, he would be in denial of his very nature—he cannot let evil and sin exist unjudged. But his compassion drove him to judge it by consuming it in his own body on the cross. There was no one else to pass the judgment to—it was either himself or us. And he chose himself.
[^1]: Bruckner, James. 2010. Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. Kentwood, MI: Zondervan.
[^2]: Dickens, Charles. 2009. A Christmas Carol. London, England: Vintage Classics.
[^3]: Bruckner, James. 2010. Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. Kentwood, MI: Zondervan.
[^4]: Peterson, Eugene H. 2013. Practice Resurrection. Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans Publishing.
[^5]: Geisler, Norman L., and Douglas E. Potter. 2016. A Popular Survey of Bible Doctrine. North Charleston, SC: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
[^6]: Slattery, Juli. 2018. Rethinking Sexuality: God’s Design and Why It Matters. Sisters, OR: Multnomah Press.
[^7]: King, Stephen. 1996. The Green Mile. Demco Media.