Last week's lesson ended with Jonah in the fish's belly. Then he began to pray. In fact, he began to pray as soon as he was cast into the sea; for he says: "For You had cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all your billows and your waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple. ... When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto You, into your holy temple." (Jonah 2:3-4,7)
It often happens that some such upsetting as this is necessary to bring men to see themselves. David said, "Before I was afflict I went astray: but now have I kept your word." (Psalm 119:67)
Then he says: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn your statutes." (Psalm 119:71)
The whole of Psalm 107 is made up of instances of men being brought by dangers, afflictions, etc., to acknowledge God, and of calls upon men to "praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men." (Psalm 107:8,14,21,31)
Yet it is to be feared that, in most cases, after the Lord at such times has heard their cries and delivered them, they remember Him, at best, for only a little while, and turn again to folly. But Jonah well says: "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy." (Jonah 2:8) "Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." (Hebrews 12:11)
Jonah's repentance was genuine. He was ready to obey God, and he said, "I will sacrifice unto You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. And the Lord spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." (Jonah 2:9-10) "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid you." (Jonah 3:1)
"Preach the preaching that I bid you," is the Lord's command to every preacher. "Son of man, all my words that I shall speak unto you receive in your heart, and hear with your ears. ... and tell them, Thus says the Lord God; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear." (Ezekiel 3:10-11) "I charge you therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; Preach the word." (2 Timothy 4:1-2)
That which the Lord says is the only thing that is right. It may not always be the most pleasant thing to speak, nor the most pleasant thing for men to hear, but it is the best thing to speak, and it is the best thing for men to hear. "Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey." (Jonah 3:3)
Nineveh was built by Asshur, a grandson of Noah, (Genesis 10:11) and at this time was the greatest city in the world, containing about 600,000 people. It was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, which had spread its rule from the Tigris to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf. "And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them." (Jonah 3:4-5)
The message reached the king, and he too joined the general fear. He not only joined in it, but issued a decree that the good work should go on. "For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands." (Jonah 3:6-8)
This was genuine repentance. The Saviour declared it to be so, and that these men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment and condemn the generation to whom He preached. "The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here." (Matthew 12:41)
We have, therefore, the testimony of Jesus that the men of Nineveh repented. The word which John the Baptist, and Jesus, and Peter, and all the apostles preached, was, "Repent." (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Acts 2:38; 17:30; 26:20) And by the action of the Ninevites, it is shown that repentance is not only in word, not only in fasting and prayer, but this with turning every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands. "Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well." (Isaiah 1:16-17)
Anything short of turning from evil and of wanting to do better, it is of no avail until they really do better. And all who do so God will receive and forgive as really as He did the men of Nineveh. "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not." (Jonah 3:10) "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry." (Jonah 4:1)
Jonah thought all his credit as a prophet, or even as a man, was forfeited. He had told the people that the city should be destroyed, and now the Lord was not going to do it, and he was therefore "very angry." It seems that he had told the Lord as much before he left his own country; for now he says: "O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish." (Jonah 4:2)
From this it appears that when the Lord first told Jonah to arise and go to Nineveh and cry against it, Jonah had said to Him, in substance,
"If I go up Nineveh and tell them the city shall be overthrown, they will stop sinning and turn to the Lord, and then You will not overthrow it; and so if the city is not to be overthrown anyhow, I might as well stay in my own country, or anywhere else; therefore I will flee to Tarshish."
He did not think that if the city was to be destroyed anyway it was indeed useless for him to go. Jonah apparently cared more for his reputation than he did for all the souls in Nineveh, and thought that the Lord should turn a deaf ear to all the cries of the people, so that Jonah's word might be performed in spite of all. "So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city." (Jonah 4:5)
Then, "the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head." (Jonah 4:6) from the heat; and the next day the gourd withered, and a vehement east wind "and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted," (Jonah 4:8) and he wished that he might die, and said, "It is better for me to die than to live. ... Then said the Lord, You have had pity on the gourd, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night; And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" (Jonah 4:8,10-11)
There the record closes. Jonah made no further answer. It is queer that he could not see and rejoice in the mercy of God, in the first place; that the wicked people would not turn without warning; that unless they did turn they must perish; and that the warning alone could save them. But the Lord was patient and gentle with him, and kindly taught him the lesson which he was slow to discern. "Who is a God like unto You, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retains not His anger for ever, because He delights in mercy." (Micah 7:18)--Signs of the Times, November 5, 1885--Notes on the International Lesson, November 15--Jonah 3:1-10
A.T. Jones