Jonah 3 commentary

God employs Jonah again in his service. His making use of us is an evidence of his being at peace with us. Jonah was not disobedient, as he had been. He neither endeavoured to avoid hearing the command, nor declined to obey it. See here the nature of repentance; it is the change of our mind and way, and a return to our work and duty. Also, the benefit of affliction; it brings those back to their place who had deserted it. See the power of Divine grace, for affliction of itself would rather drive men from God, than draw them to him. God's servants must go where he sends them, come when he calls them, and do what he bids them; we must do whatever the word of the Lord commands. Jonah faithfully and boldly delivered his errand. Whether Jonah said more, to show the anger of God against them, or whether he only repeated these words again and again, is not certain, but this was the purport of his message. Forty days is a long time for a righteous God to delay judgments, yet it is but a little time for an unrighteous people to repent and reform in. And should it not awaken us to get ready for death, to consider that we cannot be so sure that we shall live forty days, as Nineveh then was that it should stand forty days? We should be alarmed if we were sure not to live a month, yet we are careless though we are not sure to live a day.

There was a wonder of Divine grace in the repentance and reformation of Nineveh. It condemns the men of the gospel generation, Mt 12:41. A very small degree of light may convince men that humbling themselves before God, confessing their sins with prayer, and turning from sin, are means of escaping wrath and obtaining mercy. The people followed the example of the king. It became a national act, and it was necessary it should be so, when it was to prevent a national ruin. Let even the brute creatures' cries and moans for want of food remind their owners to cry to God. In prayer we must cry mightily, with fixedness of thought, firmness of faith, and devout affections. It concerns us in prayer to stir up all that is within us. It is not enough to fast for sin, but we must fast from sin; and, in order to the success of our prayers, we must no more regard iniquity in our hearts, Ps 66:18. The work of a fast-day is not done with the day. The Ninevites hoped that God would turn from his fierce anger; and that thus their ruin would be prevented. They could not be so confident of finding mercy upon their repentance, as we may be, who have the death and merits of Christ, to which we may trust for pardon upon repentance. They dared not presume, but they did not despair. Hope of mercy is the great encouragement to repentance and reformation. Let us boldly cast ourselves down at the footstool of free grace, and God will look upon us with compassion. God sees who turn from their evil ways, and who do not. Thus he spared Nineveh. We read of no sacrifices offered to God to make atonement for sin; but a broken and a contrite heart, such as the Ninevites then had, he will not despise.

There is here set before us a remarkable proof of God’s grace, — that he was pleased to bestow on Jonah his former dignity and honor. He was indeed unworthy of the common light, but God not only restored him to life, but favored him again with the office and honor of a prophet. This, as I have said, Jonah obtained through the wonderful and singular favor of God. As he had previously fled, and by disobedience deprived himself in a manner of all God’s favor, the recovery of his prophetic office was certainly not obtained through his own merit.

It must, in the first place, be observed, that this phrase, The word of Jehovah came the second time, ought to be noticed; for the word of God comes to men in different ways. God indeed addresses each of us individually; but he spoke to his Prophets in a special manner; for he designed them to be witnesses and heralds of his will. Hence, whenever God sets a man in some peculiar office, his word is said to come to him: as the word of God is addressed to magistrates because they are commanded to exercise the power committed to them; so also the word of God ever came to the Prophets, because it was not lawful for them to thrust in themselves without being called.

The command now follows, Arise, go to Nineveh, to that great city, and preach there the preaching which I command thee. Literally, “And proclaim to or against her the proclamation which I declare to thee.” The Septuagint is, “Και κηρυξον εν αυτη κατα το κηρυγμα το εμπροσθεν ὸ̔ εγω ελαλησα προς σε — And preach in it the former preaching which I have spoken to thee.” עליה in five MSS., as in chapter 1:2, “against her,” and not אליה, “to her.” אשר אנכי דבר אליד, “which I am speaking or declaring to thee.” דבר is a participle; being preceded by a nominative, it will admit of an auxiliary verb either in the past, present or future tense, according to the context; though it is often used to express the present time.

Newcome renders the sentence thus — “And cry unto her in the words which I shall speak unto thee;” Henderson more paraphrastically thus — “And make the proclamation to it which I order thee;” and adds the following remarks, — “Be my herald, and faithfully deliver my message. The word κηρυξ in Greek answers to the Hebrew קורא, kore, both signifying a crier, a herald, a preacher; one that makes proclamation with a loud and earnest cry. Such was John Baptist, Isaiah 40:3; such was Jesus Christ, John 7:18-37; and such were all his apostles. And such earnestness becomes a ministry that has to do with immortal souls, asleep and dead in sin, hanging on the brink of perdition, and insensible of their state. The soft speaking, gentle toned, unmoved preacher, is never likely to awaken souls.”

Henry considers that the commission was not specifically explained to him then. “Jonah must go,” he says, “with implicit faith: he shall not know till he comes thither what message he must deliver.” — Ed. God again repeats what we have observed at the be ginning, — that Nineveh was a great city, that Jonah might provide himself with an invincible courage of mind, and come there well prepared: for it often happens, that many boldly undertake an office, but soon fail, because difficulties had not been sufficiently foreseen by them. Hence, when men find more hardships than they thought of at the beginning, they nearly faint, at least they despond. The Lord, therefore, expressly foretold Jonah how difficult would be his employment; as though he said, “I send thee, a man unknown, and of no rank, and a stranger, to denounce ruin on men, not a few in number, but on a vast multitude, and to carry on a contest with the noblest city, and so populous, that it may seem to be a region of itself.”

We now then understand why this character of the city was added; it was, that Jonah might gird up himself for the contest, that he might not afterwards fail in the middle of his course. This fear indeed frightened him at the beginning, so that he shunned the call of God; but he is not now moved in any degree by the greatness of the city, but resolutely follows where the Lord leads. We hence see, that faith, when once it gains the ascendancy in our hearts, surmounts all obstacles and despises all the greatness of the world; for it is immediately added —

Jonah 3:3

3. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.

3. Et surrexit Jonah et profectus est Nineven, secundum mandatum Jehovae: Nineveh autem erat urbs magna Dei (Deo, ad verbum) itinere trium dierum.

Jonah, by saying that he went to Nineveh according to God’s command, proves in the first place, as I have said, how great was the power and energy of his faith; for though Jonah had considered the greatness and pride of the city, he seems to have forgotten that he was an obscure man, alone, and unarmed; but he had laid hold on weapons capable of destroying all the power of the world, for he knew that he was sent from above. His conviction was, that God was on his side; and he knew that God had called him. Hence then it was, that with a high and intrepid mind he looked down on all the splendor of the city Nineveh. Hence John does not without reason say, that the victory, by which we overcome the world, proceeds from faith, (1 John 5:4.) Jonah also proves, at the same time, how much he had improved under God’s scourges. He had been severely chastised; but we know that most of the unbelieving grow hardened under the rod, and vomit forth their rage against God; Jonah, on the contrary, shows here that chastisement had been useful to him for he was subdued and led to obey God.

He went, then, according to the command of Jehovah; that is, nothing else did he regard but to render obedience to God, and to suffer himself to be wholly ruled by him. We hence learn how well God provides for us and for our salvation, when he corrects our perverseness; though sharp may be our chastisements, yet as this benefit follows we know that nothing is better for us than to be humbled under God’s hand, as David says in Psalm 119:1. This change then, he went, is to us a remarkable example; and this is what the Lord has ever in view whenever he roughly handles us; for he cannot otherwise subdue either the haughtiness or the rebellion, or the slowness and indolence of our flesh. We must now also take notice how Jonah attained so much strength; it was, because he had found by experience in the bowels of the fish, that even amidst thousand deaths there is enough in God’s protection to secure our safety. As then he had by experience known that the issues of death are at the will and in the hand of God, he is not now touched with fear so as to shun God’s command, even were the whole world to rise up against him. Hence the more any one has found the kindness of God, the more courageously he ought to proceed in the discharge of his office, and confidently to commit to God his life and his safety, and resolutely to surmount all the perils of the world.

He then says, that Nineveh was a great city The original is, “And Nineveh was a city great to God” — לאלהים עיר-גדולה. The remark of Henry is, “So the Hebrew phrase is, meaning no more than as we render it, exceeding great; this honor that language doth to the great God, that great things derive their denomination from him” Though the form of the expression here is different from what we find in other places, when God is taken in this sense, as in Psalm 80:10, ארזי-אל, cedars of God, that is, tall or great cedars, — yet there is no other sense that comports with this place. This is the view of Dathius, Drusius, Newcome, and many others. Some render it, great through God, and Grotius seems to have taken it in this sense, for he explains it by “Deo eam augente — God having increased it.” Henderson considers ל here in the sense of לפגי, before, and refers to Genesis 10:9. But this has hardly a meaning in this connection. — Ed.. , even a journey of three days. Some toil much in untying a knot, which at last is no knot at all; for it seems to them strange that one city should be in compass about thirty leagues according to our measure. When they conceive this as being impossible, then they invent some means to avoid the difficulty, — that no one could visit the whole city so as to go through all the alleys, all the streets, and all the public places, except in three days; nay, they add, that this is not to be understood as though one ran or quickly passed through the city, but as though he walked leisurely and made a stay in public places: but these are mere puerilities. And if we believe profane writers, Nineveh must have been a great city, as Jonah declares here: for they say that its area was about four hundred stadia; and we know what space four hundred stadia include. A stadium is one hundred and twenty-five paces; hence eight stadia make a mile. Now if any one will count he will find that there are twelve miles in a hundred stadia; there will then be in four hundred stadia forty-eight miles. This account well agrees with the testimony of Jonah. And then Diodorus and Herodotus say that there were 1500 towers around the city. Since it was so, it could not certainly be a smaller city than what it is represented here by Jonah. Though these things may seem to exceed what is commonly believed, writers have not yet reported them without some foundation: for however false are found to be many things in Diodorus and Herodotus, yet as to Babylon and Nineveh they could not have dared to say what was untrue; for the first was then standing and known to many; and the ruins of the other were still existing, though it had been for some time destroyed. We shall farther see about the end of the book that this city was large, and so populous, that there were there 120,000 children. If any one receives not this testimony, let him feed on the lies of the devil. But since there were so many children there, what else can we say but that the circumference of the city was very great?

But this seems inconsistent with what immediately follows; for Jonah says, that when he entered the city, he performed a journey in the city for one day and preached. The answer is this, — that as soon as he entered the city, and began to proclaim the command of God, some conversions immediately followed: so Jonah does not mean that he went through the city in one day. He then in the first day converted a part of the city; he afterwards continued to exhort each one to repentance: thus the conversion of the whole city followed; but not in the second or the third day, as it may be easily gathered. Let us now proceed to what remains —

Jonah 3:4

4. 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.

4. Et coepit Jonah ingredi in urbem itinere diei unius, et clamavit et dixit, Adhuc quadraginta dies et Nineveh subversa.

Jonah here relates what had briefly been said before, — that he went to Nineveh according to the command of God. He shows then how faithfully he executed the duty enjoined on him, and thus obeyed the word of God. Hence Jonah came and began to enter the city and to preach on the first day. This promptness proves clearly how tractable Jonah had become, and how much he endeavored to obey God in discharging his office: for had there been still a timidity in his heart, he would have inspected the city, as careful and timid men are wont to do, who inquire what is the condition of the place, what are the dispositions of the people, and which is the easiest access to them, and what is the best way, and where is the least danger. If Jonah then had been still entangled by carnal thoughts he would have waited two or three days, and then have began to exercise his office as a Prophet. This he did not, but entered the city and I cried. We now then see how prompt he was in his obedience, who had before attempted to pass over the sea: he now takes hardly a moment to breathe, but he begins at the very entrance to testify that he had come in obedience to God.

We hence see with what emphasis these words ought to be read. The narrative is indeed very simple; Jonah uses here no rhetorical ornaments, nor does he set forth his entrance with any fine display of words. Jonah, he says, entered into the city He who is not well versed in Scripture might say that this is frigid: but when we weigh the circumstances, we see that this simple way of speaking possesses more force and power than all the displays of orators.

He entered then the city a day’s journey, and cried and said, etc. By saying that he cried, he again proves the courage of his soul; for he did not creep in privately, as men are wont to do, advancing cautiously when dangers are apprehended. He says that he cried: then this freedom shows that Jonah was divested of all fear, and endued with such boldness of spirit, that he raised himself up above all the hindrances of the world. And we ought, in the meantime, to remember how disliked must have been his message: for he did not gently lead the Ninevites to God, but threatened them with destruction, and seemed to have given them no hope of pardon. Jonah might have thought that his voice, as one says, would have to return to his own throat, “Can I denounce ruin on this populous city, without being instantly crushed? Will not the first man that meets me stone me to death?” Thus might Jonah have thought within himself. No fear was, however, able to prevent him from doing his duty as a faithful servant, for he had been evidently strengthened by the Lord. But it will be better to join the following verse —

Jonah 3:5

5. 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.

5. Et crediderunt viri Ninevae Deo, et indixerunt jejunium, et induerunt saccos a magno eorum usque ad parvum eorum.

One thing, escaped me in the third verse: Jonah said that Nineveh was a city great to God. This form of speech is common in Scripture: for the Hebrews call that Divine, whatever it be, that is superior or excellent: so they say, the cedars of God, the mountains of God, the fields of God, when they are superior in height or in any other respect. Hence a city is called the city of God, when it is beyond others renowned. I wished briefly to allude to this subject, because some, with too much refinement and even puerility says that it was called the city of God, because it was the object of God’s care, and in which he intended to exhibit a remarkable instance of conversion. But, as I have said, this is to be taken as the usual mode of speaking in similar cases.

I now return to the text: Jonah says, that the citizens of Nineveh believed God ויאמינו באלהים, “And they believed in God. The verb אמן in Hiphil is ever followed by ב or ל, except in one instance by את in Judges 11:20. When followed by ב it seems to mean, to give credit to what is said, to believe one’s testimony, or the truth of what is referred to. To believe then in God is to believe the truth of what he declares, to believe his word. Hence in 2 Chronicles 20:20, Jehosophat said to the people, “Believe in the Lord your God,” האמינו ביהוה אלהיכם; and he adds, “Believe [in] his Prophets,” האמינו בנביאיו. It is the word of God, and the word of the Prophets, which was the same, or the truth or veracity of God and of his Prophets, that they For I have believed [in] thy commandments,” במצותיך, that is, in the truth of thy commandments. — When the verb in Hiphil is followed by ל, the idea of reliance or dependance is more especially conveyed, though in many instances there is hardly a difference tobe recognized, except the context be minutely observed.

Among other passages, the verb in its Hiphil form is followed by ב, in Genesis 15:6, Exodus 14:31, Numbers 20:12, 2 Kings 17:14, Proverbs 26:25, Jeremiah 12:6; — and by ל in Exodus 4:1-8, Deuteronomy 9:23, 1 Kings 10:7, Psalm 106:24, Isaiah 43:10, Jeremiah 40:14

The Septuagint renders believing in God by επίστευσαν τω θεω: so does Paul in Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6; but he retains the Hebrew form in Romans 4:5, πιστευοντι επι τον, etc. Calvin here conveys the same meaning by “crediderunt Deo — believed God:” that is, the Ninevites gave credit to what God declared by Jonah, they believed God’s word. — Ed. . We hence gather that the preaching of Jonah was not so concise but that he introduced his discourse by declaring that he was God’s Prophet, and that he did not proclaim these commands without authority; and we also gather that Jonah so denounced ruin, that at the same time he showed God to be the avenger of sins that he reproved the Ninevites, and, as it were, summoned them to God’s tribunal, making known to them their guilt; for had he spoken only of punishment, it could not certainly have been otherwise, but that the Ninevites must have rebelled furiously against God; but by showing to them their guilt, he led them to acknowledge that the threatened punishment was just, and thus he prepared them for humility and penitence. Both these things may be collected from this expression of Jonah, that the Ninevites believed God; for were they not persuaded that the command came from heaven, what was their faith? Let us then know, that Jonah had so spoken of his vocation, that the Ninevites felt assured that he was a celestial herald: hence was their faith: and further, the Ninevites would never have so believed as to put on sackcloth, had they not been reminded of their sins. There is, therefore, no doubt but that Jonah, while crying against Nineveh, at the same time made known how wickedly the men lived, and how grievous were their offenses against God. Hence then it was that they put on sackcloth, and suppliantly fled to God’s mercy: they understood that they were deservedly summoned to judgment on account of their wicked lives.

But it may be asked, how came the Ninevites to believe God, as no hope of salvation was given them? for there can be no faith without an acquaintance with the paternal kindness of God; whosoever regards God as angry with him must necessarily despair. Since then Jonah gave them no knowledge of God’s mercy, he must have greatly terrified the Ninevites, and not have called them to faith. The answer is, that the expression is to be taken as including a part for the whole; for there is no perfect faith when men, being called to repentance, do suppliantly humble themselves before God; but yet it is a part of faith; for the Apostle says, in Hebrew 11:7, that Noah through faith feared; he deduces the fear which Noah entertained on account of the oracular word he received, from faith, showing thereby that it was faith in part, and pointing out the source from which it proceeded. At the same time, the mind of the holy Patriarch must have been moved by other things besides threatening, when he built an ark for himself, as the means of safety. We may thus, by taking a part for the whole, explain this, place, — that the Ninevites believed God; for as they knew that God required the deserved punishment, they submitted to him, and, at the same time, solicited pardon: but the Ninevites, no doubt, derived from the words of Jonah something more than mere terror: for had they only apprehended this — that they were guilty before God, and were justly summoned to punishment, they would have been confounded and stunned with dread, and could never have been encouraged to seek forgiveness. Inasmuch then as they suppliantly prostrated themselves before God, they must certainly have conceived some hope of grace. They were not, therefore, so touched with penitence and the fear of God, but that they had some knowledge of divine grace: thus they believed God; for though they were aware that they were most worthy of death, they yet despaired not, but retook themselves to prayer. Since then we see that the Ninevites sought this, remedy, we must feel assured that they derived more advantage from the preaching of Jonah than the mere knowledge that they were guilty before God: this ought certainly to be understood. But we shall speak more on the subject in our next lecture.

Prayer.

Grant, Almighty God, that as there is so much timidity in us, that none of us is prepared to follow where thou mayest call us, we may be so instructed by the example of thy servant Jonah, as to obey thee in every thing, and that though Satan and the world may oppose us with all their terrors, we may yet be strengthened by a reliance on thy power and protection, which thou hast promised to us, and may go on in the course of our vocation, and never turn aside, but thus contend against all the hindrances of this world, until we reach that celestial kingdom, where we shall enjoy thee and Christ thy only begotten Son, who is our strength and our salvation: and may thy Spirit quicken us, and strengthen all our faculties, that we may obey thee, and that at length thy name may be glorified in us, and that we may finally become partakers of that glory to which thou invites us through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Lecture Seventy-eighth

Jonah 3:6-8

6. 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.

6. Et pervenit verbum (sermo, vel, res) ad regem Nineveh; et surrexit e solio suo, et abjecit splendidam suam vestem a seipso, et induit saccum, et sedit super pulverem:

7. 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:

7. Et promulgavit ac dixit per Nineveh ex consilio regis et magnatum ejus, dicendo, Homo et jumentum (vel, bestia,) bos et ovis, ne gustent quidpiam, ne pascantur, et ne aquas bibant;

8. 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.

8. Et induantur saccis homo et bestia, et clament ad Deum in fortitudine; et revertatur quisque a via sua mala, et a rapacitate quae est in manibus eorum.

It is uncertain whether Jonah had preached for some days in the city before it was known to the king. This is indeed the common opinion; for interpreters so expound the verse, which says that word was brought to the king, as though the king himself knew, that the whole city was in commotion through the preaching of Jonah: but the words admit of a different sense, that is that the preaching of Jonah immediately reached the king; and I am disposed to take this view, as Jonah seems here to explain how the Ninevites were led to put on sackcloth. He had before spoken briefly on the subject, but he now explains what took place more fully; and we know that it was commonly the manner of the Hebrews — to relate the chief points in few words, and then to add an explanation. As then Jonah had said in the last verse that the Ninevites had put on sackcloth, and proclaimed a fast, so he now seems to express more distinctly how this happened, that is, through the royal edict. And it is by no means probable that a fast was proclaimed in the royal city by the mere consent of the people, as the king and his counselors were there present. Inasmuch then as it appears more reasonable that the edict respecting the fast had proceeded from the king, I am therefore inclined so to connect the two verses, as that the first briefly mentions the fruit which followed the preaching of Jonah, and that the second is added as an explanation, for it gives a fuller account of what took place.

Jonah then now says, that a fast was proclaimed by the Ninevites, for the king and his council had so appointed: and I regard the verb ויגע, uigo, as being in the pluperfect tense, When word had come to the king; Grotius, as well as Junius and Tremelius, had the same view of the verse, by rendering the verb in the tense here proposed. Quia pervenerat is the version of the former; and the version of the latter is, Quu enim pervenisset Our own version and that of Newcome seem also to favor this view, by rendering ו “for,” as giving a reason for what is said in the preceding verse: but Henderson has “and,” and Marckius the same, and also the Septuagint. What Calvin states as to the manner of speaking often adopted in Hebre, is no doubt true. But Henry thinks that the people “led the way,” and that what they commenced was afterwards enforced and made general by the order of the king and his nobles. — Ed. for Jonah now states the reason why the Ninevites proclaimed a fast; it was because the king had been apprised of the preaching of Jonah, and had called together his counselors. It was then a public edict, and not any movement among the people, capriciously made, as it sometimes happens. He says, that it was an edict published by the authority of the king and his council, or his nobles. At the same time, some take טעם, thom, as meaning reason or approbation. טעם, thom, means to taste, and Jonah afterwards uses the verb in this sense; but it is to be taken here in a metaphorical sense for counsel; And I think this meaning is more suitable to this passage. I come now to the subject.

It is worthy of being noticed, that the king of so splendid a city Who this king was is a matter of conjecture. “About thirteen years,” says Newcome, “after the death of Jeroboam II., king of Israel, Pul, king of Assyria, invaded Israel. So that Pul, or his predecessor, may have been the king here mentioned.” Others think that he was Sardanapalus, a character notorious in history for his luxurious, effeminate, and debauched life. — Ed. , nay, at that time the greatest monarch, should have rendered himself so submissive to the exhortation of Jonah: for we see how proud kings are; as they think themselves exempt from the common lot of men, so they carry themselves above all laws. Hence it comes, that they will have all things to be lawful for them; and while they give loose reins to their lusts they cannot bear to be admonished, even by their equals. But Jonah was a stranger and of a humble condition: that he therefore so touched the heart of the king, must be ascribed to the hidden power of God, which he puts forth through his word whenever he pleases. God does not indeed work alike by the preaching of his word, he does not always keep to the same course; but, when he pleases, he so efficaciously touches the hearts of men, that the success of his word exceeds all expectation, as in the memorable example presented to us here. Who could have said that a heathen king, who had ever lived according to his own will, who had no feeling as to true and genuine religion, would have been thus in an instant subdued? For he put aside his royal dress, laid himself in the dust, and clothed himself in sackcloth. We hence see that God not only spoke by the mouth of Jonah, but added power to his word.

We must also bear in mind what Christ says, that the men of Nineveh would rise up in judgment against that generation, as they had repented at the preaching of Jonah; and “Behold,” he said, “a greater than Jonah is here,” (Matthew 12:41.) Christ, at this day, proclaims the voice of his Gospel; for though he is not here in a visible form among us, he yet speaks by his ministers. If we despise his doctrine, how can our obstinacy and hardness be excused, since the Ninevites, who had no knowledge of the true doctrine of religion, who were imbued with no religious principles, were so suddenly converted by the preaching of Jonah? And that their repentance was sincere we may conclude from this circumstance — that the preaching of Jonah was severe, for he denounced destruction on a most powerful city; this might have instantly inflamed the king’s mind with rage and fury; and that he was calmly humbled, was certainly a proof of no common change. We have then here a remarkable instance of penitence, — that the king should have so forgotten himself and his dignity, as to throw aside his splendid dress, to put on sackcloth, and to lie down on ashes.

But as to fasting and sackcloth, it is very true, as we have observed in our remarks on Joel, that repentance consists not in these external things: for God cares not for outward rites, and all those things which are resplendent in the sight of men are worthless before him; what indeed he requires, is sincerity of heart. Hence what Jonah here says of fasting, and other outward performances, ought to be referred to their legitimate end, — that the Ninevites intended thus to show that they were justly summoned as guilty before God’s tribunal, and also, that they humbly deprecated the wrath of their judge. Fasting then and sackcloth were only an external profession of repentance. Were any one to fast all his life, and to put on sackcloth, and to scatter dust on himself, and not to connect with all this a sincerity of heart, he would do nothing but mock God. Ον τη νηστεια προσεσχεν, αλλα τη αποχη των κακων — “He [God] did not regard fasting, but abstinence from evils.” — Theodoret. “It is not enough,” says Henry, “to fast for sin, but we must fast from sin, and in order to the success of our prayers, must no more regard iniquity in our hearts... The work of a fast-day is not done with the day; no, then the hardest and most needful part of the work begins, which is to turn from sin, and to live a new life, and not to return with the dog to his vomit.” — Ed. Hence these outward performances are, in themselves, of small or of no value, except when preceded by an interior feeling of heart, and men be on this account led to manifest such outward evidences. Whenever then Scripture mentions fasting, and ashes, and sackcloth, we must bear in mind that these things are set before us as the outward signs of repentance which when not genuine do nothing else but provoke the wrath of God; but when true, they are approved of God on account of the end in view, and not that they avail, of themselves, to pacify his wrath, or to expiate sins.

If now any one asks whether penitence is always to be accompanied with fasting, ashes, and sackcloth, the answer is at hand, — that the faithful ought through their whole life to repent: for except everyone of us continually strives to renounce himself and his former life, he has not yet learned what it is to serve God; for we must ever contend with the flesh. But though there is a continual exercise of repentance, yet fasting is not required of us always. It then follows that fasting is a public and solemn testimony of repentance, when there appears to be some extraordinary evidence of God’s wrath. Thus have we seen that the Jews were by Joel called to lie in ashes, and to put on sackcloth because God had come forth, as it were, armed against them; and all the Prophets had declared that destruction was nigh the people. In the same manner the Ninevites, when terrified by this dreadful edict, put on sackcloth proclaimed a fasts because this was usually done in extremities. We now then perceive why the king, having himself put on sackcloth, enjoined on the whole people both fasting and other tokens of repentance.

But it seems strange, and even ridiculous, that the king should bid animals, as well as men, to make a confession of repentance; for penitence is a change in man, when he returns to God after having been alienated from him: this cannot comport with the character of brute animals. Then the king of Nineveh acted foolishly and contrary to all reason in connecting animals with men when he spoke of repentance. But, in answer to this, we must bear in mind what I have before said — that destruction had been denounced, not only on men, but also on the whole city, even on the buildings: for as God created the whole world for the sake of men, so also his wrath, when excited against men, includes the beasts, and trees, and every thing in heaven and on earth. But the question is not yet solved; for though God may punish animals on account of men’s sins, yet neither oxen nor sheep can pacify the wrath of God. To this I answer — that this was done for the sake of men: for it would have been ridiculous in the king to prohibit food and drink to animals, except he had a regard to men themselves. But his object was to set before the Ninevites, as in a mirror or picture, what they deserved. The same was done under the law; for, whenever they slew victims, they were reminded of their own sins; for it ought to have come to their minds, that the sheep or any other animal sacrificed was innocent, and that it stood at the altar in his stead who had sinned. They therefore saw in the ox, or the lamb, or the goat, a striking emblem of their own condemnation. So also the Ninevites, when they constrained the oxen, the asses and other animals, to fast, were reminded of what grievous and severe punishment they were worthy: inasmuch as innocent animals suffered punishment together with them. We hence see that no expiation was sought for by the king, when he enjoined a fast on brute animals, but that, on the contrary, men were roused by such means seriously to acknowledge the wrath of God, and to entertain greater fear, that they might be more truly humbled before him, and be displeased with themselves, and be thus more disposed and better prepared and moulded to seek pardon.

We now then see that this must be considered as intended to terrify the consciences of men, that they, who had long flattered themselves, might by such a remedy be roused from their insensibility. The same was the intention of different washings under the law, the cleansing of garments and of vessels; it was, that the people might know that every thing they touched was polluted by their filth. And this ought to be especially observed; for the Papists, wedded as they are to external rites, lay hold on anything said in Scripture about fasting, and ashes, and sackcloth, and think that the whole of religion consists in these outward observances: but bodily exercise, as Paul says, profiteth but littler (1 Timothy 4:8.) Therefore this rule ought ever to be our guide — that fasting and such things are in themselves of no value, but must be estimated only by the end in view. So then, when the animals were constrained by the Ninevites to suffer want, the men themselves, being reminded of their guilt, learned what it was to dread God’s wrath; and on this account it was that fasting was approved by God.

Now, if any one objects and says that nothing ought to be done in the worship of God beyond what his word warrants, the answer is — that the king of Nineveh had not appointed any kind of expiation, neither did he intend that they should thus worship God, but regarded only the end which I have mentioned; and that end fully harmonizes with the word of God and his command. Hence the king of Nineveh attempted nothing that was inconsistent with the word of God, since he had in every thing this in view — that he and his people might go humbly before God’s tribunal, and with real penitential feelings solicit his forgiveness. This then is an answer sufficiently plain.

When therefore Jonah afterwards subjoins, Calvin has omitted to notice the words at the beginning of the seventh verse. His version is, Et promulgavit ac dixit, etc., but this rendering comports not with what follows. The verbs are evidently in future Niphal, preceded by a ו conversive, and ought to be rendered impersonally, “And it was proclaimed and published,” etc. And so Newcome renders them; and this is in conformity with the Septuagint, Και εκηρυχθη και ερρεθη εν τη Νινευὴ — “And it was proclaimed and published in Nineveh.” Henderson gives a paraphrase, “And a proclamation was made through Nineveh.” — Ed. that the king commanded both the people and the beasts to put on sackcloth, let us know, that if any one now were to take this as an example, he would be nothing else but a mountebank; for this reason ought ever to be remembered, — that the king sought aids by which he might lead himself and his people to true repentance. But the disposition of man is prone to imitate what is evil: for we are all very like apes; we ought therefore always to consider by what spirit those were actuated whom we wish to imitate, lest we should be contented with the outward form and neglect the main things.

Jonah afterwards adds, And they cried mightily בחזקח, with vigor. “Εκτεςῶς — intensely, earnestly.” — Sept. Vehementer — vehemently.” — Grotius. “Totis viribus — with all their powers.” — Mercerius. “Cum intensione valida — with strong intensity” — Marckius. “In prayer,” says Henry, “we must cry mightily, with a fixedness of thought, firmness of faith, and fervor of pious and devout affections. — Ed. to God This must be confined to men; for it could not have been applied to brute animals. Men then, as well as the beasts, abstained from meat and drink, and they cried to God. This crying could not have proceeded except from fear and a religious feeling: hence, as I have said, this cannot be applied indiscriminately to the beasts as well as to men. Yet Henry does in a manner apply this mighty crying to the beasts. “Let even the brute creatures do it according to their capacity; let their cries and moans for want of food be graciously construed as cries to God; as the cries of young ravens are, Job 38:41; and of the young lions, Psalm 104:21.” — Ed. But it deserves to be noticed, that the king of Nineveh commanded the people to cry mightily to God; for we hence learn that they were really frightened, inasmuch as he speaks not here of ordinary crying, but he adds mightily, as when we say, with all our power, or as we say in French, A force, or, fort et ferme. Jonah then expresses something uncommon and extraordinary, when he tells us that it was contained in the king’s edict, that men should cry mightily to God; for it was the same as though he said, “Let all men now awake and shake off their indifference; for every one of us have hitherto greatly indulged ourselves in our vices: it is now time that fear should possess our minds, and also constrain us to deprecate the wrath of God.” And it is also worthy of being observed, that the king proposes no other remedy, but that the people should have recourse to prayer. It might indeed have been, that Jonah exhorted the Ninevites to resort to this duty of religion, etc. We may, however, undeniably conclude that it is a feeling implanted in us by nature, that when we are pressed by adversities, we implore the favor of God. This then is the only remedy in afflictions and distresses, to pray to God. But when we, taught by the Law and by the Gospel, use not this remedy, whenever God warns us and exhorts us to repentance, what shadow of excuse can we have, since heathens, even those who understood not a syllable of true religion, yet prayed to God, and the king himself commanded this with the consent of his nobles? Hence this edict of the king ought to fill us with more shame than if one adduced the same doctrine only from the word of God: for though the authority of that king is not the same with that of God, yet when that miserable and blind prince acknowledged through the dictates of nature, that God is to be pacified by prayer, what excuse, as I have said, can remain for us?

But Jonah shows more clearly afterwards, that it was no feigned repentance when the Ninevites put on sackcloth, and abstained also from meat and drink; for it follows in the kings edict, And let every one turn from his own wicked ways and from the plunder which is in their hands Here the heathen king shows for what purpose and with what design he had given orders respecting fasting and other things; it was done that the Ninevites might thus more effectually stimulate themselves to fear God; for he here exhorts them to turn from their evil way. By “way” the Scripture usually means the whole course or manner of man’s life; it was as though he said, “Let every one of you change his disposition and his conduct; let us all become new creatures.” And this is true penitence, the conversion of man to God; and this the heathen king meant. The more shameful then is their dullness who seek to pacify God by frivolous devices, as the Papists do; for while they obtrude on God trifles, I know not what, they think that these are so many expiations, and they tenaciously contend for them. They need no other judge than this heathen king, who shows that true penitence is wholly different, that it then only takes place when men become changed in mind and heart, and wholly turn to a better course of life.

Let every one then turn, he says, from his evil way, and from the plunder A rapacite, from robbery, extortion, plunder מז-החמס, from violence, outrage, or injustice done by force or violence: it means tyrannical injustice. “Απο της αδικιας — from injustice,” wrong, iniquity. — Sept. But as it is said to be in their hand, it means, by a metonymy, the plunder got by injustice, exercised tyrannically.

Marckius observes that the similitude here is first taken from the feet, and then taken from the hands. The feet are no to go in the evil way, nor the hands employed in doing what is unjust. Henry explains the passage very fully and yet concisely, “let them turn every one from his evil way — the evil way of his heart — and the evil way of his conversation; and particularly from the violence that is in their hands, — let them restore what they have unjustly taken, and make reparation for the wrong they have done, — and let them not any more oppress those they have power over, or defraud those they have dealings with.” — Ed. which is in their hand. One kind of evil is here subjoined, a part being stated for the whole, for plunders were not the only things which stood in need of amendment among the Ninevites, as it is probable that they were polluted by other vices and corruptions. In a city so large, drunkenness probably prevailed, as well as luxury, and pride, and ambition, and also lusts. It cannot indeed be doubted, but that Nineveh was filled with innumerable vices: but the king, by mentioning a part for the whole, points out here the principal vice, when he says, Let every one turn from his evil way, and from his rapacity. It was the same as though he had said that the principal virtue is equity or justice, that is, when men deal with one another without doing any hurt or injury: and well would it be were this doctrine to prevail at this day among all those who falsely assume the Christian name. For the Papists, though they accumulate expiations, pass by charity; and in the whole course of life equity has hardly any place. Let them then learn, from the mouth of a heathen king, what God principally requires from men, and approves of in their life, even to abstain from plunder and from the doing of any injury. We now then perceive why rapacity was especially mentioned. But we must bear in mind that the king, as yet a novice, and hardly in a slight degree imbued with the elements of religion, through hearing what Jonah preached, gave orders to his people according to the measure of his faith and knowledge: but if he made such progress in so short a time, what excuse can we pretend, whose ears have been stunned by continual preaching for twenty or thirty years, if we yet come short of the novitiate of this king? These circumstances ought then to be carefully observed by us. Let us now proceed —

Jonah 3:9

9. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

9. Quis novit an convertatur et poenitentia ducatur Deus, et revertatur a furore irae suae, ut non pereamus?

The mind and design of the king are here more distinctly stated, — that he thus endeavored to reconcile himself and the people to God. Some give a rendering somewhat different, “He who knows will turn and be led by penitence,” etc.; they read not interrogatively; but this rendering cannot stand. There is in the meaning of the Prophet nothing ambiguous, for he introduces the king here as expressing a doubt, Who knows whether God will be reconciled to us? We hence see that the king was not overwhelmed with despair for he still thought of a remedy; and this is the purport of the verse.

But this may seem contrary to the nature of faith; and then if it be opposed to faith, it follows that it must be inconsistent with repentance; for faith and repentance are connected together, as we have observed in other places; as no one can willingly submit to God, except he has previously known his goodness, and entertained a hope of salvation; for he who is touched only with fear avoids God’s presence; and then despair prevails, and perverseness follows. How then was it that the king of Nineveh had seriously and undissemblingly repented, while yet he spoke doubtfully of the favor of God? To this I answer, that it was a measure of doubt, which was yet connected with faith, even that which does not directly reject the promise of God, but has other hindrances: as for instance, when any ones cast down with fear, afterwards receives courage from the hope of pardon and salvation set before him, he is not yet immediately freed from all fear; for as long as he looks on his sins, and is entangled by various thoughts, he vacillates, he fluctuates. There is, therefore, no doubt but that the king of Nineveh entertained hope of deliverance; but at the same time his mind was perplexed, both on account of the sermon of Jonah and on account of the consciousness of his own sins: there were then two obstacles, which deprived the king’s mind of certainty, or at least prevented him from apprehending immediately the mercy of God, and from perceiving with a calm mind that God would be gracious to him. The first obstacle was the awful message, — that Nineveh would be destroyed in forty days. For though Jonah, as we have said, might have added something more, yet the denunciation was distinct and express, and tended to cast down the minds of all. The king then had to struggle, in order to overcome this obstacle, and to resist this declaration of Jonah as far as it was found to be without any comfort. And then the king, while considering his own sins, could not but vacillate for some time. But yet we see that he strove to emerge, though he had these obstacles before his eyes, for he says, Who knows whether God will turn from the fury of his wrath, and repent? We hence see that the king was in a hard struggle; for though Jonah seemed to have closed the door and to shut out the king from any hope of deliverance, and though his own conscience held him fast bound, he yet perseveres and encourages himself; in short, he aspires to the hope of pardon.

And it must be further noticed, that this form of expression expresses a difficulty rather than a mistrust. The king then here asks, as it were doubtingly, Who knows whether God will turn? for it was a difficult thing to be believed, that God, after a long forbearance, would spare the wicked city. Hence the king expresses it as a difficulty; and such an interrogation was no proof of the absence of faith. A similar expression is found in Joel, “Who knows,” etc.? We then stated several things in explaining that passage: but it is enough here briefly to state, that the king here does not betray a mistrust, but sets forth a difficulty. And it was an evidence of humility that he acknowledged himself and his people to be sunk as it were, in the lowest hell, and yet ceased not to entertain some hope: for it is a strong proof of hope, when we still entertain it, though this be contrary to the whole order of nature, and wholly inconsistent with human reason. We now then see the meaning of the words. Of the repentance of God we shall speak hereafter, either to-morrow or the day after.

Lest we perish, he says. We see how a heathen king thought of redeeming himself from destruction’ it was by having God pacified. As soon then as any danger threatens us, let us bear this in mind, that no deliverance can be found except the Lord receives us into favor; such was the conviction of the king of Nineveh, for he concluded that all things would be well as soon as God should be propitious. We hence see how much this new and untrained disciple had improved; for he understood that men cannot escape miseries until God be pacified towards them, and that when men return into favor with him, though they ought to have perished a hundred times before, they yet shall be delivered and made safe; for the grace or the favor of God is the fountain of life and salvation, and of all blessings. It afterwards follows —

Jonah 3:10

10. 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.

10. Et vidit Deus opera eorum, quod conversi essent a via sua mala; et poenituit Deum super malo, quod pronuntiaverat se facturum illis, et non fecit.

Jonah now says, that the Ninevites obtained pardon through their repentance: and this is an example worthy of being observed; for we hence learn for what purpose God daily urges us to repentance, and that is, because he desires to be reconciled to us, and that we should be reconciled to him. The reason then why so many reproofs and threatening resound in our ears, whenever we come to hear the word of God, is this, — that as God seeks to recover us from destruction he speaks sharply to us: in short, whatever the Scripture contains on repentance and the judgment of God ought to be wholly applied for this purpose — to induce us to return into favor with him; for he is ready to be reconciled, and is ever prepared to embrace those who without dissimulation turn to him. We then understand by this example that God has no other object in view, whenever he sharply constrains us, than that he may be reconciled to us, provided only we be our own judges, and thus anticipate his wrath by genuine sorrow of heart, provided we solicit the pardon of our guilt and sin, and loathe ourselves, and confess that we are worthy of perdition.

But Jonah seems to ascribe their deliverance to their repentance, and also to their works: for he says that the Ninevites obtained pardon, because God looked on their works.

We must first see what works he means, that no one may snatch at a single word, as hypocrites are wont to do; and this, as we have said, is very commonly the case under the Papacy. God had respect to their works — what works? not sackcloth, not ashes, not fasting; for Jonah does not now mention these; but he had respect to their works — because they turned from their evil way. We hence see that God was not pacified by outward rites only, by the external profession of repentance, but that he rather looked on the true and important change which had taken place in the Ninevites, for they had become renewed. These then were their works, even the fruits of repentance. And such a change of life could not have taken place, had not the Ninevites been really moved by a sense of God’s wrath. The fear of God then had preceded; and this fear could not have been without faith. We hence see that he chiefly speaks here not of external works, but of the renovation of men.

But if any one objects and says that still this view does not prevent us from thinking that good works reconcile us to God, and that they thus procure our salvation: to this I answer — that the question here is not about the procuring cause of forgiveness. It is certain that God was freely pacified towards the Ninevites, as he freely restores his favor daily to us. Jonah then did not mean that satisfactions availed before God, as though the Ninevites made compensations for their former sins. The words mean no such thing; but he shows it as a fact which followed, that God was pacified, because the Ninevites repented. But we are to learn from other parts of Scripture how God becomes gracious to us, and how we obtain pardon with him, and whether this comes to us for our merits and repentance or whether God himself forgives us freely. Since the whole Scripture testifies that pardon is gratuitously given us, and that God cannot be otherwise propitious to us than by not imputing sins, there is no need, with regard to the present passage, anxiously to inquire why God looked on the works of the Ninevites, so as not to destroy them: for this is said merely as a consequence. Jonah then does not here point out the cause, but only declares that God was pacified towards the Ninevites, as soon as they repented. But we shall speak more on this subject.

Prayer.

Grant, Almighty God, that as we are loaded with so many vices, and so many sins, yea, and scandalous crimes break out daily among us, — O grant, that we may not be hardened against so many exhortations, by which thou invites us to thyself, but that being made contrite in spirit, whenever thou denounces on us thy wrath, we may be really humbled, and so place ourselves before thy tribunal, that we may, by a true confession and genuine fear, anticipate the judgment which would otherwise have been prepared for us; and that in the meantime relying on Christ our Mediator, we may entertain such a hope of pardon as may raise us up to thee, and not doubt but that thou art ready to embrace us, when we shall be moved by a true and real feeling of fear and penitence, since it is a proof of thy favor, when thou art pleased to anticipate us, and by thy Spirit testifies that thou art a Father to us; and, in a word, may we be so cast down in ourselves, as to raise up our hope even to heaven, through Jesus Christ one Lord. Amen.

Lecture Seventy-ninth

We stated yesterday how God remitted to the Ninevites the punishment which he had threatened by the mouth of Jonah, and that the remission both of the punishment and of the guilt was gratuitous. For whenever God sets forth pardon to sinners, the condition of repentance is at the same time added: it does not yet follow that repentance is the procuring cause of obtaining pardon; for God offers it freely, nor is he otherwise induced than by his own mere bounty. But as he would not have men to abuse his indulgence and forbearance, he lays down this condition, — that they must repent of their former life and change for the better. So then he regards the works of those who testify that they hate sin, and who, with a sincere and real desire, flee to His mercy; and no man from the heart desires God to be propitious to him, but he who loathes himself on account of his sin. This is the reason why Isaiah also says, that God would be merciful to the remnants of his people, even because every one would turn away from his iniquity. God does not certainly mean by these words that repentance, as already stated, is the cause of our salvation; but he requires a change for the better, for no one will really seek grace, except he loathes himself on account of his sins.

Now as to what Jonah adds, that God was led to repent, it is a mode of speaking that ought to be sufficiently known to us. Strictly speaking, no repentance can belong to God: and it ought not to be ascribed to his secret and hidden counsel. God then is in himself ever the same, and consistent with himself; but he is said to repent, when a regard is had to the comprehension of men: for as we conceive God to be angry, whenever he summons us to his tribunal, and shows to us our sins; so also we conceive him to be placable, when he offers the hope of pardon. But it is according to our perceptions that there is any change, when God forgets his wrath, as though he had put on a new character. As then we cannot otherwise be terrified, that we may be humbled before God and repent, except he sets forth before us his wrath, the Scripture accommodates itself to the grossness of our understanding. But, on the other hand, we cannot confidently call on God, unless we feel assured that he is placable. We hence see that some kind of change appears to us, whenever God either threatens or gives hope of pardon and reconciliation: and to this must be referred this mode of speaking which Jonah adopts, when he says that God repented.

We hence see that there is a twofold view of God, — as he sets himself forth in his word, — and as he is as to his hidden counsel. With regard to his secret counsel, I have already said that God is always like himself, and is subject to none of our feelings: but with regard to the teaching of his word, it is accommodated to our capacities. God is now angry with us, and then, as though he were pacified, he offers pardon, and is propitious to us. Such is the repentance of God.

Let us then remember that it proceeds from his word, that God is said to repent; for the Ninevites could form no other opinion but that it was God’s decree that they were to be destroyed, — how so? because he had so testified by his word. But when they rose up to an assurance of deliverance, they then found that a change had taken place, that is, according to the knowledge of their own faith: and the feelings both of fear and of joy proceeded from the word: for when God denounced his wrath, it was necessary for the wretched men to be terrified; but when he invited them to a state of safety by proposing reconciliation to them, he then put on a new character; and thus they ascribed a new feeling to God. This is the meaning. Let us now proceed —

Chapter 4.

Jonah 4:1

1. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

1. Et displicuit Jonae dolore magno, et succensuit apud se. The two verbs used here are evidently to be construed as impersonals. The most literal rendering would be thus, —

“And it was an evil to Jonah, a great evil; and wrath was to him,” or, “he was wroth.”

Evil means often grief or distress, and so it is here: but the verb חרה, properly rendered in our version, “very angry,” seldom if ever, means grief. It is sometimes rendered “grieved” in our version; but in every instance that I can find, it means the grief of anger or displeasure. It occurs twice in Genesis 4, in exactly similar form as we find it here, followed by the preposition ל, ויחר לקין מאד, “and Cain was very wroth,” or literally, “and there was wrath to Cain very much,” version 5. And then in the following verse we have the like form, למה חרה לד, “Why are thou wroth?” or, “Why is wrath to thee?” The phrase here is, לו ויחר, “and wrath was to him.” What seems to have made some commentators to change wrath or anger to grief, as has been a desire to screen the guilt of Jonah. But the whole narrative clearly shows that he was so displeased as to be angry. His pettish request to die is a sufficient proof of this. Calvin was not a man to trifle with the word of God for this purpose, or for any other: nor was he at a loss to account for the sin of Jonah, without denying his piety. It is only shallow Christians, and such as have only the outward shell of religion, who are reduced to this dilemma.

Marckius very justly observes, “That though all the works of God are altogether blameless (irreprehensibilia,) yet there is hardly anything which is not sometimes blamed by our most foolish flesh (carne insipientissima.) Thus not only the world, God’s enemy, sins against him; but even his own people, who honor him, openly show, one while, that his severity, and at another time that his kindness, displease them, as though they were not befitting.” — Ed.

CHAPTER 3

Jon 3:1-10. Jonah's Second Commission to Nineveh: The Ninevites Repent of Their Evil Way: So God Repents of the Evil Threatened.

2. preach ... the preaching--literally, "proclaim the proclamation." On the former occasion the specific object of his commission to Nineveh was declared; here it is indeterminate. This is to show how freely he yields himself, in the spirit of unconditional obedience, to speak whatever God may please.

3. arose and went--like the son who was at first disobedient to the father's command, "Go work in my vineyard," but who afterwards "repented and went" (Mt 21:28, 29). Jonah was thus the fittest instrument for proclaiming judgment, and yet hope of mercy on repentance to Nineveh, being himself a living exemplification of both--judgment in his entombment in the fish, mercy on repentance in his deliverance. Israel professing to obey, but not obeying, and so doomed to exile in the same Nineveh, answers to the son who said, "I go, sir, and went not." In Lu 11:30 it is said that Jonas was not only a sign to the men in Christ's time, but also "unto the Ninevites." On the latter occasion (Mt 16:1-4) when the Pharisees and Sadducees tempted Him, asking a sign from heaven, He answered, "No sign shall be given, but the sign of the prophet Jonas," Mt 12:39. Thus the sign had a twofold aspect, a direct bearing on the Ninevites, an indirect bearing on the Jews in Christ's time. To the Ninevites he was not merely a prophet, but himself a wonder in the earth, as one who had tasted of death, and yet had not seen corruption, but had now returned to witness among them for God. If the Ninevites had indulged in a captious spirit, they never would have inquired and so known Jonah's wonderful history; but being humbled by God's awful message, they learned from Jonah himself that it was the previous concealing in his bosom of the same message of their own doom that caused him to be entombed as an outcast from the living. Thus he was a "sign" to them of wrath on the one hand, and, on the other, of mercy. Guilty Jonah saved from the jaws of death gives a ray of hope to guilty Nineveh. Thus God, who brings good from evil, made Jonah in his fall, punishment, and restoration, a sign (an embodied lesson or living symbol) through which the Ninevites were roused to hear and repent, as they would not have been likely to do, had he gone on the first commission before his living entombment and resurrection. To do evil that good may come, is a policy which can only come from Satan; but from evil already done to extract an instrument against the kingdom of darkness, is a triumphant display of the grace and wisdom of God. To the Pharisees in Christ's time, who, not content with the many signs exhibited by Him, still demanded a sign from heaven, He gave a sign in the opposite quarter, namely, Jonah, who came "out of the belly of hell" (the unseen region). They looked for a Messiah gloriously coming in the clouds of heaven; the Messiah, on the contrary, is to pass through a like, though a deeper, humiliation than Jonah; He is to lie "in the heart of the earth." Jonah and his Antitype alike appeared low and friendless among their hearers; both victims to death for God's wrath against sin, both preaching repentance. Repentance derives all its efficacy from the death of Christ, just as Jonah's message derived its weight with the Ninevites from his entombment. The Jews stumbled at Christ's death, the very fact which ought to have led them to Him, as Jonah's entombment attracted the Ninevites to his message. As Jonah's restoration gave hope of God's placability to Nineveh, so Christ's resurrection assures us God is fully reconciled to man by Christ's death. But Jonah's entombment only had the effect of a moral suasive; Christ's death is an efficacious instrument of reconciliation between God and man [Fairbairn].

Nineveh was an exceeding great city--literally, "great to God," that is, before God. All greatness was in the Hebrew mind associated with God; hence arose the idiom (compare "great mountains," Margin, "mountains of God," Psa 36:6; "goodly cedars," Margin, "cedars of God," Psa 80:10; "a mighty hunter before the Lord," Ge 10:9).

three days' journey--that is, about sixty miles, allowing about twenty miles for a day's journey. Jonah's statement is confirmed by heathen writers, who describe Nineveh as four hundred eighty stadia in circumference [Diodorus Siculus, 2.3]. Herodotus defines a day's journey to be one hundred fifty stadia; so three days' journey will not be much below Diodorus' estimate. The parallelogram in Central Assyria covered with remains of buildings has Khorsabad northeast; Koyunjik and Nebbi Yunus near the Tigris, northwest; Nimroud, between the Tigris and the Zab, southwest; and Karamless, at a distance inward from the Zab, southeast. From Koyunjik to Nimroud is about eighteen miles; from Khorsabad to Karamless, the same; from Koyunjik to Khorsabad, thirteen or fourteen miles; from Nimroud to Karamless, fourteen miles. The length thus was greater than the breadth; compare Jon 3:4, "a day's journey," which is confirmed by heathen writers and by modern measurements. The walls were a hundred feet high, and broad enough to allow three chariots abreast, and had moreover fifteen hundred lofty towers. The space between, including large parks and arable ground, as well as houses, was Nineveh in its full extent. The oldest palaces are at Nimroud, which was probably the original site. Layard latterly has thought that the name Nineveh belonged originally to Koyunjik, rather than to Nimroud. Jonah (Jon 4:11) mentions the children as numbering one hundred twenty thousand, which would give about a million to the whole population. Existing ruins show that Nineveh acquired its greatest extent under the kings of the second dynasty, that is, the kings mentioned in Scripture; it was then that Jonah visited it, and the reports of its magnificence were carried to the west [Layard].

4. a day's journey--not going straight forward without stopping: for the city was but eighteen miles in length; but stopping in his progress from time to time to announce his message to the crowds gathering about him.

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 sins of Nineveh, but an announcement of its ruin in forty days. This number is in Scripture associated often with humiliation. It was forty days that Moses, Elijah, and Christ fasted. Forty years elapsed from the beginning of Christ's ministry (the antitype of 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 from him, 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 one hundred twenty 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.

5. believed God--gave credit to Jonah's message from God; thus recognizing Jehovah as the true God.

fast ... sackcloth--In the East outward actions are often used as symbolical expressions of inward feelings. So fasting and clothing in sackcloth were customary in humiliation. Compare in Ahab's case, parallel to that of Nineveh, both receiving a respite on penitence (1Ki 21:27; 20:31, 32; Joe 1:13).

from the greatest ... to the least--The penitence was not partial, but pervading all classes.

6. in ashes--emblem of the deepest humiliation (Job 2:8; Eze 27:30).

7. neither ... beast ... taste any thing--The brute creatures share in the evil effects of man's sin (Jon 4:11; Ro 8:20, 22); so they here according to Eastern custom, are made to share in man's outward indications of humiliation. "When the Persian general Masistias was slain, the horses and mules of the Persians were shorn, as well as themselves" [Newcome from Plutarch; also Herodotus, 9.24].

8. cry ... turn--Prayer without reformation is a mockery of God (Psa 66:18; Is 58:6). Prayer, on the other hand, must precede true reformation, as we cannot turn to God from our evil way unless God first turns us (Jr 31:18, 19).

9. Who can tell--(Compare Joe 2:14). Their acting on a vague possibility of God's mercy, without any special ground of encouragement, is the more remarkable instance of faith, as they had to break through long-rooted prejudices in giving up idols to seek Jehovah at all. The only ground which their ready faith rested on, was the fact of God sending one to warn them, instead of destroying them at once; this suggested the thought of a possibility of pardon. Hence they are cited by Christ as about to condemn in the judgment those who, with much greater light and privileges, yet repent not (Mt 12:41).

10. God repented of the evil--When the message was sent to them, they were so ripe for judgment that a purpose of destruction to take effect in forty days was the only word God's righteous abhorrence of sin admitted of as to them. But when they repented, the position in which they stood towards God's righteousness was altered. So God's mode of dealing with them must alter accordingly, if God is not to be inconsistent with His own immutable character of dealing with men according to their works and state of heart, taking vengeance at last on the hardened impenitent, and delighting to show mercy on the penitent. Compare Abraham's reasoning, Ge 18:25; Eze 18:21-25; Jr 18:7-10. What was really a change in them and in God's corresponding dealings is, in condescension to human conceptions, represented as a change in God (compare Ex 32:14), who, in His essential righteousness and mercy, changeth not (Nu 23:19; 1Sa 15:29; Mal 3:6; Jas 1:17). The reason why the announcement of destruction was made absolute, and not dependent on Nineveh's continued impenitence, was that this form was the only one calculated to rouse them; and at the same time it was a truthful representation of God's purpose towards Nineveh under its existing state, and of Nineveh's due. When that state ceased, a new relation of Nineveh to God, not contemplated in the message, came in, and room was made for the word to take effect, "the curse causeless shall not come" [Fairbairn]. Prophecy is not merely for the sake of proving God's omniscience by the verification of predictions of the future, but is mainly designed to vindicate God's justice and mercy in dealing with the impenitent and penitent respectively (Ro 11:22). The Bible ever assigns the first place to the eternal principles of righteousness, rooted in the character of God, subordinating to them all divine arrangements. God's sparing Nineveh, when in the jaws of destruction, on the first dawn of repentance encourages the timid penitent, and shows beforehand that Israel's doom, soon after accomplished, is to be ascribed, not to unwillingness to forgive on God's part, but to their own obstinate impenitence.

And the word of the Lord - The same oracle as that before given; and which, from what he had felt and seen of the justice and mercy of the Lord, he was now prepared to obey.

And preach unto it the preaching - וקרא את הקריאה vekera eth hakkeriah, "And cry the cry that I bid thee." Be my herald, and faithfully deliver my message. The word κηρυξ in Greek answers to the Hebrew קורא kore: both signifying a crier, a herald, a preacher; one that makes proclamation with a loud and earnest cry. Such was John Baptist, Isa 40:3; such was Jesus Christ, John 7:18-37; and such were all his apostles. And such earnestness becomes a ministry that has to do with immortal souls, asleep and dead in sin, hanging on the brink of perdition, and insensible of their state. The soft-speaking, gentle-toned, unmoved preacher, is never likely to awaken souls. As we preach, so the people hear; scarcely receiving any counsels that appear to have no importance by the manner in which they are delivered. But this earnestness is widely different from that noisy, blustering, screaming rant, that manifests more of the turbulence of disorderly passions, than of the real inspired influence of the Spirit of God.

Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days' journey - See on Jon 1:2 (note). Strabo says, lib. xvi., πολυ μειζων ην της Βαβυλωνος, "it was much larger than Babylon:" and Ninus, the builder, not only proposed to make it the largest city of the world, but the largest that could be built by man. See Diodor. Sic. Bib. 50:2. And as we find, from the lowest computation, that it was at least fifty-four or sixty English miles in circumference, it would take the prophet three days to walk round upon the walls, and announce from them the terrible message, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed!"

Yet forty days - Both the Septuagint and Arabic read three days. Probably some early copyist of the Septuagint, from whom our modern editions are derived, mistook the Greek numerals μ forty for γ three; or put the three days' journey in preaching instead of the forty days mentioned in the denunciation. One of Kennicott's MSS., instead of ארבעים arbaim, forty, has שלשים sheloshim, thirty: but the Hebrew text is undoubtedly the true reading; and it is followed by all the ancient versions, the Septuagint and Vulgate excepted. thus God gives them time to think, reflect, take counsel, and return to him. Had they only three days' space, the denunciation would have so completely confounded them, as to excite nothing but terror, and prevent repentance and conversion.

The people of Nineveh believed God - They had no doubt that the threatening would be fulfilled, unless their speedy conversion prevented it; but, though not expressed, they knew that the threatening was conditional. "The promises and threatenings of God, which are merely personal, either to any particular man or number of men, are always conditional, because the wisdom of God hath thought fit to make these depend on the behavior of men." - Dr. S. Clarke's Sermons, vol. i.

Proclaimed a fast - And never was there one so general, so deep, and so effectual. Men and women, old and young, high and low, and even the cattle themselves, all kept such a fast as the total abstinence from food implies.

Word came unto the king - This, some think, was Pul; others, Sardanapalus his son, king of Assyria, who flourished in the reign of Jeroboam the Second: but it seems more probable that the monarch here alluded to was a king of Assyria contemporary with Joash, king of Judah. It was by the decree of the king that the fast was instituted, and became general.

Let man and beast be covered - This was done that every object which they beheld might deepen the impression already made, and cause them to mourn after a godly sort. Virgil tells us that the mourning for the death of Julius Caesar was so general, that the cattle neither ate nor drank: -

Non ulli pastos illis egere diebus

Frigida, Daphni, boves ad flumina: nulla neque amnem

Libavit quadrupes, nec graminis attigit herbam.

Ecl. 5:24. "The swains forgot their sheep, nor near the brink

Of running waters brought their herds to drink.

The thirsty cattle of themselves abstain'd,

From water, and their grassy fare disdain'd."

Dryden.

And that they sometimes changed: or reversed the harness and ornaments of cattle, as indicative of mourning, we have a proof in Virgil's description of the funeral procession in honor of Pallas, slain by Turnus, Aen. 11 ver. 89.

Post bellator equus, positis insignibus, Aethon

It lacrymans, guttisque humectat grandibus ora. "Stripp'd of his trappings, and his head declined,

Aethon, his generous warrior-horse, behind,

Moves with a solemn, slow, majestic pace;

And the big tears come rolling down his face."

Who can tell if God will turn and repent - There is at least a peradventure for our salvation. God may turn towards us, change his purpose, and save us alive. While there is life there is hope; God has no pleasure in the death of sinners; he is gracious and compassionate. Himself has prescribed repentance; if we repent, and turn to him from our iniquities, who knows then whether God will not turn, etc.

And Gods saw their works - They repented, and brought forth fruits meet for repentance; works which showed that they did most earnestly repent. He therefore changed his purpose, and the city was saved. The purpose was: If the Ninevites do not return from their evil ways, and the violence that is in their hands, within forty days, I will destroy the city. The Ninevites did return, etc., and therefore escaped the threatened judgment. Thus we see that the threatening was conditional.

1 AND the word of the LORD came c unto Jonah the second time , saying,

After that Ionah had been well disciplined for his contumacy, and was set at liberty.

The command or the Prophetick Spirit, Vid. chap. 1. ver. 1. let. b. c.

The first time Ionah rebels against the command, now better prepared and humbled he is tryed again, God doth give him the gift of Prophesie, and by that signifies his reconciliation to him, and admits him into his old station.

2 Arise , go unto Nineveh that great city , and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee .

Vid▪ chap. 1. ver. 2. let. f.

Vid. chap. 1. ver. 2. let. g.

Ibid. let. h.

Vid. chap. 1. ver. 2. let. i. great in extent of ground, in strength of its fortifications, height, and breadth of their Walls and multitude of their Towers, great in the multitude of its numbers and riches of its Citizens, and every whit as great in the multitude of its sins, but let nothing retard or discourage thee, arise and go.

Publickly, plainly, boldly, cry chap. 1. ver. 2. let. k.

i. e. Against it publish the near approaching ruin of it, preach to them the necessity of their Repentance, and awaken them to it by the terrours of the Lord.

Either which I did bid thee at first, as chap. 1. ver. 3. or what I shall suggest and communicate to thee when thou art come thither.

3 So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the LORD (now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three dayes journey .)

And Heb. as God commands and directs, so Ionah with ready, resolved, and obedient mind sets about the work.

Tho it was a long journey yet three weeks or three months travel by Land, is more eligible then three days in the belly of Hell.

Every way complying with the command of God, speeding thither resolved to preach whatsoever Sermon God should put into his head, encouraged with assurance that God who did send would be with him whithersoever he was sent.

The greatest City of the known world at that day, it was then in its flourishing state greater then Babylon ▪ whose compass was three hundr[illegible: 1 letter]d sixty five or three hundred eighty five furlongs, but [illegible: 1 word] was in compass four hundred and eighty, her walls an hundred foot in height, her walls broad enough for three Coaches to meet and safely pass by each other, had fifteen hundred Towers on its walls, and these Towers two hundred foot high, and one million and four hundred thousand men imployed continually for eight years to build it, if our author be not mistaken.

There is some difference in accounting how this City was three days journey, if we account the length of it at one hundred and fifty furlongs, this will amount to eighteen miles and three quarters, this seems too little to be three days journey, unless it be supposed the Prophet account his leisurely progress, and takes in the many stops that would necessarily and unavoidably retard him in his walking and preaching such strange news, if we consider this, 'tis not unlike six miles would be as far as he could go in a day, preaching to all and discoursing with many, others will account it three dayes journey to go through the streets and lanes of this City, but on the supposition 'twas eighteen miles in length, and eleven miles in breadth 'twill be more then three dayes journey, or a weeks journey, for supposing in a miles breadth but eight streets from end to end through eighteen miles length, 'twill amount to four hundred sixty four miles. Others account by the compass of the walls sixty miles, and allow twenty miles to each dayes journey too far for any one to walk, preach, dispute or reason, and account for himself, the first account seems most probable.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] of God.

4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a days journey, and he cryed, and said , Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown .

The former verse gives us intelligence of Ionah's arrival at Nineveh; now, so soon as come, he preacheth.

To walk through and to preach the dreadful threats of God against Nineveh, and he proclaimed openly and plainly what God commanded; he feared not to tell all what concerned all, he did it with earnestness as deeply affected with what he spake from God against this mighty City.

A very short time, some might think, for this great City, but 'tis more time then God was bound to give, or then they could deserve, or then God gave to Sodom and Gomorrah, the sins of which Cities were no doubt found in Nineveh now Ionah preached, and grew ripe by that time Nahum came to foretell their ruine, vid. Nahum tot. the threat is express and peremptory in its form and words; though there be a reserve with God on condition of Repentance which operated in due time, and manifestly proved that God intended mercy to repenting Nineveh, though he threatned an overthrow to impenitent Nineveh, how it should be overthrown is not expressed, some conjecture by a forreign Enemy, which carrieth unlikelihood with it, others guesse by fire from Heaven, but since 'twas not destroyed we need not enquire how it should have been, and had they not repented the event would have informed us fully.

5 ¶ 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 .

And Heb.

The inhabitants who heard, they first believed who first heard, and successively others as soon as they heard.

Speaking by his Prophet, they knew their own sins.

Though Ionah were a stranger to them yet because coming in Gods name, he did very particularly, fully, and to the Life enumerate, decipher, and lay open their sins, with what they deserved, what might be expected, what God threatned from Heaven, all which concurring wrought them to believe their danger, Gods mercy, and the possibility of escape if they repent, whether the same of Ionah's deliverance came to Nineveh before him, appears not, nor is it likely it should come so far and so fast though 'twere known on the Syrian Coast, and about Tyre and Zidon, possibly Ionah might publish it in Nineveh.

Every one called upon other to fast, or cry'd out 'twas high time to fast, repent, and supplicate God, so some think, but this passage is an Anticipation, tells us what was done, and will tell us afterwards on what grounds, authority and example 'twas done.

A ceremony very usual in mournings private or publick in those Countreys, and a token of their true mourning, this all did, great and small, rich and poor.

Marginal references: Matth. 12.41. Luk. 11.32.

6 For word came to 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 .

This now accounteth for the peoples proclaiming a fast ver. 5. they did it because 'twas commanded, and they had the Kings example herein.

Whether Ionah did particularly speak to his hearers to send word to the King or whether the strangeness of the thing might move some or other to report it to the Courtiers, and they to the King is not specified, certain 'tis that the King had word brought him, and it was considered by him, nor is it said who this King was, Sardanapalus seems too early, Phul Belochus is with more probability thought to be this King.

Came down from his Royal seat.

Put off his rich, gorgeous and luxurious apparel.

Put on the rough, and uneasie garments of a mourner.

As Iob 2.8. and 42.6. Esth. 4.13.

7 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:

The King.

Took a particular care to have speedily a Fast ordered, and notified to the people by those publick Officers, who were wont to proclaim the Decrees and Edicts of the King and his Counsel.

This ingemination confirms the thing, and adds somewhat for shewing the deep sense the King had both of his own, and his peoples [illegible: 1 letter]ins danger, and duty in this exigent.

It was an Act of the King and Counsel, and that which passed them with good liking, they relisht the thing as the Hebrew phrase importeth.

Men have sinned and provok't God to this high displeasure it does most principally concern them to repent, fast and mourn for their sins that God may pardon and spare them.

These comprised in the threat and like to be involved in the common danger are put under a fast, this the general which is afterwards exprest more particularly Herd and Flock, let none of these whether at home in the stall or abroad in the Fold and Herd.

This referred by some to the strictness with which men were bound to keep this Fast, but this may be a general prohibition explained by what follows, let all Man and Beast forbear to eat or drink, that the Fast might be most solemn, that the cry of man seconded with the cry of hungry Cattel, might enter the ears of God who preserveth Man and Beast.

Marginal references: Heb. said.; Heb. great men.

8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God ; yea, let them s turn every one from his evil way , and from the violence which is in their hands .

Every man from greatest, the King on the Throne, to the least, the beggar on the dunghill, put off his usual and softer habit, and afflict themselves in coursest garments.

Their Horses in which they gloried much, their Camels also, both which they adorned with rich and costly clothing in their Stables, and with as rich furniture for Saddles, Bridles, and Trappings when they were used abroad, now all in Testimony of an hearty repentance must clothe with Sackcloth, the clothing of beasts must witness for men.

Beasts in distresse and starving cry to God as the young Ravens and hungry Lions, and so here Beasts of the Herd and Flock cry. But 'tis to be referred to men lamenting their sins, deprecating judgments, imploring mercy with all earnestness and vehemency of desire, called here a crying mightily to God, as chap. 1.5.

The inhabitants of Niniveh whether Traders, or who live at their ease and pleasure there let them reform and amend their doings.

The Edict for ceasing from violence is as full and particular as the Edict for Fasting, all are commanded to be just and righteous.

Not cease from single acts onely but change the course and habitual manner of life called here their way every one was vicious, and each one almost had some particular method of sin, which was his way of sinning this must they turn from.

Oppression and rapine as a chief sin is here particularly mentioned, compare this with N[illegible: 1 letter]h. 3.1.

Which acted by them is still in their hands both in the guilt of it, the effects of it, and as publickly known as what is seen in a mans hands, Vid. Psal. 7.3.

Marginal references: Isa. 59.6[illegible: 1 letter]

9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent , and turn away from his fierce anger , that we perish not?

Here is the ground of the Ninivites Fasting and praying, there is a possibility that they may escape, there is fairly argued a probability, for why should the ruine beforehand be threatned but to give warning, so many days ere it come, unless it be to [illegible: 1 letter]ry us, whether we will Fast, Pray, Repent and amend? and though Ionah had no commission to promise them a deliverance, yet 'tis very like he acquainted them with the merciful and gracious nature of his God. This speech of theirs, Vid. Ioel 2.14. and 2 Sam. 12.22. it includes both faith and doubt, yet Faith prevailing to use of means.

If we return by Repentance, to which God would now call us by this minatory admonition, he may perhaps return to us in mercy, and by the event shew 'twas not an irrevocable sentence past against us.

Forbear to execute that terrible menace of overthrowing us in his just and hot displeasure against our sins, this explains that which he had called repenting before, which being here as elsewhere 'tis attributed to God after the manner of mans speaking must be interpreted as becometh his immutability, and majesty.

Suddenly, exemplarily, temporally and eternally all which impenitent sinners deserve, Ninevites were in danger of, and the provoked justice of God would have brought upon them if they had not repented.

10 ¶ And God saw their works , that they turned from their evil way , and God repented of the evill that he had said that he would do unto them , and he did it not l.

Not onely with naked and single intuition, but he saw and approved, was singularly well pleased with that he saw.

Works not words are sure signs of what men are, humbling themselves to the dust, extraordinary Fasting, and crying unto God these were some of their works, but God saw more then these external professing work.

Vid. ver. 8. let. u. they did heartily, presently and universally turn from the ways of impiety against God, of injustice against man, from the ways of luxury and pride, from all their violence against man, without this all the rest had been not worth the observing nor would God have regarded it.

This is spoken as before, ver. 9. let. a. (and as his seeing is attributed to him) after the manner of man, and must be applied unto our unchangeable God, so as may not reflect any blemish upon his Truth, constancy or immutability. Though he is said to repent 'tis not as man doth who may through frailty of his nature lie, but our God is not a man, or as the Son of man that he should change or lie.

Of punishment.

Threatned by Ionah's mouth.

To sinning Ninevites, who did rightly conjecture that 'twas possible, this dreadful message might be a minatory warning, and might be big of a merciful condition of pardon if they repented, and there was no other way to make the discovery of this but that they took. For he will not deal with penitent sinners as with impenitent, though his justice would not have spared unrepenting Citizens, his Mercy is so great he will not destroy repenting sinners.

Jon 3:1-4

The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, to go to Nineveh and proclaim to that city what Jehovah would say to him. קריאה: that which is called out, the proclamation, τὸ κήρυγμα (lxx). Jonah now obeyed the word of Jehovah. But Nineveh was a great city to God (lē'lōhı̄m), i.e., it was regarded by God as a great city. This remark points to the motive for sparing it (cf. Jon 4:11), in case its inhabitants hearkened to the word of God. Its greatness amounted to “a three days’ walk.” This is usually supposed to refer to the circumference of the city, by which the size of a city is generally determined. But the statement in Jon 3:4, that “Jonah began to enter into the city the walk of a day,” i.e., a day’s journey, is apparently at variance with this. Hence Hitzig has come to the conclusion that the diameter or length of the city is intended, and that, as the walk of a day in Jon 3:4 evidently points to the walk of three days in Jon 3:3, the latter must also be understood as referring to the length of Nineveh. But according to Diod. ii. 3 the length of the city was 150 stadia, and Herodotus (v. 53) gives just this number of stadia as a day’s journey. Hence Jonah would not have commenced his preaching till he had reached the opposite end of the city. This line of argument, the intention of which is to prove the absurdity of the narrative, is based upon the perfectly arbitrary assumption that Jonah went through the entire length of the city in a straight line, which is neither probable in itself, nor implied in בּוא בעיר. This simply means to enter, or go into the city, and says nothing about the direction of the course he took within the city. But in a city, the diameter of which was 150 stadia, and the circumference 480 stadia, one might easily walk for a whole day without reaching the other end, by winding about from one street into another. And Jonah would have to do this to find a suitable place for his preaching, since we are not warranted in assuming that it lay exactly in the geographical centre, or at the end of the street which led from the gate into the city. But if Jonah wandered about in different directions, as Theodoret says, “not going straight through the city, but strolling through market-places, streets, etc.,” the distance of a day’s journey over which he travelled must not be understood as relating to the diameter or length of the city; so that the objection to the general opinion, that the three days’ journey given as the size of the city refers to the circumference, entirely falls to the ground. Moreover, Hitzig has quite overlooked the word ויּחל in his argument. The text does not affirm that Jonah went a day’s journey into the city, but that he “began to go into the city a day’s journey, and cried out.” These words do not affirm that he did not begin to preach till after he had gone a whole day’s journey, but simply that he had commenced his day’s journey in the city when he found a suitable place and a fitting opportunity for his proclamation. They leave the distance that he had really gone, when he began his preaching, quite indefinite; and by no means necessitate the assumption that he only began to preach in the evening, after his day’s journey was ended. All that they distinctly affirm is, that he did not preach directly he entered the city, but only after he had commenced a day’s journey, that is to say, had gone some distance into the city. And this is in perfect harmony with all that we know about the size of Nineveh at that time. The circumference of the great city Nineveh, or the length of the boundaries of the city of Nineveh in the broadest sense, was, as Niebuhr says (p. 277), “nearly ninety English miles, not reckoning the smaller windings of the boundary; and this would be just three days’ travelling for a good walker on a long journey.” “Jonah,” he continues, “begins to go a day’s journey into the city, then preaches, and the preaching reaches the ears of the king (cf. Jon 3:6). He therefore came very near to the citadel as he went along on his first day’s journey. At that time the citadel was probably in Nimrud (Calah). Jonah, who would hardly have travelled through the desert, went by what is now the ordinary caravan road past Amida, and therefore entered the city at Nineveh. And it was on the road from Nineveh to Calah, not far off the city, possibly in the city itself, that he preached. Now the distance between Calah and Nineveh (not reckoning either city), measured in a straight line upon the map, is 18 1/2 English miles.” If, then, we add to this, (1) that the road from Nineveh to Calah or Nimrud hardly ran in a perfectly straight line, and therefore would be really longer than the exact distance between the two parts of the city according to the map, and (2) that Jonah had first of all to go through Nineveh, and possibly into Calah, he may very well have walked twenty English miles, or a short day’s journey, before he preached. The main point of his preaching is all that is given, viz., the threat that Nineveh would be destroyed, which was the point of chief importance, so far as the object of the book was concerned, and which Jonah of course explained by denouncing the sins and vices of the city. The threat ran thus: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.” נהפּך, lit., overturned, i.e., destroyed from the very foundations, is the word applied to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The respite granted is fixed at forty days, according to the number which, even as early as the flood, was taken as the measure for determining the delaying of visitations of God.The lxx, however, τρεῖς ἡμέρας, probably from a peculiar and arbitrary combination, and not merely from an early error of the pen. The other Greek translators (Aquil., Symm., and Theodot.) had, according to Theodoret, the number forty; and so also had the Syriac.

Jon 3:5-9

The Ninevites believed in God, since they hearkened to the preaching of the prophet sent to them by God, and humbled themselves before God with repentance. They proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth (penitential garments: see at Joe 1:13-14; 1Ki 21:27, etc.), “from their great one even to their small one,” i.e., both old and young, all without exception. Even the king, when the matter (had-dâbhâr) came to his knowledge, i.e., when he was informed of Jonah’s coming, and of his threatening prediction, descended from his throne, laid aside his royal robe ('addereth, see at Jos 7:21), wrapt himself in a sackcloth, and sat down in ashes, as a sign of the deepest mourning (compare Job 2:8), and by a royal edict appointed a general fast for man and beast. ויּזעק, he caused to be proclaimed. ויּאמר, and said, viz., through his heralds. מפּעם הם, ex decreto, by command of the king and his great men, i.e., his ministers (פעם = פעם, Dan 3:10, Dan 3:29, a technical term for the edicts of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings). “Man and beast (viz., oxen and sheep) are to taste nothing; they are not to pasture (the cattle are not to be driven to the pasture), and are to drink no water.” אל, for which we should expect לא, may be explained from the fact that the command is communicated directly. Moreover, man and beast are to be covered with mourning clothes, and cry to God bechozqâh, i.e., strongly, mightily, and to turn every one from his evil ways: so “will God perhaps (מי יודע) turn and repent (yâshūbh venicham, as in Joe 2:14), and desist from the fierceness of His anger (cf. Exo 32:12), that we perish not.” This verse (Jon 3:9) also belongs to the king’s edict. The powerful impression made upon the Ninevites by Jonah’s preaching, so that the whole city repented in sackcloth and ashes, is quite intelligible, if we simply bear in mind the great susceptibility of Oriental races to emotion, the awe of one Supreme Being which is peculiar to all the heathen religions of Asia, and the great esteem in which soothsaying and oracles were held in Assyria from the very earliest times (vid., Cicero, de divinat. i. 1); and if we also take into calculation the circumstance that the appearance of a foreigner, who, without any conceivable personal interest, and with the most fearless boldness, disclosed to the great royal city its godless ways, and announced its destruction within a very short period with the confidence so characteristic of the God-sent prophets, could not fail to make a powerful impression upon the minds of the people, which would be all the stronger if the report of the miraculous working of the prophets of Israel had penetrated to Nineveh. There is just as little to surprise us in the circumstance that the signs of mourning among the Ninevites resemble in most respects the forms of penitential mourning current among the Israelites, since these outward signs of mourning are for the most part the common human expressions of deep sorrow of heart, and are found in the same or similar forms among all the nations of antiquity (see the numerous proofs of this which are collected in Winer’s Real-wörterbuch, art. Trauer; and in Herzog’s Cyclopaedia). Ezekiel (Eze 26:16) depicts the mourning of the Tyrian princes over the ruin of their capital in just the same manner in which that of the king of Nineveh is described here in Jon 3:6, except that, instead of sackcloth, he mentions trembling as that with which they wrap themselves round. The garment of haircloth (saq) worn as mourning costume reaches as far back as the patriarchal age (cf. Gen 37:34; Job 16:15). Even the one feature which is peculiar to the mourning of Nineveh - namely, that the cattle also have to take part in the mourning - is attested by Herodotus (9:24) as an Asiatic custom.Herodotus relates that the Persians, when mourning for their general, Masistios, who had fallen in the battle at Platea, shaved off the hair from their horses, and adds, “Thus did the barbarians, in their way, mourn for the deceased Masistios.” Plutarch relates the same thing (Aristid. 14 fin. Compare Brissonius, de regno Pers. princip. ii. p. 206; and Periz. ad Aeliani Var. hist. vii. 8). The objection made to this by Hitzig - namely, that the mourning of the cattle in our book is not analogous to the case recorded by Herodotus, because the former was an expression of repentance - has no force whatever, for the simple reason that in all nations the outward signs of penitential mourning are the same as those of mourning for the dead.

This custom originated in the idea that there is a biotic rapport between man and the larger domestic animals, such as oxen, sheep, and goats, which are his living property. It is only to these animals that there is any reference here, and not to “horses, asses, and camels, which were decorated at other times with costly coverings,” as Marck, Rosenmüller, and others erroneously assume. Moreover, this was not done “with the intention of impelling the men to shed hotter tears through the lowing and groaning of the cattle” (Theodoret); or “to set before them as in a mirror, through the sufferings of the innocent brutes, their own great guilt” (Chald.); but it was a manifestation of the thought, that just as the animals which live with man are drawn into fellowship with his sin, so their sufferings might also help to appease the wrath of God. And although this thought might not be free from superstition, there lay at the foundation of it this deep truth, that the irrational creature is made subject to vanity on account of man’s sins, and sighs along with man for liberation from the bondage of corruption (Rom 8:19.). We cannot therefore take the words “cry mightily unto God” as referring only to the men, as many commentators have done, in opposition to the context; but must regard “man and beast” as the subject of this clause also, since the thought that even the beasts cry to or call upon God in distress has its scriptural warrant in Joe 1:20.

Jon 3:10

But however deep the penitential mourning of Nineveh might be, and however sincere the repentance of the people, when they acted according to the king’s command; the repentance was not a lasting one, or permanent in its effects. Nor did it evince a thorough conversion to God, but was merely a powerful incitement to conversion, a waking up out of the careless security of their life of sin, an endeavour to forsake their evil ways which did not last very long. The statement in Jon 3:10, that “God saw their doing, that they turned from their evil ways; and He repented of the evil that He had said that He would do to them, and did it not” (cf. Exo 32:14), can be reconciled with this without difficulty. The repentance of the Ninevites, even if it did not last, showed, at any rate, a susceptibility on the part of the heathen for the word of God, and their willingness to turn and forsake their evil and ungodly ways; so that God, according to His compassion, could extend His grace to them in consequence. God always acts in this way. He not only forgives the converted man, who lays aside his sin, and walks in newness of life; but He has mercy also upon the penitent who confesses and mourns over his sin, and is willing to amend. The Lord also directed Jonah to preach repentance to Nineveh; not that this capital of the heathen world might be converted at once to faith in the living God, and its inhabitants be received into the covenant of grace which He had made with Israel, but simply to give His people Israel a practical proof that He was the God of the heathen also, and could prepare for Himself even among them a people of His possession. Moreover, the readiness, with which the Ninevites hearkened to the word of God that was proclaimed to them and repented, showed that with all the depth to which they were sunken in idolatry and vice they were at that time not yet ripe for the judgment of extermination. The punishment was therefore deferred by the long-suffering of God, until this great heathen city, in its further development into a God-opposing imperial power, seeking to subjugate all nations, and make itself the mistress of the earth, had filled up the measure of its sins, and had become ripe for that destruction which the prophet Nahum predicted, and the Median king Cyaxares inflicted upon it in alliance with Nabopolassar of Babylonia.

Jonah's Mission Renewed; The Prophet's Mission to Nineveh. (b. c. 840.)

1 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. 3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord . Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. 4 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.

We have here a further evidence of the reconciliation between God and Jonah, and that it was a thorough reconciliation, though the controversy between them had run high.

I. Jonah's commission is renewed and readily obeyed.

1. By this it appears that God was perfectly reconciled to Jonah, that he employed him again in his service; and the commission anew given him was an evidence of the remission of his former disobedience. Among men, it has been justly pleaded that the giving of a commission to a criminal convicted is equivalent to a pardon, so it was to Jonah. The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time (v. 1); for, 1. Jonah must be tried, whether he do indeed repent of his former disobedience or no, and whether he have gotten the good designed him both by his strange punishment and by his strange deliverance. He had deserted his work and duty, and had been under arrest for it, had received a sentence of death within himself; but, upon his submission, God had released him, had given him his life, had given him his liberty; but it is upon his good behaviour that he is released, and he must again be put upon the trial whether he will follow the will of God or his own will. After he has been thrown into the sea, and thrown out of it again, God comes and asks him, "Jonah, wilt thou go to Nineveh now?" For when God judges he will overcome, he will gain his point; he will bring the disobedient stubborn child to his foot at last. Note, When God has afflicted us, and delivered us out of affliction, we must hear his voice, saying to us, Now return to the duties which before you neglected, and which by these providences you are called to. God now said, in effect, to Jonah, as Christ said to the impotent man, when he had healed him, "Now go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee (John v. 14), a worse thing than lying three days and three nights in the whale's belly." God looks upon men, when he has afflicted them and has delivered them out of their affliction, to see whether they will mend of that fault, particularly, for which they were corrected; and therefore in that thing we are concerned to see to it that we receive not the grace of God in vain, neither in the correction nor in the deliverance, for both are designed to be means of grace. (2.) Jonah shall be trusted, in token of God's favour to him. God might justly have said concerning Jonah, as we should concerning one that had cheated us and dealt treacherously with us, that though we would not proceed to the rigour of the law against him, nor ruin him, yet we would never again repose a confidence in him; justly might the Spirit of prophecy, which Jonah had resisted and rebelled against, depart from him, with a resolution never to return to him any more. One would have expected that though his life was spared, yet he would be laid under a disability and incapacity ever to serve the government again in the character of a prophet. But, behold! the word of the Lord comes to him again, to show that when God forgives he forgets, and whom he forgives he gives a new heart and a new spirit to; he receives those into his family again, and restores them to their former estate, that had been prodigal children and disobedient servants. Note, God's making use of us is the best evidence of his being at peace with us. Hereby it will appear that our sins are pardoned, and we have the good-will of God towards us; does his good word come unto us, and do we experience his good work in us! if so, we have reason to admire the riches of free grace and to own our obligations to the Lord Jesus, who received gifts for men, yea, even for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell even among them, and employ them in his word, Ps. lxviii. 18.

2. By this it appears that Jonah was well reconciled to God, that he was not now, as he had been before, disobedient to the heavenly vision, did not flee from the presence of the Lord, as he had done. He neither endeavored to avoid hearing the command, nor did he decline obeying it; he made no objections, as he had done, that the journey was long, the errand invidious, the delivery of it perilous, and, if the threatened judgment did come, he should be reproached as a false prophet, and the impenitence of his own nation would be upbraided, which he had objected, ch. iv. 2. But now, without murmuring and disputing, Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord, v. 3. See here, (1.) The nature of repentance; it is the change of our mind and way, and a return to our work and duty, from which we had turned aside; it is doing that good which we had left undone. (2.) The benefit of affliction; it reduces those to their place that had deserted it. Jonah might truly say with David, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word; and therefore, though it was dreadful, though it was painful to me, and for the present not joyous, but grievous, yet it was good, very good, for me, that I was afflicted." (3.) See the power of divine grace working with affliction, for otherwise affliction of itself would rather drive men from God than bring them to him; but God by his grace can turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, and make those willing in the day of his power, freely willing to come under his yoke, whose neck had been as an iron sinew. (4.) See the duty of all those to whom the word of the Lord comes; they must in all points conform themselves to it, and yield a cheerful faithful obedience to the orders God gives them. Jonah arose, and did not sit still in sloth or sullenness; he went directly to Nineveh, though it was a great way off, and a place where, it is likely, he never was before; yet thither he took his journey, according to the word of the Lord. God's servants must go where he sends them, come when he calls them, and do what he bids them; whatever appears to be the word of the Lord we must conscientiously do according to it.

II. Let us now see what was the command or commission given him, and what he did in prosecution of it.

1. He was sent as a herald at arms, in the name of the God of heaven, to proclaim war with Nineveh (v. 2): "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city," that metropolis, and preach unto it, preach against it, so the Chaldee. What is against us is preached to us, that we may hear it and take warning; and what is preached to us, if we do not give ear to it, and mix faith with it, will prove to be against us. Jonah is sent to Nineveh, which was at this time the chief city of the Gentile world, as an indication of God's gracious intentions in process of time to make the light of divine revelation to shine in those dark regions. God knew that if Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, had had the means of grace, they would have repented, and yet he denied them those means, Matt. xi. 21, 23. He knew that if Nineveh had now the means of grace they would repent, and he gave them those means, sent Jonah, though not to preach repentance to them expressly (for we find not that he had that in his commission), yet to preach them to repentance, for that was the happy effect of what he had in commission. If God thus in dispensing his favours, in giving the means of grace to some places and not to others, and the spirit of grace to some persons and not to others, acts by prerogative and in a way of sovereignty, who may say unto him, What doest thou? May he not do what he will with his own? He is debtor to no man. Go, and preach (says God) the preaching that I bid thee. That is, (1.) "The preaching that I did bid thee when I first ordered thee to go thither (ch. i. 2); go, and cry against it; denounce divine judgments against it; tell the men of Nineveh that their wickedness has come up to God, and God's vengeance is coming down upon them." This was the message Jonah was then very loth to deliver, and therefore flew off and went to Tarshish; but, when he is brought to it the second time, God does not at all alter the message, to gratify him, or make it the more passable with him; no, he must now preach the very same that he was then ordered to preach and would not. Note, The word of God is an unalterable thing, and will not be made to bend to the humours either of its preachers or of its hearers; it shall never comply with their humours and fancies, but they must comply with its truths and laws. See Jer. xv. 19. Let them return unto thee, but return not thou unto them. Or, (2.) "The preaching that I shall bid thee when thou comest thither." This was an encouragement to him in his undertaking, that God would go along with him, that the Spirit of prophecy should abide upon him, and be ready to him, when he was at Nineveh, to give him all the further instructions that were needed for him. This intimated that he should hear from him again, which would be his great support in this hazardous expedition; as, when God sent Abraham to offer up Isaac, he gave him a similar intimation, by telling him he must do it upon one of the mountains which he would afterwards direct him to. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord; he leads his people step by step, and so he expects they should follow him. Jonah must go with an implicit faith. Though he knows whither he goes, he shall not know, till he come thither, what message he must deliver, but, whatever it is, he must deliver it, be it pleasing or displeasing. Thus God will keep us in a continual dependence upon himself, and the directions of his word and providence. What he does, and what he will have us do, we know not now, but we shall know hereafter. Admirals, sometimes, when they are sent abroad, are not to open their commission till they have got so many leagues off at sea; so Jonah must go to Nineveh, and, when he comes there, shall be told what to say.

III. He faithfully and boldly delivered his errand. When he came to Nineveh he found his diocese large; it was an exceedingly great city of three days' journey (v. 3); a city great to God, so the Hebrew phrase is, meaning no more than as we render it, exceedingly great; this honour that language does to the great God that great things derive their denomination from him. The greatness of Nineveh consisted chiefly in the extent of it; it was much larger than Babylon, such a city, says Diodorus Siculus, as no man ever after built. It was 150 furlongs long and 90 broad, and 480 in compass; the walls 100 feet high, and so thick that three chariots might go a-breast upon them; on them were 1500 towers, each of them 200 feet high. It is here said to be of three days' journey; for the compass of the walls, as some relate, was 480 furlongs, which, allowing eight furlongs to a mile, makes sixty miles, which may well be reckoned three days' journey for a footman, twenty miles a day. Or, walking slowly and gravely as Jonah must when he went about preaching, it would take him up at least three days to go through all the principal streets and lanes of the city, to proclaim his message, that all might have notice of it. When he came thither he lost no time; he did not come to look about him, but applied closely to his work; and, when he began to enter into the city, he did not retire into an inn, to refresh himself after his journey, but opened his commission immediately, according to his instructions, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. This, no doubt, he had particular warrant and direction to say; whether he enlarged upon this text, as is most probable, showing them the controversy God had with them, and how provoking their wickedness was, and what reason they had to expect destruction and give credit to this warning, or whether he only repeated those words again and again, is not certain, but this was the purport of his message. 1. He must tell them that this great city shall be overthrown; he meant, and they understood him, that it should be overthrown, not by war, but by some immediate stroke from heaven, either by an earthquake or by fire and brimstone as Sodom was. The wickedness of cities ripens them for destruction, and their wealth and greatness cannot protect them from destruction when the measure of their iniquity is full and the measure of their vengeance has come. Great cities are easily overthrown when the great God comes to reckon with them. 2. He must tell them that it shall shortly be overthrown, at the end of forty days. It has a reprieve granted. So long God will wait to see if, upon this alarm given, they will humble themselves and amend their doings, and so prevent the ruin threatened. See how slow God is to wrath; though Nineveh's wickedness cried for vengeance, yet it shall be spared for forty days, that it may have space to repent and meet God in the way of his judgments. But he will wait no longer; if in that time they turn not, they shall know that he has whet his sword, and made it ready. Forty days is a long time for a righteous God to defer his judgments, yet it is but a little time for an unrighteous people to repent and reform in, and so turn away the judgments coming. The fixing of the day thus, with all possible assurance, would help to convince them that it was a message from God, for no man durst be so positive in fixing a time, however he might prognosticate the thing itself; it would also startle them into preparation for it. It may justly awaken secure sinners by a sincere conversion to prevent their own ruin when they see they have but a little time to turn in. And should it not awaken us to get ready for death, to consider that the thing itself is certain, and the time fixed in the counsel of God, but that we are kept in the dark and uncertainty about it in order that we may be always ready? We cannot be so sure that we shall live forty days as Nineveh now was that it should stand forty days; nay, I think it is more probable that we shall die within thirty or forty days than we should live thirty or forty years; and so many years in the day of our security we are apt to promise ourselves. Fleres, si scires unum tua tempora mensem; Rides, cum non sit forsitan una dies. We should be alarmed if we were sure not to live a month, and yet we are careless, though we are not sure to live a day.

Nineveh's Repentance. (b. c. 840.)

5 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. 6 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. 7 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: 8 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. 9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 10 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.

Here is I. A wonder of divine grace in the repentance and reformation of Nineveh, upon the warning given them of their destruction approaching. Verily I say unto you, we have not found so great an instance of it, no, not in Israel; and it will rise up in judgment against the men of the gospel—generation, and condemn them; for the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonas, but behold, a greater than Jonas is here, Matt. xii. 41. Nay, it did condemn the impenitence and obstinacy of Israel at that time. God sent many prophets to Israel, and those well known among them to be mighty in word and deed; but to Nineveh he sent only one, and him a stranger, whose aspect was mean, we may suppose, and his bodily presence weak, especially after the fatigue of so long a journey; and yet they repented, but Israel repented not. Jonah preached but one sermon, and we do not find that he gave them any sign or wonder by the accomplishment of which his word might be confirmed; and yet they were wrought upon, while Israel continued obstinate, whose prophets chose out words wherewith to reason with them, and confirmed them by signs following. Jonah only threatened wrath and ruin; we do not find that he gave them any calls to repentance or directions how to repent, much less any encouragements to hope that they should find mercy if they did repent, and yet they repented; but Israel persisted in impenitence, though the prophets sent to them drew them with cords of a man, and with bands of love, and assured them of great things which God would do for them if they did repent and reform. Now let us see what was the method of Nineveh's repentance, what were the steps and particular instances of it.

1. They believed God; they gave credit to the word which Jonah spoke to them in the name of God: they believed that though they had many that they called gods, yet there was but one living and true God, the sovereign Lord of all,—that to him they were accountable,—that they had sinned against him and had become obnoxious to his justice,—that this notice sent them of ruin approaching came from him, and consequently that the ruin itself would come from him at a time prefixed if it were not prevented by a timely repentance,—that he is a merciful God, and there might be some hopes of the turning away of the wrath threatened, if they did turn away from the sins for which it was threatened. Note, Those that come to God, that come back to him after they have revolted from him, must believe, must believe that he is, that he is reconcilable, that he will be theirs if they take the right course. And observe what great faith God can work by very small, weak, and unlikely means; he can bring even Ninevites by a few threatening words to be obedient to the faith. Some think the Ninevites heard, from the mariners or others, or from Jonah himself, of his being cast into the sea and delivered thence by miracle, and that this served for a confirmation of his mission, and brought them the more readily to believe God speaking by him. But of this we have no certainty. However, Christ's resurrection, typified by that of Jonah's, served for the confirmation of his gospel, and contributed abundantly to their great success who in his name preached repentance and remission of sins to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

2. They brought word to the king of Nineveh, who, some think, was at this time Sardanapalus, others Pul, king of Assyria. Jonah was not directed to go to him first, in respect to his royal dignity; crowned heads, when guilty heads, are before God upon a level with common heads, and therefore Jonah is not sent to the court, but to the streets of Nineveh, to make his proclamation. However, an account of his errand is brought to the king of Nineveh, not by way of information against Jonah, as a disturber of public peace, that he might be silenced and punished, which perhaps would have been done if he had cried thus in the streets of Jerusalem, who killed God's prophets and stoned those that were sent unto her. No; the account was brought him of it, not as of a crime, but as a message from heaven, by some that were concerned for the public welfare, and whose hearts trembled for it. Note, Those kings are happy who have such about them as will give them notice of the things that belong to the kingdom's peace, of the warnings both of the word and of the providence of God, and of the tokens of God's displeasure which they are under; and those people are happy who have such kings over them as will take notice of those things.

3. The king set them a good example of humiliation, v. 6. When he heard of the word of God sent to him he rose from his throne, as Eglon the king of Moab, who, when Ehud told him he had a message to him from God, rose up out of his seat. The king of Nineveh rose from his throne, not only in reverence to a word from God in general, but in fear of a word of wrath in particular, and in sorrow and shame for sin, by which he and his people had become obnoxious to his wrath. He rose from his royal throne, and laid aside his royal robe, the badge of his imperial dignity, as an acknowledgment that, having not used his power as he ought to have done for the restraining of violence and wrong, and the maintaining of right, he had forfeited his throne and robe to the justice of God, had rendered himself unworthy of the honour put upon him and the trust reposed in him as a king, and that it was just with God to take his kingdom from him. Even the king himself disdained not to put on the garb of a penitent, for he covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes, in token of his humiliation for sin and his dread of divine vengeance. It well becomes the greatest of men to abase themselves before the great God.

4. The people conformed to the example of the king, nay, it should seem, they led the way, for they first began to put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them, v. 5. The least of them, that had least to lose in the overthrow of the city, did not think themselves unconcerned in the alarm; and the greatest of them, that were accustomed to lie at ease and live in state, did not think it below them to put on the marks of humiliation. The wearing of sackcloth, especially to those who were used to fine linen, was a very uneasy thing, and they would not have done it if they had not had a deep sense of their sin and their danger by reason of sin, which hereby they designed to express. Note, Those that would not be ruined must be humbled, those that would not destroy their souls must afflict their souls; when God's judgments threaten us we are concerned to humble ourselves under his mighty hand; and though bodily exercise alone profits nothing, and man's spreading sackcloth and ashes under him, if that be all, is but a jest (it is the heart that God looks at, Isa. lviii. 5), yet on solemn days of humiliation, when God in his providence calls to mourning and girding with sackcloth, we must by the outward expressions of inward sorrow glorify God with our bodies, at least by laying aside their ornaments.

5. A general fast was proclaimed and observed throughout that great city, v. 7-9. It was ordered by the decree of the king and his nobles; the whole legislative power concurred in appointing it, and the whole body of the people concurred in observing it, and in both these ways it became a national act, and it was necessary that it should be so when it was to prevent a national ruin. We have here the contents of this proclamation, and it is very observable. See here,

(1.) What it is that is required by it. [1.] That the fast (properly so called) be very strictly observed. On the day appointed for this solemnity, let neither man or beast taste any thing; let them not take the least refreshment, no, no so much as drink water; let them not plead that they cannot fast so long without prejudice to their health, or that they cannot bear it; let them try for once. What if they do feel it an uneasiness, and feel from it for some time after? It is better to submit to that than be wanting in any act or instance of that repentance which is necessary to save a sinking city. Let them make themselves uneasy in body by putting on sackcloth, as well as by fasting, to show how uneasy they are in mind, through sorrow for sin and the fear of divine wrath. Even the beasts must do penance as well as man, because they have been made subject to vanity as instruments of man's sin, and that, either by their complaints or their silent pining for want of meat, they might stir up their owners, and those that attended them, to the expressions of sorrow and humiliation. Those cattle that were kept within doors must not be fed and watered as usual, because no meat must be stirring on that day. Things of that kind must be forgotten, and not minded. As when the psalmist was intent upon the praises of God he called upon the inferior creatures to join with him therein, so when the Ninevites were full of sorrow for sin, and dread of God's judgments, they would have the inferior creatures concur with them in the expressions of penitence. The beasts that used to be covered with rich and fine trappings, which were the pride of their masters, and theirs too, must now be covered with sackcloth; for the great men will (as becomes them) lay aside their equipage. [2.] With their fasting and mourning they must join prayer and supplication to God; for the fasting is designed to fit the body for the service of the soul in the duty of prayer, which is the main matter, and to which the other is but preparatory or subservient. Let them cry mightily to God; let even the brute creatures do it according to their capacity; let their cries and moans for want of food be graciously construed as cries to God, as the cries of the young ravens are (Job xxxviii. 41), and of the young lions, Ps. civ. 21. But especially let the men, women, and children, cry to God; let them cry mightily for the pardon of the sins which cry against them. It was time to cry to God when there was but a step between them and ruin—high time to seek the Lord. In prayer we must cry mightily, with a fixedness of thought, firmness of faith, and fervour of pious and devout affections. By crying mightily we wrestle with God; we take hold of him; and we are concerned to do so when he is not only departing from us as a friend, but coming forth against us as an enemy. It therefore concerns us in prayer to stir up all that is within us. Yet this is not all; [3.] They must to their fasting and praying add reformation and amendment of life: Let them turn every one from his evil way, the evil way he has chosen, the evil way he is addicted to, and walks in, the evil way of his heart, and the evil way of his conversation, and particularly from the violence that is in their hands; let them restore what they had unjustly taken, and make reparation for what wrong they have done, and let them not any more oppress those they have power over nor defraud those they have dealings with; let the men in authority, at the court-end of the town, turn from the violence that is in their hands, and not decree unrighteous decrees, nor give wrong judgment upon appeals made to them. Let the men of business, at the trading-end of the town, turn from the violence in their hands, and use no unjust weights or measures, nor impose upon the ignorance or necessity of those they trade with. Note, It is not enough to fast for sin, but we must fast from sin, and, in order to the success of our prayers, must no more regard iniquity in our hearts, Ps. lxvi. 18. This is the only fast that God has chosen and will accept, Isa. lviii. 6; Zech. vii. 5, 9. The work of a fast-day is not done with the day; no, then the hardest and most needful part of the work begins, which is to turn from sin, and to live a new life, and not return with the dog to his vomit.

(2.) Upon what inducement this fast is proclaimed and religiously observed (v. 9). Who can tell if God will turn and repent? Observe, [1.] What it is that they hope for—that God will, upon their repenting and turning, change his way towards them and revoke his sentence against them, that he will turn from his fierce anger, which they own they deserve and yet humbly and earnestly deprecate, and that thus their ruin will be prevented, and they perish not. They cannot object against the equity of the judgment, they pretend not to set it aside by appealing to a higher court, but hope in God himself, that he will repent, and that his own mercy (to which they fly) shall rejoice against judgment. They believe that God is justly angry with them, that, their sin being very heinous, his anger is very fierce, and that, if he proceed against them, there is no remedy, but they die, they perish, they all perish, and are undone; for who knows the power of his anger? It is not therefore the threatened overthrow that they pray for the prevention of, but the anger of God that they pray for the turning away of. As when we pray for the favour of God we pray for all good, so when we pray against the wrath of God we pray against all evil. [2.] What degree of hope they had of it: Who can tell if God will turn to us? Jonah had not told them; they had not among them any other prophets to tell them, so that they could not be so confident of finding mercy upon their repentance as we may be, who have the promise and oath of God to depend upon, and especially the merit and mediation of Christ to trust to, for pardon upon repentance. Yet they had a general notion of the goodness of God's nature, his mercy to man, and his being pleased with the repentance and conversion of sinners; and from this they raised some hopes that he would spare them; they dare not presume, but they will not despair. Note, Hope of mercy is the great encouragement to repentance and reformation; and though there be but some glimmerings of hope mixed with great fears arising from a sense of our own sinfulness, and unworthiness, and long abuse of divine patience, yet they may serve to quicken and engage our serious repentance and reformation. Let us boldly cast ourselves at the footstool of free grace, resolving that if we perish, we will perish there; yet who knows but God will look upon us with compassion?

II. Here is a wonder of divine mercy in the sparing of these Ninevites upon their repentance (v. 10): God saw their works; he not only heard their good words, by which they professed repentance, but saw their good works, by which they brought forth fruits meet for repentance; he saw that they turned from their evil way, and that was the thing he looked for and required. If he had not seen that, their fasting and sackcloth would have been as nothing in his account. He saw there was among them a general conviction of their sins and a general resolution not to return to them, and that for some days they lived better, and there was a new face of things upon the city; and this he was well pleased with. Note, God takes notice of every instance of the reformation of sinners, even those instances that fall not under the cognizance and observation of the world. He sees who turn from their evil way and who do not, and meets those with favour that meet him in a sincere conversion. When they repent of the evil of sin committed by them he repents of the evil of judgment pronounced against them. Thus he spared Nineveh, and did not the evil which he said he would do against it. Here were no sacrifices offered to God, that we read of, to make atonement for sin, but the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, such as the Ninevites now had, is what he will not despise; it is what he will give countenance to and put honour upon.

CHAP. III.

Verſe 1. AND the word of the Lord came unto Ionah the ſecond time.] Ionah is a ſinner, but not a caſt-away. God layes him not by as a broken veſſel, treads him not to the dung-hill, as unſavoury ſalt: but receives him upon his return by repentance, and reſtores him to his former employment, gives him yet a name, and a nail in his houſe; yea ſends him a ſecond time on his meſſage to Nineveh; and counting him faithfull puts him again into the miniſtery, who was before a runagate, a rebel, &c. But he obtained mercy, &c. 1 Tim. 1.13. as did likewiſe the Apoſtles, after that they had baſely deſerted our Saviour at his paſſion; and Peter after he had denied him. See Ioh. 20.22, 23. and 21.15, 16, 17.Quem poenite; peccaſſe, poenè eſt innocens. Sen Agam. The poenitent are as good as innocent. Return ye back-ſliding children (ſaith the Father of mercies) and I will heal your back-ſlidings, Ier. 3.22. The Shulamite returning, is as lovely in Chriſts eye as before: and all is as well as ever betwixt them, Cant. 6.4. There is a naturall Novatianiſme in the timerous conſcience of convinced ſinners, to doubt and queſtion pardon for ſinnes of Apoſtaſie and falling after repentance: But had they known the gift of God, and who it is that ſaith to them. Be of good cheer, thy ſinnes are forgiven thee, they would have conceived ſtrong conſolation.

Verſe 2. Ariſe go unto Nineveh,] Begin again, and take better heed: as the Nazarite was to do, that had defiled the head of his conſecration, Numb. 6.9, 12.

unto Niniveh that great city] See the Note on Chap. 1.2. There was no city ſince, by the eſtimation of Diodorus, had the like compaſſe of ground or ſtarelineſſe of wals; the height thereof being an hundred foot, the breadth able to receive three carts a-row, adorned with fifteen hundred turrets. Some think (as Annius & Beroſus) that thoſe three cities ſpoken of, Gen. 10. Rehoboth, Calah and Reſen were all included in Niniveh, and they conceive it thus: that when Nimrod had built Babylon, Ninus, diſdaining his government, went into the fields of Aſhur, and there erected a city after his own name. Raphael Volaterranus ſaith, it was eight years in building, ten thouſand men working at it. Quintilian ſaith, that great Millain, ancient Ravenna, brave Bouonia, noble Naples, and other great cities of Italy are but towers to Rome: but what was Rome to Niniveh? and yet Lipſius hath written a treatiſe of Romes greatneſſe, and when the Emperour Conſtantine came to Rome, and beheld the companies that entertained him, he repeated a ſaying of Cineas the Epirote, that he had ſeen ſo many kings as citizens: but viewing the building of the city, he thought naturam vires omnes in urbem unam effudiſſe, that nature had ſhewed the utmoſt of what ſhe could do, in that one great city. See more on verſ. 3.

and preach unto it the preaching] Heb. Proclaim unto it (or, againſt it) the proclamation that I ſay to thee, that I have formerly put into thy mouth, and do now ſo again, ſc: that their wickedneſſe is come up before me, and I am even upon the way toward them to puniſh it grievouſly. Flagitium & flagellum ſunt ſicut acus & filum, Who ever waxed fierce againſt God and proſpered? Job 9.4. This wicked men muſt be boldly told, Eſa. 3.11. however they take it; neither may Gods miniſters ſteal away the word, Jer. 22.30. or keep back from the people any part of Gods counſel, Act. 20.27. handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifeſtation of the truth commend themſelves to every mans conſcience in the ſight of God, 2 Cor. 4.2. as becometh his Embaſſadours.

Verſ. 3. So Jonah aroſe, and went unto Niniveh] He went not home firſt, to bid them farewel, as Luk. 9.61. neither went he another way, as once: it was enough of that once, and he had learned obedience by the things that he had ſuffered. To Niniveh he goes, though a mere and a mean ſtranger, unknown, unregarded, and with an harſh meſſage; ſuch as he might fear would coſt him his life from that fierce and furious people. But Jonah feareth nothing now but diſobedience: and ſeems to ſay,Luth. Epiſt. as afterwards Luther did, Inveniar ſanè ſuperbus, excors & modò impij, filentij non arguar, Let me be called and counted proud, mad, any thing, every thing that naught is, ſo that I be not found guilty of ſinful ſilence, and of betraying the truſt committed unto me, by a daſtardly deſerting the cauſe of God. Jonah was now of another ſpirit, J[illegible: 2 letters]levit poſt me. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Rom. 8. and fulfilled after God, as Caleb, Num. 14.24. for why? he had now received not a ſpirit of fear, and of bondage, but of power, and of love, and of a ſound mind, 2 Tim. 1.7. his ſpirit of grace had ſanctified to him his afflictions, which elſe would have been but as hammers to cold iron; as they were to Pharoah, Ahaz, the rayling thief, &c. Aben-Ezra ſaith that aſſoon as ever the whale had vomited up Jonah, he got up and took the direct way to Niniveh: that if God ſhould command him thither again he might be ready, and ſhew his forwardneſſe. It is a very good ſigne, when men are the better for what they ſuffer: when thereby the iniquity of Jacob is purged, and this is all the fruit the taking away of their ſinne, Eſay 27.9.

according to the word of the Lord] His call and command which Jonah had formerly caſt behind him, Sed Piſcator ictus ſapit, There ſhall be only fear to make you underſtand the hearing, Eſay 28.19. Eſay ſtood off till frighted; but then he offers his ſervice: Here I am, ſend me, Chap. 6.8.

now Niniveh was an exceeding great city] Heb. a great city of God, or to God; which ſome interpreted dear to God, Deo ch[illegible: 1 letter]r[illegible: 1 letter] & curae. and ſuch as he would not deſtroy. Others a city not idolatrous, though otherwiſe vitious: Others, a city which God himſelf accounted great, Animo magno [illegible: 1 letter]ihil magnum. and looked upon as ſuch. But if to a great mind nothing is great, as Seneca ſaith, what can be great to him who is great, Pſ. 77.13. greater, Job. 33.12. greateſt, Pſ. 95.3. greatneſſe it ſelf, Pſ. 145.3. and to whom all nations are but as the drop of a bucket, or duſt of the ballance? behold, he taketh up the Iſles as a very little thing, Eſay 40.15. Oecolampadius applieth it to the Church of the Gentiles, that city of the living God. They do beſt that take it, as we read it, for an exceeding great city: like as elſewhere tal mountains and cedars, are called mountains of God, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Homer. Pſal. 36.7. and cedars of God, Pſal. 80. &c. and excellent wreſtlings, are wreſtlings of God, Gen. 30.8. See Gen. 23.6. So the Greeks and Latines call great things divine: God being the meaſure of all true greatneſſe: Niniveh as it was a very great city (of fifty miles compaſſe as Herodotus and Diodorus) ſo Jonah is often told ſo; that he might come to it well prepared and reſolved: ſith he was to have a great task, and an hard tug of it. See Verſ. 2. and Chap. 1.2.

Of their dayes journey] Not ſuch a journey as a traveller could diſpatch in no leſſe time; but ſuh as a Preacher pedetentim obaembulando by leaſurely walking,Theodocet. might in three dayes go thorow: See Verſ. 4. This is added to ſet forth further the greatneſſe of the city.

Verſ. 4. And Ionas began to enter into the city] Having ſeen God, he now fears no colours, dreads no danger; as neither did Moſes, Michaiah, Eſay, Chap. 6. Paul, Act. 21. Luther going to Wormes, &c. Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord, we perſwade men, 2 Cor. 5.18. we forewarne them to flee from the wrath to come, Mat. 3.7. we pull them out of the fire of hell, as firebrands, Iude 2.3.

a dayes journey] One of the three dayes, Verſ. 3. Not all the three in one day, for haſte, as Hierome would have it.

and he cried and ſaid,] Not fearfully muttering his meſſage, but delivering it with a courage, Boanerges like, able almoſt to make his hearers hearts fall down, Mr. Full[illegible: 2 letters]. and hairs ſtand upright, as One ſaith of Maſter Perkins.

Yet fourty dayes and Niniveh ſhall be overthrown] The word properly noteth a ſudden, inevitable, and perpetual deſtruction, ſuch as was that of Sodom and her Siſters, Gen 19.25. Ier. 20.16. Eſ. 13.19. Am. 4.11. Now we muſt not think that Ionah ſaid no more then is here ſet down: that he expreſſed no condition, ſuch as was that, Rev. 2.5. Except ye repent, or that like a mad man he ran up and down the city (as one did once about Jeruſalem, and another lately about London) repeating and thundering out theſe words onely, inconditis & ineptis clamoribus, Am. 3.7. with harſh and hoarſe outcries. God therefore threatneth that he may not puniſh, and all his threats are conditional, Ier. 18.8. if they repent, he will alſo. This, if Ionah expreſſed not, yet the Ninivites underſtood; for elſe they would never have repented but deſpaired (as Iudas with his poenitentia Iſcariotica) and defied Ionah as an evil meſſenger ſent againſt them. They might well enough think that if God had not meant them mercy, he would never have forewarned them, never have given them fourty dayes reſpite: the Septuagint cannot be refuſed for rendring it three dayes (though ſome have attempted it) It is probable that Ionah omitted nothing that pertained to the preaching of repentance, though here we have it ſet down in ſome onely. The Hebrews tell us, that the Mariners alſo went to Niniveh; and telling what had befallen Ionah at ſea, confirmed his doctrine, and ſentence againſt the Ninivites, who thereupon repented. But theſe, as they affirm without reaſon, ſo they may be diſmiſſed without refutation.

Verſ. 5. So the people of Niniveh beleeved God] See the mighty power of Gods holy word. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty, through God, to the pulling down of ſtrong holds, 2 Cor. 10.4. to the laying flat thoſe wals of Iericho, making the devil fall as lightning from the heaven of mens hearts, Luk. 10.18. Theſe Ninivites though rich, great, peaceable, proſperous, profane above meaſure, (as great cities uſe to be) &c. yet, at the preaching of Ionah they believed God, and repented of their evil wayes: whether truly and ſeriouſly I have not to ſay. There is an hiſtorical faith, an aſſent to the truth of what God ſpeaketh, and trembling thereat, Jam. 2.19. there is alſo a natural and moral repentance wrought by natural conſcience: ſuch as was that of Pharaohs, Saul, Ahab, Alexander the Great; when, having killed Clitus, he was troubled in conſcience, and ſent to all kind of Philoſophers (as it were to ſo many Miniſters) to know what he might do, to appeaſe his conſcience, and ſatisfie for his ſinne. There are very good Authours that hold this converſion of the Ninivites to have been ſound and ſerious (and for this they alledge that of our Saviour, Mat. 12.41.) flowing from a lively faith in God, which is the root of all the reſt of the graces, the very womb wherein they are received; the fountain alſo and foundation of all good works, as the Apoſtle Peter hinteth when he ſaith, 2 Pet. 1.5. adde to your faith vertue, which is nothing elſe but faith exerciſed.

and proclaimed a faſt, and put on ſackcloth] Theſe were the fruits of their faith, and, though but bodily exerciſe[illegible: 1 letter] and external performances, yet they might ſerve both to evidence,Jejunium & ſaccus armae poenit entiae. Hieron. and to increaſe their inward humiliation. True it is, that hypocrites and heathens may do all this and more, as Ahab, thoſe Pſa. 78.34, 36. and Iſa. 58.3. The Romanes in a ſtrait ad Deos populum & vota convertunt, commanded the whole people with their wives and little ones to pray and pacify the gods, to fill all the temples,Liv. l. 3. and the women to ſweep and rub the pavements thereof with the haires of their heads &c.

from the greateſt &c.] See the Note on Ioel. 2.16.

Verſe 6. For word came unto the k[illegible: 1 letter]ng of Nineveh] I can hardly beleeve that this was Sardanapalus (as ſome will carry it) but ſome other better Prince, that (Veſpaſian-like) was patientiſſimus veri, Quintilian. one that had thoſe about him that would tell him the truth of things, and he was content to heare it, and ſubmit to it. Like enough it is, that this was but harſh newes to him at firſt hearing: but when he had well conſidered it, and taken adviſe upon it, he ſet upon a reformation. Our Chroniclers tell us of a poore Hermite that came to Richard the firſt Anno 1195. and, preaching to him the words of eternall life, bad him be mindfull of the ſubverſion of Sodom, and to abſtaine from things unlawfull. Otherwiſe, ſaid He, the deſerved vengance of God will come upon thee. The Hermite being gone, the king at firſt ſeemed to ſl[illegible: 1 letter]ght his words. But afterwards falling ſick, he more ſeriouſly bethought himſelf: and waxing ſound in ſoule as well as body, he grew more devout and charitable to the poore,Hovedon 428. Speed 542. riſing early and not departing from the church till divine ſervice were finiſhed &c. If the king of Nineveh had ever heard of Jonah his being in the wh[illegible: 1 letter]les belly, it might well be ſome inducement to him to beleeve his preaching, it might do him no leſſe good then Iohn Friths book called A preparation to the croſſe, brought in a fiſh's-belly to the Univerſity of Cambridge a little before the Commencement, did to ſome good people here, that had hearts to make uſe of it. One grave Divine gave this Note upon it in a ſermon before the Parliament, Mr. Jeremy Dike above twenty yeares ſince, That ſuch a book, ſhould be brought in ſuch a manner, and to ſuch a place, and at ſuch a time, when by reaſon of peoples confluence out of all parts notice might be given to all places of the land, in mine apprehenſion it can be conſtrued for no leſſe then a divine warning, and to have this voice with it, England prepare for the croſſe.

he aroſe from his throne] Laid aſide his ſtate, as the great Turk alſo doth, at this day, when he entreth into his temple to pray. Jer. 13.18 Say unto the King and to the Queen Humble your ſelues, ſit down: for your principalities ſhall come down, even to the crown of your glory. This great king could not but know himſelf to be a great ſinner: and that his ſins had done much hurt. 1. by Imputation: for plectuntur Achivi, Horat. the people oft pay for their Rulers follyes, as in Davids dayes, 2 Sam. 24. 2. by Imitation: for Magnates are Magnetes, they draw many by their example: and as bad humours flow from the head to the body; ſo do bad Rulers corrupt the reſt. This conſcious, and (as ſome think) conſcicucious King therefore riſeth up from his throne,Jud. 3.20. Zarnou. (as Eglon that unweildy king of Moab had once done to heare Gods meſſage by Ehud) & qui paulò antè ſedebat ſuperbus in folio, nunc jacet humilis in ſolo, he lieth low, and putteth his mouth in the duſt Lam. 3.29. laying aſide all cogitation and pride of his kingly majeſty: together with all ſoft and ſumptuous rayment (that neſt of pride, as One calleth it.)

he laid his robe from him] Paludamentum ſuum, ſaith Tremelius; but that's a cloak which the Romane Emperours uſed to put on when they went forth to battle, and therefore not ſo proper here (as Piſcator thinkes) ſith there was no viſible enemy, which makes the Ninevites repentance the more remarkable. Mercer rendreth it Chlamydem ſuam, his imperial cloake; the Chaldee his precious garments. The word ſignifieth his ſumptuous and gorgeous attire, his cloake of State, no leſſe coſtly (perhaps) then that of Alciſhenes the Sybarite, ſold to the Carthagians by Dionyſius for 120.Athen[illegible: 1 letter]us. talents: or that of Demetrius of Macedon, which none of his ſucceſſors would weare propter invidioſam impendij magnificentiam for the exceeding great coſtlineſſe thereof. This robe or purple and other ornaments the King of Nineveh laid aſide, as was fit, in this day of reſtraint, as a faſt-day is fitly called. So the children of Iſrael ſtript themſelves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb, where they had made a golden calf Exod. 33.6. For the Lord had ſaid to Moſes, Say unto the children of Iſrael, ye are a ſtifnecked people: I wil come up into the middeſt of thee, and conſume thee: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. ver. 5. that I may determine how to diſpoſe of thee: and this is ſpoken after the manner of men, who judge by the outward actions as Gen. 18.21. and 22, 12. for otherwiſe, God knoweth all his works from the beginning of the world Act. 15.18. But he ſpeaketh this here as if he would hereby judge of their repentance, whether it were true or falſe. The Prophet Eſay objects it to thoſe of his time for a foule fault, Behold in the day of your faſt, ye find your pleaſure chap. 58.3.

and covered him with ſack-cloth] And ſo, as Chryſoſtome hath it, quod non poterat diadema, id ſaccus obtinuit: ſicut ferrum poteſt quod aurum non poteſt. Sackcloth could prevaile more then ſilk: as iron can do what gold cannot.

and ſat in aſhes] In cinere Illo, ſo Vatablus rendreth it: in that aſhes wherein he uſed to ſit, when he moſt mourned. Our ſorrow for ſin ſhould be the deepeſt of all ſorrowes Zech. 12.11, 12, 13. See the Note there.

Verſe 7. And he cauſed it to be proclaimed] by ſound of trumpet as Ioel 2.12. or otherwiſe as 2 Chron. 20.3, 4, 18, 19, 20. and 22, 6, 7. at which times he that obeyeth not, is culpable before God and man Lev. 23.29.

by the decree of the King and his Nobles] who all unanimouſly conſenting to ſo good a work, iis quibus praeerant, praeibant became a preſident to their inferiours; who looked upon them (no doubt) as their looking-glaſſes, by which moſt men dreſſed themſelves. When Criſpus the chief Ruler of the Synagogue beleeved,Tertull. many Corinthians beleeved alſo Act. 18.8. The Primitive Chriſtians were wont to pray that their emperours might have good counſellours. Of a certaine Prince in Germany it was ſaid, that Eſſet alius, ſi eſſet apud alios, Bucholc. He would havs been a farr better man, had he had better ſervants and officers about him.

let neither man nor beaſt, herd nor flock taſt any thing] The whole action of Faſting hath it's name both in Hebrew and Greek, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. from abſtinence and forbearance of meates and drinks: à toto if it may be, at leaſt à tanto & à tali, as Dan. 10.2, 3. and as it might be here, till the forty dayes were expired; beſides, that one or more ſolemne dayes of totall faſting, wherein neither man nor beaſt &c. But why is the beaſt abridged of ſuſtenance? both to teſtify and increaſe the peoples humiliation by their lowings and bellowings. Alexander the great, at the death of his favourite Epheſtion, clipped his horſes and mules haire, and cut them ſhort,Plutarch. in token of his great grief: he pulled down alſo the battlements of the walles, that they might ſeem to mourn with him. So Virgil ſpeaking of the generall grief for Caeſars death ſaith.

Non vlli paſtos illis egêre diebus Frigida Daphni boves ad flumina,Eclog. 5. nulla nec amnem Libavit quadrupes, nec graminis attigit herbam.

Let them not feed, nor drink water] But what they get of themſelves without mans care, who is to be wholy intent and taken up in Gods ſervice; and ſo to begin the heavenly life here, the ſweetneſſe whereof makes him forbeare both meate and thirſt. Beſides, they took pride in their palfryes, covering them with purple and rich trappings. See Judg. 8.26. they catered for the fleſh by fatting cattle and other creatures to pleaſe their palate. This they were now forbidden to do by an edict from the king, who intereſſeth himſelf in matters of religion; as did alſo Artexerxes Ezra. 7.26. (for which Ezra ſeeth cauſe to bleſſe God) and Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 3.29. which the ſcripture commendeth, and recordeth as a work of his repentance.

Verſe 8. But let man and beaſt be covered with ſack-loth] Let all beſt meanes be uſed for the humbling of the heart: without which, what is an humbling day but a religious incongruity (ſaith One) and a very high provocation: like Zimri's act when all the Congregation were weeping before the doore of the Tabernacle? The beaſts covered with ſack-cloth were as an houſe hangd with blacks, to move men to mourne the more. Chryſoſtome telles us of a cuſtome in his time, (and it is ſtill in uſe amongſt us) that when great men were buried, their horſes followed the hearſe cloathed in black; as ſeeming to mourne for their maſters. The courſeſt weeds are fitteſt for faſting-dayes: to ſhew that but for ſhame, we would have none, as having forfeited all: and that we look upon our better apparell, but as finer covers of the fouleſt ſhame.

and cry mightily unto God] Cry with a courage; Let the beaſts roare luſtily and rend the clouds as it were with their clamours: want of food will make them do ſo. And as God can ſo ſpeak, as that the bruit beaſts ſhall underſtand him, Ioel. 2.11. Am. 5.8. and 9.4. Iohn. 2. ult. ſo can they, after a ſort, ſo ſpeak or moane,Gnorebh. that he can underſtand them Ioel. 1.20. Hoſ. 2.21. Pſ. 147.9. he heareth the young ravens that cry unto him, though but with a hoarſe and harſh note: whence alſo they have their name in Hebrew. Much more will He heare men that cry unto him, if they cry mightily with intention of ſpirit, and extention or rather contention of ſpeech: if they ſet up their note, as the noiſe of many waters Rev. 19.6. if they thunder and threaten heaven, as Nazianzen ſaith his ſiſter Gorgonia did:Preces fundi. mus, coelum tundimus, miſericordiam extorquemus. Tert. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Jam. 5.16. if they bounce hard at heaven gates, and reſolve to wring mercy from God by an holy violence, as Tertullian ſaith the good people of his time did. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much: but then it muſt be the working, ſtirring, labourfull prayer, as the word ſignifieth; that ſtrives and ſtruggles, and ſtraines every veine in the heart (as Elias ſeemed to do by that poſture in prayer of putting his head betwixt his leggs 1 King. 18.42.) that ſets awork all the faculties of the ſoule, and all the graces of the ſpirit: that ſtirrs up duſt as Jacob did: maketh a man ſweat, as our Saviour; who being in an agonie prayed the more earneſtly Luk. 22.44. not without ſtrong crying and teares, and was heard in that he feared Heb. 5.7. For ſuch a prayer when a man cryes to God [non-Latin text not transcribed] mightily or with all his ſtrength, [non-Latin text not transcribed] it availeth much, it can do any thing; as Paul uſing the ſame words ſaith, I can do all things through Chriſt who ſtreng theneth me Philip. 4.13.

Yea let them turn every one from his evill way &c.] For elſe Prayer profits not, Humiliation is to no purpoſe without Reformation; Repentance for ſin, without repentance from ſin: [non-Latin text not transcribed]. there muſt be fruits meet for repentance, anſwerable to amendment of life, tantamount as repentance, and that weigh juſt as much as it: for, Optima & aptiſſima poenitentia eſt nova vita, ſaith Luther, the beſt and trueſt repentance is a new life: and if gods people will humble themſelves, and pray and ſeek his face, and withall turn from their evill wayes, then he will do much for them 2 Chron. 7.14.

and from the violence that is in their hands] Heb. In the hollow of their hands, where it lay hid as it were, but not from God, who here bids them turn from their wrong-dealing and rapacity. This was their ſpeciall ſin, (ut in magnis imperijs & emporiis magnae ſunt rapinae) therefore are they charged to relinquiſh it. It is a ſpeech, ſaith Mercer, like to that of our Saviour, Go tell my Diſciples and Peter &c. Tell them all, but be ſure you tell Peter. So here: turn from all your evill wayes: but eſpecially from the violence that is in your hands. See Eſ. 59.6. Ezech. 23.27. Pſal. 7.4. The Hebrewes underſtand this text of reſtitution to be made of evillgotten goods, or wrongfully deteined from the right owners. This ſay they, muſt be done: or the party can be no more renewed by repentance, then a man could be legally purified by the waſhing of water, when he continued to hold in his hand an unclean thing. That of Auſtin is well known, The ſin is not remitted, till that which hath bin ill-gotten from another be reſtored. And that of Father Latimer, Non remittitur peccatum niſi reſtituatur ablatum. Aug. Reſtore, or elſe you will cough in hell, and the Devils will laugh at you. Gravell in the kidneys will not grate ſo upon you, as a little guiltineſſe in this kind will do upon your conſciences. The ſame Latimer tells us in a ſermon of his afore K. Edw: 6. that the firſt day that he preached about Reſtitution, there came one and gave him twenty pounds to reſtore: the next time another, and brought him in thirty pounds: another time another gave him two hundred pounds ten ſhillings. The Law for reſtitution ſee Num. 5.6, 7. the party muſt not only confeſſe but reſtore, or he is not a true convert. And this will well appeare when death comes to draw the curtaine, and looke in upon a man. Hence our Henry the 7. in his laſt will and teſtament, after the diſpoſition of his ſoul and body,Speed 995. Turk. hiſt. fol. 767. he willed reſtitution ſhould be made of all ſuch monies as had unjuſtly been levied by his officers. And the like we read of Selymus the grand Signiour in the Turkiſh hiſtory.

Verſe 9. Who can tell if God will turn and repent] This is the ſpeech of one that doubteth, and yet deſpaireth not: like that of David praying for his ſick child, Who can tell whether God will be gratious to me that the child may live 2 Sam. 12.22. We are ſtaggering, ſaith Saint Paul, but not wholy ſticking 2 Cor. 4.8. They that go down to the pit (of deſpaire, as well as of the grave Eſ. 38.18.) cannot hope for thy truth: but are hurried headlong into hell, as the Gergeſites ſwine were into the ſea. The Prophet Jonah was peremptory, that by ſuch a day Niniveh ſhould be deſtroyed: Theſe men therefore had good reaſon to doubt, if not of the pardon of their ſins, yet of the ſaving of their city. All their hope is, that this that Jonah denounced was not Gods abſolute decree, but onely his threatening, and that conditionall too; viz. except they repented. This if they could do, and heartily, they knew not but that mercy might be yet had. Keep hope in heart, or the work will go on heavily Pſal. 43. ult. Hope is the daughter of Faith: but ſuch as is a ſtaff to her aged mother. See the Note on Ioel. 2.14. Of God repenting I have ſpoken elſewhere.

Verſe 10. And God ſaw their works] i. e. He noted and noticed them to others. Or, he ſaw them, that is, he approved of them. Videre Dei, eſt approbare. Let God but ſee Repentance (as a rainbow) appearing in our hearts and lives, and he will never drown us in deſtruction. But unleſſe God ſees turning, he ſees no work in a faſt, ſaith One upon this very Text. God may ſay to impenitent faſters, ſaith Another, as Iſaac did to his father, Behold the fire and wood, but where is the lamb? Or as Jacob did concerning Joſeph, Here's the coat, but where's the child? Get thee behind, ſaid Jehu to the meſſengers, what haſt thou to do with peace? Confeſſions and humiliations are our meſſengers: but if the heart be not broken, if the life be not amended, what peace? The Talmudiſts note here, that God is not ſaid to have ſeen their ſack-cloth and aſhes, but their repentance and works, thoſe fruits of their faith; truth in the inward parts, which God eyeth with ſingular delight Ier. 5.3. as the work of his own ſpirit Eph. 8.9.August. Certum eſt nos facere quod facimus; ſed ille facit ut facimus, and he is pleaſed to call his grace in us, our works, for our incouragement in well-doing: and freely to crown it in us, without any merit on our part.

That they turned from their evill way] To which they were by nature and ill cuſtome ſo wedded and wedged, that they could never have been looſened, but by an extraordinary touch from the hand of heaven. The converſion of a ſinner from the evill of his way is Gods own handy-work Jer. 31.18. 2 Tim. 2.25. Ezech. 6.9. Plato went three times into Sicily to convert Dionyſius the tyrant, and could do no good on him. Polemo, of a drunkard, by hearing Xenocrates, is ſaid to have become a Philoſopher: But what ſaith Ambroſe to him?De Elia & jciun. cap. 12. Si reſipuit à vino &c. If he repented of his drunkenneſſe, yet he continued an Infidel; he was ſtill temulentus ſacrilegio drunk with ſuperſtition: He recovered of one diſeaſe, and died of another, as Benhadad did: he gave but the half turn,Pſal. 9.17. and therefore turned at length, and nevertheleſſe into hell. We conceive better of theſe Ninivites: though fome are of opinion, that their repentance was but fained and forced, as was that of Pharaoh and Ahab, as appeares (ſay they) by the ſequent hiſtory, by their dealing againſt the Jewes, and by Nahum.

and God repented] This was mutatio Rei non Dei, as is above noted.