Jonah Chapter 3 Part 2: The Preaching Of Jonah, Part 1
In V1:2 Jonah was to go to Nineveh and “cry against it” the wickedness of the people. In V2:2 he was to preach unto it the preaching that I (the LORD) bid thee.
Jonah 1:2 The wickedness of the Ninevites came up before the LORD as did the wickedness of Sodom [Genesis 19:13]
· What was the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah that the cry of came up before the face of the LORD? Sodomy
· See Note #1 Was Nineveh was becoming the Sodom and Gomorrah of it’s time
· See Note #2 The wickedness of the nations Israel was to destroy out of the land of promise is seen in Leviticus 18:6-30; 20 (20:13). The wicked people of Nineveh most likely committed the same evil as these nations.
· After he cried what the LORD had against the city and it’s people V4 Jonah preached, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
V3:5 ¶ So the people of Nineveh believed God (they believed the sign of Jonah) and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
· Every person in that great city came face to face with their wickedness. Their resolve was seen their fast; their shame before the LORD was seen in the sackcloth.
V6a “For” ties the people’s repenting in sackcloth to the word of Jonah coming to the king and his decree of Vs7-8.
**V7-8 The kings decree “proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king”. Imagine the town crier going through the city crying” here ye, here ye the decree of the king.
· Notice the way he refers to God (V8,9): not as Jonah’s God, not as a little g god, but God. The king and the people now recognized the LORD as the only God.
· Man and beasts were to fast and be covered with sackcloth
· V8. The kings declared “ever one” [every individual] All evil stops now! They were to turn from their evil, violent ways. This is repentance.
· V6b The king went even farther he also sat in ashes. Could he have realized his role as king put a greater responsibility upon himself than upon the people?
Their violence and evil of Nineveh: See Nahum 3:1-4 what the Ninevites turned from and than returned too.
· Nahum brought the word of the LORD against Nineveh after they had taken the northern tribes of Israel captive and came against Jerusalem during the reign Hezekiah.
· The association of Nineveh as a harlot is used to show that she sold worship owed to God to false gods or devils.
· Between Jonah 3:10 and Nahum 1:1 The Assyrians turned back to their evil, violent way.
The king’s decree also included the beasts. The use of the word seems to distinguish between them and the cattle of V4:11: could the beasts be part of their great wickedness?
· Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 18:23 with Deuteronomy 27:21 All the people must agree that whosoever lieth with a beast shall be cursed and surely be put to death. According to Leviticus 20:15 the beast must be slain.
The king decreed that man and beast were to “cry mightily unto God” you can imagine the voice of the people, but how would the cry of the animals be heard by the LORD?
· These beasts were used in their wickedness and likely held in pens and barns within the city and not in pastures as the “cattle” in V4:11.
· Have you ever heard a barn full of hungry and thirsty livestock?
Note #1 Was Nineveh was becoming the Sodom and Gomorrah of it’s time?
· What is missing in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah that is seen in Jonah 4:11? Children
· Lot and his family were all that were offered repentance. Everyone else had become so corrupted by the evil of those cities repentance was not an option. Consider this: Lot had married daughters but no grandchildren were seen. Could his two daughters that were at home [Genesis 19:15] be the last children born in these cities?
· Could God have shut the wombs of the women in these evil cities?
· If there were children in Sodom and Gomorrah as in Nineveh they would have died but they would have been under the grace of God.
Note #2: The wicked gentile nations were not given the chance to repent as the Ninevites were. Why “Giants” were seen in the land as were in the world before the flood in Genesis 6. These giants were offspring of the seed of fallen angels and the women of the earth. They were not given the opportunity to repent and were destroyed. It is said of Noah in 2Peter 2:5 he was a preacher of righteousness. He did not preach repentance.
· [Numbers 13:33; Joshua 12:4,13:12,5:8, 17:15, 18:16] The “giants” in the land of promise were to be destroyed by armies of Israel. They too were not given the opportunity to repent; their genetics would have been corrupted by the seed of devils.
· The Ninevites were not of corrupted seed. Remember they were of the line of Noah’s son Seth as were the Jews.