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 anything let them not feed, nor drink water;
Jonah's forty-day warning reaches the palace, and the king answers with a decree binding the whole city — herds and flocks included. Two questions follow: why make animals fast, and does an order to go hungry move God?
A warning shouted in the streets had no obvious road to the throne.
The King of Nineveh no doubt lived shut away in a palace. Officials surrounded him, ready to obey his commands, however arbitrary and cruel they might be. No subject found it easy to approach an eastern ruler with absolute power. Esther was Queen, yet she felt that going in to the King without a summons would risk her life (Esther 4:11). But Jonah's serious message travelled right into the throne room of Nineveh and reached the King. He acted at once, because conscience told him that the wickedness of his people well deserved God's judgement.
Another king, Belshazzar of Babylon, once trembled at God's word, and nothing came of it.
Like Belshazzar and his great men at Babylon, so the king of Nineveh and his lords trembled. But their fear, unlike that of Belshazzar and his great men, led to a repentance no one would ever regret.
The people had already put on sackcloth before this decree went out. That order changes what the decree means.
Their repentance was genuine. They did not say, "Forty days yet?" and put their repentance off to the last moment. They did not wait for the decree of the king and his nobles before putting on sackcloth. It all came freely, because it was the work of God. The royal decree was only the seal and the proof that the work was general, reaching from the highest to the least.
The fasting did not come first. It showed what had already happened inside.
First came faith, then repentance. The fasting, the sackcloth and the ashes showed how deep and how real that repentance was, from the greatest to the least.
Before the warning came, the city had felt fine about itself.
In the old days, the people had been quite content to go on in their usual wicked course. "No worse than others," they might have said. But when they heard of destruction just ahead, they believed it. In the light of coming judgment, they saw their conduct in all its awfulness, as God saw it. There was no excusing themselves; instead they took sides with God against themselves. That is what repentance really is.
The cattle are the hardest part of the decree. One writer ties them to God's place as Creator of all He made:
The reader will notice that they believed GOD. In Jonah 1 the sailors cried to Jehovah, because there His judgments had shown the glory of Jehovah in His relation to the Jew. Here it is the world in relation to God as such, and this explains the difference. This chapter stands on the ground of God as Creator, so it mentions the cattle too. The whole creation (and this includes them) shall one day be set free from its bondage to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8.)
Another writer traces the same spread of evil, and the order in which God opens a person's eyes:
So it was at Nineveh, only there it was the effect of sin rather than its root. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." Where God works repentance in a soul, He first shows the sinner what sin is in His sight. Then He shows the effects of the evil and how terribly far they reach. Afterwards He shows the root of it.
What happened at Nineveh raises the question of how God treats nations that are not Israel.
No nation but Israel has ever been in direct relationship with God. But this does not mean He takes no interest in the crowds outside the family of Abraham... His heart still yearns at all times over people everywhere, not desiring the ruin of any.
Willis applies this to our own day.
Thank God for the days of prayer that certain rulers call for in the different nations. Suppose those days of prayer carried the deep, deep repentance and humiliation seen so clearly at Nineveh. How much greater the deliverance God would delight to give us!
- Word — the message travelled from the street to the throne room. A king no subject could approach heard it, and his conscience told him the charge was true.
- Faith — belief came first. The fast, the sackcloth and the ashes showed how real it was.
- Repentance — you see your own conduct as God sees it. You take His side against yourself and make no excuses.
- Reach — the decree covered everyone from the king to the least citizen, and the herds as well. Sin's effects run through the whole creation.
- Mercy — God's heart yearns over people everywhere, and He does not desire the ruin of any. A day of prayer joined to real repentance is what He delights to answer.
and let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God; and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
The king of Nineveh has left his throne, and his decree puts a whole city — people and animals — into mourning and prayer. What does real repentance look like, and does God take notice of it?
The Ninevites did not begin with the sackcloth. They began by believing a message of coming ruin.
This mighty work in Nineveh started with faith, but faith without works is dead. These people of Nineveh had the right order: first faith, then works. Had they not believed God, they never would have repented. Faith produced repentance. What is repentance? It means "thinking again"... The people, in the old days, had been quite satisfied to go on in their usual wicked course. "No worse than others," perhaps they would have said. But when they heard of destruction just ahead, they believed it. In the light of coming judgment, they saw their conduct in all its awfulness, as God saw it. There was no excusing of themselves. On the contrary, they took sides with God against themselves. That is what repentance really is.
The decree called for fasting and mourning clothes. Willis weighs those against the last command in the verse.
The sackcloth and the fasting were good, because they showed how real their deep repentance was. But one instruction from the king must have mattered even more to God: "Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands."
Wolston reads that command as the pattern of every converted life.
The life was to be changed. Mind that. When a man gets converted, his life is always altered afterwards. What he has been in, he comes out of. He shuns sin, and loves holiness.
Willis ties the cry in this verse to the turning, then sets it beside another great cry in Scripture.
After repentance — or rather, as part of the repentance — came that wonderful turning from their evil way, along with the command to call out mightily to God. The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, God said, was great (Genesis 18:20), but it was a cry that brought down judgment. How different was this mighty cry that went up from nearly a million hearts and tongues in Nineveh. What music that cry must have been in heaven!
He then asks what God does with a cry like that:
Shall that mighty cry from Nineveh, from the king and all his subjects, be disregarded? Impossible! God's Word, in both Old and New Testaments, says, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Joel 2:32, quoted in Romans 10:13).
Sackcloth on herds and flocks strikes modern readers as strange. Dennett traces it to the way this chapter presents God — not as Jehovah dealing with the Jew, but as Creator of the world.
In Jonah 1 the sailors cried to Jehovah. There His judgments had shown the glory of Jehovah in His relation to the Jew. Here it is the world in relation to God as such, and this will explain the difference. In this chapter we are on the ground of God as Creator, so the cattle are mentioned too. One day God will set the whole creation free from its slavery to decay — and that includes them — and bring it into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8).
The next verse says God saw their works. Willis asks whether that was the first thing He saw.
"God saw their works." "Faith apart from works is dead" (James 2:26). Did God not first see their faith? Surely He did, but the works were the visible evidence to all men of their faith. We all might take good heed to this verse.
Wolston points to what Christ said about these people, then turns the question on the reader.
Notice what the Lord Jesus Christ says of their action. He says, "The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah." Yes, they believed and repented. Again I ask you, have you repented? Has there ever come a moment in your soul's history when you have put on moral sackcloth?
- Believe — Nineveh's turning started with faith. They took God's warning of coming ruin as true, and that faith produced repentance.
- Rethink — Repentance is "thinking again". You see your conduct as God sees it, and you take His side against yourself.
- Turn — Fasting and sackcloth were good, but the order to leave the evil way and the violence mattered more to God. A converted life is an altered life.
- Cry — Nineveh cried to God with all its might. No such cry is ignored: everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
- Prove — God saw their works, the visible evidence of their faith. Christ said these men of Nineveh will rise at the judgment and condemn a generation that would not repent.