Jonah 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

God speaks to Jonah a second time and sends him to Nineveh, and this time Jonah goes. He walks into the huge city and announces that in forty days Nineveh will be overthrown. The people believe God and fast, and the king steps down from his throne, puts on sackcloth, and orders everyone, people and animals alike, to fast, wear sackcloth, call out to God, and turn from their evil ways and their violence, saying that God may yet turn from his anger. God sees that they turn from their evil way, and he does not bring on them the harm he had said he would.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time.
   • The word came saying something (introducing speech).
2. 3:2
   • The LORD told Jonah to get up.
   • The LORD told Jonah to go to Nineveh.
   • The LORD called Nineveh the great city.
   • The LORD told Jonah to proclaim to Nineveh the proclamation that the LORD would speak to him.
3. 3:3
   • Jonah got up.
   • Jonah went to Nineveh.
   • Jonah went in accordance with the word of the LORD.
   • Nineveh was a great city, great to God, which may mean exceedingly great or great before God.
   • Nineveh was a journey of three days.
4. 3:4
   • Jonah began to go into the city.
   • Jonah went a journey of one day.
   • Jonah called out.
   • Jonah said that after forty more days Nineveh would be overturned.
5. 3:5
   • The men of Nineveh believed God.
   • They proclaimed a fast.
   • They put on sackcloth.
   • The sackcloth was put on by all of them, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
6. 3:6
   • The word reached the king of Nineveh.
   • The king rose from his throne.
   • The king removed his robe from himself.
   • The king covered himself with sackcloth.
   • The king sat on the ashes.
7. 3:7
   • The king had a proclamation cried out in Nineveh.
   • The proclamation was issued by the decree of the king and his nobles.
   • The decree said that no man or beast, herd or flock, should taste anything.
   • The decree said they should not graze.
   • The decree said they should not drink water.
8. 3:8
   • The decree said that man and beast should be covered with sackcloth.
   • The decree said they should call out to God with strength.
   • The decree said each one should turn from his evil way.
   • The decree said each one should turn from the violence that is in his hands.
9. 3:9
   • The decree asked who knows whether God will turn and relent.
   • The decree said God may turn from his burning anger.
   • The decree said the purpose is that they not perish.
10. 3:10
    • God saw their deeds.
    • God saw that they had turned from their evil way.
    • God relented concerning the evil he had said he would do to them.
    • God did not do it.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

"The LORD" in small capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH. Jewish readers avoided pronouncing it and said "Lord" instead, and English translations follow that custom.

3:2

Nineveh was one of the chief cities of Assyria, on the river Tigris in what is now northern Iraq, near modern Mosul. Assyria was the dominant military empire of the region and was widely feared for the brutality of its conquests, so an Israelite prophet sent to warn it was being sent to the enemy capital.

3:3

Nineveh was the chief city of Assyria, on the Tigris River in what is now northern Iraq. Assyria was the great military power of the region and was feared and hated by Israel; a prophet from Israel being sent there would have struck the first hearers as extraordinary. The Hebrew of "three days' journey" is ambiguous: it may mean the distance across the city, the time needed to walk through all its districts, or the length of a formal visit to it.

3:4

The Hebrew verb translated "overthrown" is the ordinary word for turning something upside down. It is used of cities being destroyed, but also of things being reversed or changed into something else, and the announcement leaves both senses open.

3:5

Sackcloth was a coarse, dark cloth woven from goat or camel hair, scratchy against the skin. Wearing it, together with going without food, was the standard public sign of grief, distress or pleading in the ancient Near East, the way black clothing signals mourning today.

3:6

Sitting in ashes, often after throwing dust or ashes over the head, went with sackcloth as a display of grief or self-abasement. For a king to leave his throne and strip off the robe that marked his office was a deliberate public reversal of his rank.

3:7

Including livestock in a fast is unusual but not unknown in the ancient world; Greek writers describe similar customs among neighboring peoples. The animals belonged to the household, so their hunger and noise made the household's distress visible and audible.

3:8

"The violence that is in their hands" is a Hebrew way of speaking: the hands stand for what a person actually does, so this means the violent acts they themselves commit, not violence done to them.

3:9

The Hebrew verb behind "repent" here does not mean confessing sin. It means to change course, relent, or feel differently about a decision already announced, and it is used of both people and God.

3:10

The King James "evil" here does not mean wickedness. The Hebrew word covers both moral evil and disaster or harm, and the sentence uses that double sense on purpose: the people turned from their evil way, so God turned from the evil, meaning the calamity, that he had announced. "Repented" again means changed his course, not felt guilty.