JONAH 3 — THE SECOND CALL AND THE REPENTANCE OF NINEVEH

Chapter 3 begins the second half of the book, which repeats the pattern of the first half but with different results. In chapter 1, the word of the LORD came to Jonah and he ran away. In chapter 3, the word comes again with almost the same wording, and Jonah obeys. The repetition shows the grace of God, who gives His prophet a second chance. The contrast between the outcomes is striking: when Jonah disobeyed, the pagan sailors came to fear the LORD, and now that he obeys, the pagan city repents, the largest response to a prophet's preaching recorded in the Old Testament. The repentance of Nineveh is all the more surprising because Nineveh was the capital of an empire known for its cruelty, and Jonah's message is very brief: only five words in Hebrew. The historical setting gives some context for this response. The first half of the eighth century BC was a time of unrest for Assyria, with plagues in 765 and 759 BC, a solar eclipse in 763 BC that was interpreted as an omen of divine anger, and political instability under weak kings, notably Ashur-dan III (772–755 BC). These circumstances may have made the people more willing to listen to a foreign prophet announcing judgment, though the book does not mention them, and this is a suggestion by historians, not a claim in the text. The king in the story is not named, and no Assyrian record of the event has been found, a point that critics have raised. The silence is not surprising, since Assyrian royal inscriptions typically recorded victories and not episodes that could be seen as humiliating. The repentance was also short-lived, as the book of Nahum shows, which describes a later generation of Ninevites who returned to violence.

The details of the city in the book of Jonah match what is known from archaeology. Nineveh was one of the oldest and largest cities of the ancient world, and under Sennacherib (705–681 BC), it was greatly expanded, with a wall of about twelve kilometers (about seven and a half miles) in circumference and an area of about seven square miles. The metropolitan district included several other cities in the area, and some scholars suggest that the phrase "three days' journey" refers to the size of this larger region. The title "king of Nineveh" is an unusual phrase for the king of Assyria, which has been explained as a way of referring to the king in his role as the ruler of the city that was the subject of the story. The practice of fasting and putting on sackcloth as a sign of repentance is known from Assyrian texts, in which the king and his people took part in rituals of lament in response to omens or disasters, which is consistent with the book's account. Some scholars have drawn attention to the political and natural events of the mid-eighth century BC, including the plagues of 765 and 759 BC, the solar eclipse of June 15, 763 BC, which is recorded in the Assyrian eponym lists, and the weak leadership of the period. These could account for the receptiveness of the Ninevites to a prophet who announced that a calamity was coming. The historical value of the book of Jonah does not depend on such external confirmation, but it fits comfortably into the known setting. The Dead Sea Scrolls include the text of Jonah, and the book was highly regarded in Jewish tradition. Jesus' use of Jonah's preaching as a rebuke of unbelief is also significant evidence for the early Christian understanding of the book.