Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
Ver. 2. Arise, go unto Nineveh] Begin again, and take better heed; as that Nazarite was to do that had defiled the head of his consecration, Numbers 6:9; Numbers 6:12 .
Unto Nineveh, that great city] See Trapp on " Jon 1:2 " There was no city since, by the estimation of Diodorus, had the like compass of ground or stateliness of walls; the height thereof being a hundred feet, the breadth able to receive three carts abreast, adorned with fifteen hundred turrets. Some think (as Annius and Berosus) that those three cities spoken of, Genesis 10:11,12, Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen, were all included in Nineveh, and they conceive it thus; that when Nimrod had built Babylon, Ninus, disdaining his government, went into the fields of Asshur, 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 Milan, ancient Ravenna, brave Bononia, noble Naples, and other great cities of Italy, are but towers to Rome: but what was Rome to Nineveh? and yet Lipsius hath written a treatise of Rome's greatness; and when the Emperor 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 showed the utmost of what she could do in that one great city. See Trapp on " Jon 3:3 "
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 wickedness is come up before me, and I am even upon the way toward them to punish it grievously. Flagitium et flagellum sunt sicut acus et filium, Who ever waxed fierce against God and prospered? Job 9:4. This wicked men must be boldly told, Isaiah 3:11, however they take it; neither may God's ministers steal away the word, Jeremiah 23:30, or keep back from the people any part of God's counsel, Acts 20:27, "handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commend themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God," 2 Corinthians 4:2, as becometh his ambassadors.