So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
Ver. 5. So the people of Nineveh believed God] See the mighty power of God's holy word. "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds," 2 Corinthians 10:4, to the laying flat those walls of Jericho, making the devil fall as lightning from the heaven of men's hearts, Luke 10:18. These Ninevites, though rich, great, peaceable, prosperous, profane above measure (as great cities use to be), &c., yet, at the preaching of Jonah, they believed God, and repented of their evil ways; whether truly and seriously I have not to say. There is a historical faith, an assent to the truth of what God speaketh, and trembling thereat, James 2:19; there is also a natural and moral repentance wrought by natural conscience, such as was that of Pharaoh, Saul, Ahab, Alexander the Great, when, having killed Clitus, he was troubled in conscience, and sent to all kind of philosophers (as it were to so many ministers) to know what he might do to appease his conscience, and satisfy for his sin. There are very good authors that hold this conversion of the Ninevites to have been sound and serious (and for this they allege that of our Saviour, Mat 12:41), flowing from a lively faith in God, which is the root of all the rest of the graces, the very womb wherein they are received; the fountain also and foundation of all good works, as the apostle Peter hinteth when he saith, 2 Peter 1:5, "add to your faith virtue," which is nothing else but faith exercised.
And proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth] These were the fruits of their faith; and though but bodily exercises and external performances, yet they might serve both to evidence and to increase their inward humiliation. Ieiunium et saccus arma poenitentiae (Jerome). True it is that hypocrites and heathens may do all this and more, as Ahab; those Psalms 78:34; Psalms 78:36 Isaiah 58:3. The Romans in a strait, ad Deos populum et vota convertunt, commanded the whole people with their wives and little ones to pray and pacify the gods, to fill all the temples, and the women to sweep and rub the pavements thereof with the hairs of their heads (Liv. 1. 3).
From the greatest, &c.] See Trapp on " Joe 2:16 "