And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil. When the message was sent to them, they were so ripe for judgment that a purpose of destruction, to take effect in forty days, was the only word which God's righteous abhorrence of sin admitted of as to them. But when they repented, the position in which they stood toward God's righteousness was altered. So God's mode of dealing with them must alter accordingly, if God is not to be inconsistent with His own immutable character of dealing with men according to their works and state of heart, taking vengeance at last on the hardened impenitent, and delighting to show mercy on the penitent. Compare Abraham's reasoning (Genesis 18:25; Ezekiel 18:21-25; Jeremiah 18:7-10). What was really a change in them, and in God's corresponding dealings, is, in condescension to human conceptions, represented as a change in God (cf. Exodus 32:14), who, in His essential righteousness and mercy, changeth not (Numbers 23:1; Numbers 23:9; 1 Samuel 15:29; Malachi 3:6; James 1:17).
The reason why the announcement of destruction was made absolute, and not dependent on Nineveh's continued impenitence, was, that this form was the only one calculated to rouse them; and at the same time it was a truthful representation of God's purpose toward Nineveh under its existing state, and of Nineveh's due. When that state ceased, a new relation of Nineveh to God, not contemplated in the message, came in, and room was made for the word to take effect, 'The curse causeless shall not come' (Fairbairn). Prophecy is not merely for the sake of proving God's omniscience by the verification of predictions of the future, but is mainly designed to vindicate God's justice and mercy in dealing with the impenitent and penitent respectively (Romans 11:22). The Bible ever assigns the first place to the eternal principles of righteousness, rooted in the character of God, subordinating to them all divine arrangements. God's sparing Nineveh, when in the jaws of destruction, on the first dawn of repentance, encourages the timid penitent, and shows beforehand that Israel's doom, soon after accomplished, is to be ascribed, not to unwillingness to forgive on God's part, but to their own obstinate impenitence.
Remarks:
(1) An interval seems to have elapsed before Jonah was sent a second time to Nineveh. The gracious purpose of God in allowing this interval was probably to give time for the news of the miracle concerning Jonah to reach Nineveh, whose fate was so intimately connected with that of the prophet.
(2) Jonah, after such contumacy, might have seemed unworthy to be again accredited as the divine messenger. But the severe discipline which he had undergone was the preparation designed by God to adapt him for a high trust: and the same divine grace which not only restored Peter after his grievous fall, but also entrusted him with the charge to feed Christ's sheep and lambs, qualified Jonah, too, after his restoration, for fulfilling aright the difficult and responsible mission to pagan Nineveh. So entirely can God transform vessels of filthy clay into vessels of honour to His glory.
(3) As Jonah previously "arose and fled," so now "he arose and went." The truly converted ought to show, at least, as much energy in serving God as they had shown before in serving their own self-will. The same Saul of Tarsus, who was "exceeding zealous of the traditions of his fathers" (Galatians 1:14), was, when converted, the self-denying, indefatigable apostle of the Gentiles, Paul.
(4) What encouragement to penitents the case of Nineveh holds out! In the forty days' respite, before the execution of the judgment threatened against that guilty city, the repentance of its citizens averted the descending stroke.
(5) One day's preaching of God's minister sufficed to bring a whole people to their knees. The simple cry, awfully impressive in its simplicity, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown," was blessed by the all-conquering grace of God to their conversion. How the penitent Ninevites will condemn in the judgment those of us who, not merely for one day, but for all our days, have been privileged with the far-clearer Gospel message, and yet remain impenitent and unbelieving!
(6) Jonah was in his own person, as Jesus saith, "a sign unto the Ninevites." His history preached more powerfully than even his awfully monotonous dirge-like cry. If God took vengeance for his neglect of the divine call, so surely, thought they, will He take vengeance on us, if we heed not his solemn threat. On the other hand, the fact of God's sending a messenger to them at all, and not destroying them at once, without warning, gave them a gleam of hope. The particular messenger, too, whom God selected for the purpose, who had suffered so much, and who had experienced so miraculous a deliverance, in order to constrain him to go to Nineveh, gave its citizens additional encouragement to sue for mercy.
(7) The emergency was so urgent, and the time for repentance so short, that the people of themselves, "from the greatest of them even to the least of them," without waiting for their king's command, proclaimed a fast. As, when a large building is on fire, men do not stand on etiquette, but instantly try with all their might to extinguish the flames, so the men of Nineveh, aware that much time would be lost if they waited to comply with the ceremonial customary in approaching an eastern king, and far removed, as many of them were, in the vast city, from the quarter where the palace stood, immediately adopted the only measures likely to obtain deliverance from the impending ruin. The king, too, in the general danger, was not ashamed to follow the example of his subjects. The greatest potentate, as he then was, in the world, he instantly abased himself before the King of kings. Laying aside his gorgeous robe of state, he wrapped himself in sackcloth, and exchanges his royal throne for a seat in ashes, outdoing even his people in the depth of his humiliation. As it has been well said, 'The king had conquered enemies by valour: he conquered God by humility' (Maximus, in Pusey). How his zeal, and that of his people, rebukes the half-heartedness of faith and penitence on the part of most of us! Many wish so to repent as not to part with their favourite pleasures, luxuries, and worldly vanities. That penitence is little worth which is willing to make no sacrifices. The true penitent, in times of fasting and mourning, seeks that the outward man may reflect the sincere repentance of the inward man.
(8) The King of Nineveh urged all his people to "cry mightily unto God" (Jonah 3:8). Faint prayer pierces not beyond the clouds. It is 'mighty crying,' as that of men thoroughly in earnest, which prevails. It is the spiritually violent that take heaven by a holy force (Matthew 11:12).
(9) Fasting and praying, in order to be acceptable before God, must be accompanied with a renunciation of all sin. If we regard iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us (Psalms 66:18). Prayer without the sincere purpose of reformation would be hypocrisy. Reformation without prayer would be presumption. While we "turn every one from his evil way," and from whatever sin there has been "in our hands," let us never forget that God alone, by His Spirit, can turn us, if we are truly to be turned.
(10) Besides our general and common sins, each one has his own besetting sin. This, in particular, he must put away, in order that his repentance may be a sincere one. Repentance hates and quits the sins of which it repents. To keep the gain of sin is to incur the loss of heaven. Restoration of unjust gains must be made at all costs: as the Hebrews used to say, 'He who hath used a stolen beam in building a great tower, must pull down the whole tower, in order to restore the beam' (Kimchi).
(11) The King of the Ninevites used the very same plea in addressing them as that which the prophet Joel suggested to the people of Judah, "Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?" (Jonah 3:9.) The thought must therefore have been suggested to the King of Nineveh by the same gracious Spirit who inspired Joel. None ever venture all on God's mercy and are disappointed. If, on a vague possibility of mercy, the Ninevites were so vehemently earnest in suing for it, how much more reason have we, Christians, to come boldly, yet humbly, to the throne of grace, in the assurance that our prayers are not one of them lost, because Jesus "was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification"! (Romans 4:25.) The well-grounded hope of pardon and peace for believing penitents is the best encouragement for all to seek in order that they may find. So free and full are all the promises of God in Christ, that none need despair.
(12) It is not said that God looked to their outward fasting, however proper, as an indication of mourning: this may be; but "God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way." We must not only fast for sin, but fast from sin. A changed life, flowing from a changed heart, is what God regards.
(13) God's unchangeable principle is to deal with men according to their doings. Righteousness is like the pole, to which the magnetic needle always points. When it seems to shift from side to side, the change that seems to be in its direction is really not in it, but in the direction of the ship in which it is. When God repents of the evil (Jonah 3:10) that He said He would do unto men, the change is not really in Him, but in them. Were He not to change His mode of dealing with them, when they have changed their dealings toward Him, He would be really changing from His own immutable righteousness. His threats are expressed absolutely, without the condition being expressed, in order to mark the absolute inviolability of His principle that sin unpardoned brings inevitable punishment, and that the sinner may be the more roused to flee from the wrath to come. To us there is no certainty of life for a day, whereas the Ninevites had a 40 days' respite ensured to them. How alarmed sinners would be if they were sure that they had not forty days to live! Will any, then, remain impenitent, though he is not sure of living a single day!