Jonah 3 · The Lantern

And there is a word of Jehovah unto Jonah a second time, saying,

`Rise, go unto Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim unto it the proclamation that I am speaking unto thee;'

and Jonah riseth, and he goeth unto Nineveh, according to the word of Jehovah. And Nineveh hath been a great city before God, a journey of three days.

And Jonah beginneth to go in to the city a journey of one day, and proclaimeth, and saith, `Yet forty days--and Nineveh is overturned.'

Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that, from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all such as would be converted unto Him... Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites; but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer, and obtained salvation, although they were aliens [to the covenant] of God.

For He never makes a public display of our sins, except at any time He sees men insensible to them. For when He says "ye saw me hungry, and fed me not: and thirsty and gave me no drink," He speaks thus at the present time in order that we may not hear these words in time to come.

We should not despair of those who are still unwilling to correct their vices and do not even blush to defend them. In a similar way hope was not abandoned for that city of which it is written, "Three days more, and Nineveh shall be destroyed"; yet in those three days it was able to be converted, pray, bewail and merit mercy from the threatened punishment.

And the men of Nineveh believe in God, and proclaim a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even unto their least,

Let us sow in tears, so that we may reap in joy. Let us show ourselves people of Nineveh, not of Sodom. Let us amend our wickedness, lest we be consumed with it. Let us listen to the preaching of Jonah, lest we be overwhelmed by fire and brimstone. And if we have departed from Sodom, let us escape to the mountain. Let us flee to Zoar. Let us enter it as the sun rises.

"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." LXX: similar. Nineveh believed but Israel did not believe; the foreskin believed, but circumcision remained without faith. First of all the men of Nineveh believed who had arrived at the age of Christ [Eph.

But the Chaldaeans and the Medes and Persians, having a somewhat wider knowledge, were instructed by the building of the Tower, and the deluge, and by what happened in the case of Hezekiah and Jonah, and by the Captivity, and by Daniel and the Three Children, and also partly by the writings themselves.

seeing the word doth come unto the king of Nineveh, and he riseth from his throne, and removeth his honourable robe from off him, and spreadeth out sackcloth, and sitteth on the ashes,

and he crieth and saith in Nineveh by a decree of the king and his great ones, saying, `Man and beast, herd and flock--let them not taste anything, let them not feed, even water let them not drink;

Let us see then how the Ninevites fasted, and how they were delivered from that wrath—"Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything," saith (the prophet). What sayest thou? Tell me—must even the irrational things fast, and the horses and the mules be covered with sackcloth? "Even so," he replies.

The king conquered enemies with a display of valor. He conquered God, however, by humility. He is a wise king who, in order to save his people, owns himself a sinner rather than a king. He forgets that he is a king, fearing God the King of all. He does not bring to mind his own power but rather comes to possess the power of the Godhead. Marvelous!

Now why should the little children, who had committed no sin, fast? Evidently, the innocent fasted in order that sinners might escape punishment; the little child cried out that the older man might not perish. But even if the fasting of infants was necessary, why the further fasting of flocks and herds?

and cover themselves with sackcloth let man and beast, and let them call unto God mightily, and let them turn back each from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

Recall that Daniel, passionate man though he was, spent many days fasting. He received as recompense an awesome vision so that he tamed the fury of the lions and turned them into the mildest of sheep, not by changing their nature but by diverting their purpose without loss of their ferocity. The Ninevites too made use of the remedy of fasting and won from the Lord a reprieve.

On Jonah 3, upon the text: Let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth: the Gloss says: "Behold, the king of Nineveh rises from his throne; he exchanges purple for sackcloth, ointments for mud, clean things for filth." But this is to abase oneself in the highest degree, not only interiorly but also exteriorly, and through this the wrathful God was appeased: therefore self-abas…

Coarseness of attire is sometimes a sign of sorrow: wherefore those who are in sorrow want to wear coarser clothes, just as on the other hand in times of festivity and joy they wear finer clothes. Just as a man's mind is uplifted by fine clothes, so is it humbled by lowly apparel.

Who knoweth? He doth turn back, and God hath repented, and hath turned back from the heat of His anger, and we do not perish.'

Look here then, say you: I discover a self-incriminating case in the matter of the Ninevites, when the book of Jonah declares, "And God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not." In accordance with which Jonah himself says unto the Lord, "Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow…

Consider, if God had chosen to demolish everything [in a recent earthquake], what we would have suffered. I say this, so that the fear of these events may remain sharp in you and may keep everyone's resolution firm. He shook us, but he did not destroy us. If he had wished to destroy us, he would not have shaken us.

God is said 'to change His mind,' metaphorically, inasmuch as He bears Himself after the manner of one who repents, by 'changing His sentence, although He does not change His plan.

And God seeth their works, that they have turned back from their evil way, and God repenteth of the evil that He spake of doing to them, and he hath not done it.

Jonah3