1 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying
2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
Just what Jonah was trying to avoid. Here he was again,
even after having been through all that he had been through,
Jonah was still not happy about doing what the Lord asked him to do.
People like to think less of Jonah because of his experience of trying to run from God
and getting caught in the whale’s belly.
God was even so kind as to have the whale spit Jonah out onto dry ground.
I suspect Jonah probably didn’t have much energy. God thinks of everything.
I have been like Jonah, many times, not necessarily about the prophetic part,
but about the obeying God part. He has asked me to do things I didn’t want to do.
Some I have done reluctantly, others I haven’t done at all to God’s disappointment and mine, too.
3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.
Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
On he went to perform his trying task. The son who said no and then did it.
But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said,
Son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not:
but afterward he repented, and went.
And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not.
Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first.
Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you,
That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. Matthew 21: 28-31
4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said,
Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
5 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.
The whole city, which took Jonah days to walk through
to make sure the message from God was heard by everyone.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
This is exactly what Jonah was afraid of. He knew God was merciful and that the people might repent and then Jonah’s reputation would be ruined.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh
by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying,
Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God:
yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
The King of Nineveh was so concerned that he made a decree that nobody in the whole city, including the animals taste anything or drink any water and cry mightily to God while being covered in sackcloth.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
He knew that there was a chance God would hear them and listen to their plea and maybe forgive them.
10 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 did forgive them. He had mercy on them.
The men of Nineve shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it:
for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. Luke 11:32