Jonah 3:9

Who can tell [if] God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

Ver. 9. Who can tell if God will turn and repent] This is the speech of one that doubteth and yet despaireth not, like that of David praying for his sick child, "Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?" 2 Samuel 12:22. We are staggering, saith Saint Paul, but not wholly sticking, 2 Corinthians 4:8. They that go down to the pit (of despair, as well as of the grave, Isa 38:18) cannot hope for thy truth, but are hurried headlong into hell, as the Gergesites' swine were into the sea. The prophet Jonah was peremptory, that by such a day Nineveh should be destroyed. These men, therefore, had good reason to doubt, if not the pardon of their sins, yet the saving of their city. All their hope is, that this that Jonah denounced was not God's absolute decree, but only his threatening, and that conditionally too, viz. except they repented. This, if they could do, and heartily, they knew not but that mercy might be yet obtained. Keep hope in heart, or the work will go on heavily, Psalms 43:5. Hope is the daughter of Faith; but such as is a staff to her aged mother. See Trapp on " Joe 2:14 " Of God's repenting I have spoken elsewhere.