Jonah 3:4

And Jonah began to enter into the city Calvin well brings out the moral grandeur of the scene which this verse so simply and briefly describes; the promptitude of Jonah's action, in entering without delay or hesitation or enquiry, immediately, as it would seem, upon his reaching the city, upon his difficult and dangerous task; his boldness, as a helpless and unprotected stranger, in standing in the heart of "the bloody city," and denouncing destruction upon it. It was, indeed, to "beard the lion in his den" to adventure himself on such an errand into "the dwelling of the lions and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid." (Nahum 2:11.)

a day's journey "He began to perambulate the city, going hither and thither, as far as was possible, in the first day." (Maurer.) And as he went he cried. In him was personified the description of the wise King of Israel:

"Wisdom crieth without;

She uttereth her voice in the streets:

She crieth in the chief place of concourse,

in the openings of the gates:

In the city she uttereth her words,

Saying,

...........................

Turn ye at my reproof."

Proverbs 1:20-23.

Some have supposed that, as a day's journey would suffice to traverse from one side to the other a city, of which the dimensions were such as have been assigned (Jonah 3:3) to Nineveh, and as, moreover, Jonah is found afterwards (Jonah 4:5) on the east side of Nineveh (i. e. the opposite side to that on which he would have entered it in coming from Palestine), we are intended here to understand that he walked quite through the city in a single day, uttering continually as he went "his one deep cry of woe." The other view, however, is more natural, and it enhances the idea of the impressibility of the Ninevites, and their readiness to believe and repent, which it is evidently the design of the inspired writer to convey, if we suppose that while the preacher himself was seen and heard in only a portion of the vast city, his message was taken up and repeated, and sped and bore fruit rapidly in every direction, till tidings of what was happening came to the king himself (Jonah 3:6), and in obedience to the yet distant and unseen prophet, he issued the edict which laid the whole of Nineveh, man and beast, abashed and humbled before the threatened blow.

Yet forty days "He threatens the overthrow of the city unconditionally. From the event, however, it is clear that the threat was to be understood with this condition, -unless ye shall (in the mean time) have amended your life and conduct." Comp. Jeremiah 18:7-8." (Rosenm.) God's threatenings are always implied promises.

overthrown The word is the same as that used of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, both in the history of that event (Genesis 19:25; Genesis 19:29), and in subsequent reference to it (Deuteronomy 29:23 [Heb. 22]). Not necessarily by the same means, (comp. "overthrown by strangers," Isaiah 1:7,) but as complete and signal shall the overthrow be. The use of the participle, lit., Yet forty days and Nineveh overthrown, is very forcible. To the prophet's eye, overlooking the short interval of forty days, Nineveh appears not a great city with walls and towers and palaces, and busy marts and crowded thoroughfares, but one vast mass of ruins.

It may be asked whether the whole of Jonah's preaching to the Ninevites consisted of this one sentence incessantly repeated. The sacred text, taken simply as it stands, seems to imply that it did. We have indeed here "the spectacle of an unknown Hebrew, in a prophet's austere and homely attire, passing through the splendid streets of the proudest town of the Eastern world;" but not (except so far as imagination completes the picture) of his "uttering words of rebuke and menace, bidding the people not only to make restitution of their unlawfully acquired property, but to give up their ancestral deities for the one God of Israel." (Kalisch.) To an oriental mind (and Almighty God is wont to adapt His means to those whom they are to reach) the simple, oft-repeated announcement might be more startling than a laboured address. "Simplicity is always impressive. They were four words which God caused to be written on the wall amid Belshazzar's impious revelry; Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. We all remember the touching history of Jesus the son of Anan, an unlettered rustic, who, -four years before the war, when Jerusalem was in complete peace and affluence," burst in on the people at the feast of tabernacles with one oft-repeated cry, -A voice from the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the four winds, a voice on Jerusalem and the temple, a voice on the bridegrooms and the brides, a voice on the whole people;" how he went about through all the lanes of the city, repeating, day and night, this one cry; and when scourged until his bones were laid bare, echoed every lash with -Woe, woe, to Jerusalem," and continued as his daily dirge and his one response to daily good or ill-treatment, -Woe, woe, to Jerusalem." The magistrates and even the cold Josephus thought that there was something in it above nature." (Pusey.)