Jonah 4:11

that cannot discern &c. The idea that the whole population of Nineveh is thus described, the reference being to their moral condition of heathen ignorance and darkness, has nothing to recommend it. On the contrary, the moral susceptibility of the Ninevites, although they are heathen, is, as we have seen, a prominent feature in the history. The reference is no doubt to the children of tender age who were as yet incapable of moral discrimination, and could not therefore be regarded as responsible agents. The same thought is expressed, without a metaphor, by the phrases, "having no knowledge between good and evil," Deuteronomy 1:39; "Knowing to refuse the evil, and choose the good," Isaiah 7:15-16. Between these helpless and innocent children, together with the great multitude of unoffending animals which the vast area of Nineveh contained, and the plant over which Jonah mourned, regarded simply as objects of human compassion, all moral considerations apart, the comparison lies.

Any attempt to compute the whole population of Nineveh from the data thus given must necessarily be precarious, from the difficulty of deciding at what age the line is to be drawn. But in any case the total would not be excessive, for the population of so large an area as we have seen that Nineveh enclosed.