Jonah 1:1-2

GOD'S MESSENGER RUNNING FROM GODTHE COMMISSION OF JONAH

TEXT: Jonah 1:1-2

1

Now the word of Jehovah came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,

2

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

QUERIES

a.

Who was Jonahwhere did he livewhen did he live?

b.

Why send a Jewish prophet to a Gentile city?

PARAPHRASE

And now at Jehovah's appointed time in the course of events the word of Jehovah was communicated to Jonah, the son of Amittai, Jehovah said to Jonah, Arise and go with haste to that great Gentile city of Nineveh, in Assyria, and preach My sentence of judgment against it; for the wickedness of the people is great and it has come up before Me.

SUMMARY

Jehovah's righteous judgment is about to fall upon Nineveh but He commissions Jonah to go with a final message of repentance, which, if heeded, will bring salvation from the impending judgment.

COMMENT

Jonah 1:1-2. THE WORD OF JEHOVAH CAME SAYING. GO TO NINEVAH. AND CRY AGAINST IT. The story of Jonah, beginning with the conjunction vav, unites with all the preceding history of God's scheme of redemption and thus becomes one more pearl of great price fitted to the whole string of pearls which form the priceless revelation of God's grace to man. It has a specific purpose to serve, it is not incongruous. It reminds the Jews of their election to be a witness to the nations; it proclaims God's sovereignty over all peoples; it typifies the Messiah's humiliation and glorification; and it prophesies Israel's chastening to come. It is God's trumpet blast warning both Jew and Gentile of their responsibilities toward Him at a critical time in the scheme of redemption.

The city of Nineveh, according to Diodorus, was the greatest city of antiquity. It had a population of about 600,000 and was some 80 miles in circumference. Upon its walls, 100 feet high, flanked with 1500 towers, each 200 feet high, four chariots could drive abreast. It filled, together with the adjoining suburbs, the whole space between the rivers Tigris, Khoer, the Upper or Great Zab, the Gasr Su, and the mountainous boundary of the valley of the Tigris on the east. This great metropolis occupied an area of about 18 square miles.

The first mention of Nineveh is in Genesis 10:11 where it is stated that Nimrod (or Asshur) went out into Assyria, and builded Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen, adding, the same is the great city. It is very probable that the Nineveh of Jonah's day consisted of all these cities in one great city. The first king of any greatness in Nineveh was Assur-nasipal II (885-860 B.C.) who was warlike and cruel but who welded Assyria into the best fighting machine of the ancient world. Shalmaneser II (860-825 B.C.) was the first Assyrian king to come in conflict with Israel. Ahab fought him and Jehu paid him tribute. Then came Shansi-adad (825-808 B.C.) and then Adad-nirari (808-783 B.C.). Adad-nirari is undoubtedly the person who was king when Jonah went to cry against that great city. There are archaeological records to indicate that Adad-Nirari made reforms in his empire similar to those of Amenophis IV in Egypt. And, under the reigns of the three kings following Adad-Nirari (Shalmaneser III, 783-771 B.C.; Assur-dayan, 771-753 B.C.; Assur-lush, 753-747 B.C.) there was a letup in Assyrian conquests. In this period Israel recovered lost territory, 2 Kings 14:25. These are hints that Jonah's influence on Nineveh was profound.

About 100 years later, under Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) Nineveh blossomed into beauty and splendor that she had never known, Sennacherib built his palace which covered 8 acres and was elevated on a brick platform 90 feet above the city level. Flights of marble steps led up all four sides of the palace and each entrance was flanked by five pairs of human headed beasts, lions and other figures. These palace ruins show numerous halls, rooms and passages, many of which were faced with slabs of coarse alabaster, sculptured in relief with military operations, hunting-scenes, mythological figures, etc.
Assur-banipal (668-626), one of Assyria's last, but greatest kings, built one of the ancient world's greatest libraries. It contained originally over 100,000 volumes. It was thoroughly cataloged and indexed and specific volumes were easily referred to. Archaeologists have found magnifying glasses supplied to read the many texts which, because of voluminous amount of material, had to be written in small characters. Among these volumes were such works as grammars, dictionaries, interlinear translations, works on astronomy relating observations of eclipses and the like, religious texts, legal texts including the code of Hammurabi, scientific works in taxonomy, geography and medicine, poetry, epics on the great Deluge and the Creation, fiscal documents relating to collection of taxes and works of various other natures.
About 612 B.C. Nineveh was destroyed by a coalition of armies from the Babylonians and Medes. It happened exactly as Nahum, the prophet, predicted it. Its destruction was so complete that even its site was forgotten. When Xenophon and his 10,000 passed by 200 years later he thought the mounds were the ruins of some Parthian city. When Alexander the Great fought the famous battle of Arbela, 331 B.C., near the site of Nineveh, he did not know there had ever been a city there.

To this cruel, cold-blooded, profligate, power-worshipping, materialistic, animistic metropolis God sent Jonah. Jonah was commanded to preach against that great city. Their wickedness cried out to the whole earth and God saw it just as He had seen it before (Genesis 6:5; Genesis 18:20-21). The wickedness of every man and every nation is a cry against God. But God has, by sending His Word, cried out against all wickedness (cf. Romans 1:18 ff). Who will win in this struggle? Men cry their rebellions against GodGod cries His judgments upon men. Whose voice shall be finally heard? The Bible says God's cry will prevail and history confirms it!

But why send Jonah to a foreign nation? Did he not have enough to do in preaching to his own people? No doubt he had preached to Israel time and time again of God's judgment to come upon them because of their materialism, rebellion and unbelief. But his preaching had fallen upon sin-deafened ears. Nothing he said, however scathing, could turn them from their headlong plunge into heathenism. But look again at Nineveh. Its power and security, its prolificacy and licentiousness had become a by-word throughout the whole world. It was the subject upon every lipthe fear in every heart. Whatever might be achieved there by God through His prophet would not be as a thing done in a corner! The report of whatever should be accomplished there at Jonah's preaching would be reported throughout the world!
If by this one call to repentance Jonah should effect the repentance of this Gentile city, what a lesson that would be to the sin-calloused hearts of Israel. It should reveal to Israel the perverseness and foolishness of her behaviour toward her loving Godit should make her ashamed. If it did not so shame her into repentance then there was nothing left for God to do but cast Israel out as one no longer worthy to be called a child and receive and honor the recovered and penitent prodigal, Nineveh. This is precisely the use Jesus made of the preaching of Jonah at Nineveh and its results. Jesus told the Jews of His own generation that the people of Nineveh would rise up in the judgment to condemn them, because they had repented at Jonah's preaching; while He, a greater than Jonah, spoke only to cold and unconcerned hearts. The lesson to be learned from the response of the Gentiles should be even more graphic to the Jews of Jonah's day. The Ninevites surrendered to the call of God and ceased from their sins while the covenant people despised God's word and His prophet and hardened their hearts fearing Him not. Israel then could only learn that repentance, such as expressed by Nineveh, would bring salivation. The only other alternative was certain, sure and just retribution from the God they insisted upon spurning.

This is a principle common to all ages. Jesus used it over and over again (Matthew 8:10-12; Matthew 22:1-14; Matthew 21:33-41); Paul reiterated it again and again both by example and precept (Acts 13:46-47; Acts 28:24-28; Romans 11, etc.). This principle is: God is not now nor was He ever a respecter of persons, But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him (Acts 10:34). When God chose the seed of Abraham He intended to bless not simply the physical offspring of Abraham but the spiritual seed of Abraham. The people of Israel in Jonah's day were in very real danger of forgetting this truth. Jonah is merely illustrating by an object-lesson this great truth which Hosea would later prophesy (Hosea 1:10; Hosea 2:23) and which Paul would quote in Romans 9:19-26. When God judged and redeemed Israel it was a revelationa lessonto all mankind at large. Just as Israel, in apostatizing, became as the heathen falling under the judgment of God, so Israel in being redeemed upon her repentance was equally a promise to all Gentiles of their redemption if they should repent. In the case ofJonah's preaching to the Gentiles and bringing about their repentance and salvation it was this same lesson in reverseteaching the principle which those who should have known it best had so readily forgotten!

This was why Jonah was sent. God would use the repentance and salvation of Nineveh as a last effort of a loving Father to provoke a recalcitrant child (Israel) to shame and to a jealousy that would penitently seek the favor of its Father (cf. Romans 10:19). But Jonah, so intent upon his own opinion as how to best accomplish Israel's repentance (which would be by a catastrophic display of God's wrath upon the sin of Nineveh), was found running ahead of God.

Another prophet, enamored of his own ideas as to how best bring about the purposes of God, was also found running ahead of God in a similar way and received a similar rebuke (cf. 1 Kings 19:9-14). The Jewish concept of the Messiah was one of a mighty military despot who would come to bring the retribution of God upon the Gentiles thus calling Israel to repentance but the Messiah came with the still small voice and the Jews, having already formed their concepts, rejected Him. We shall have more to say of this later.

QUIZ

1.

How does this singularly unique book of Jonah fit into the whole revelation of God?

2.

How great was the city of Ninevehpopulation, area, militarily?

3.

Who was the king of Assyria when Jonah preached against its capitol city?

4.

What was the eventual fate of the city of Nineveh?

5.

Why was Jonah sent to a Gentile city to preach against it?

6.

Are there any illustrations of other ages and other people of God's purpose in Jonah's commission? Name some!