Jonah 3:5-7

A spirit of reckless levity and unbelief might still have led the people to treat all with indifference, and to add to their other sins by rejecting the Lord's messenger as a false witness, and one that sought to trouble them with groundless fears. But a different spirit happily prevailed; and, regarding themselves as standing on the verge of ruin, they now presented the example of a people effectually roused from their spiritual slumber, and applying in earnest to the work of reformation. “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. 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. 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: 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. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?”

1. In these words, considered as a description of sincere and genuine repentance, we have to note, first, the awakened and heartfelt concern which pervaded the people. All classes shared in it, and those now took the lead in expressing their convictions of guilt and danger, whose situation invested them with the greatest responsibility. The king and nobles of Nineveh were not ashamed to own themselves believers in the word of God, and afraid of suffering the inflictions of his displeasure; but, convinced themselves of the greatness of the emergency, they endeavoured to arouse others to the same, not by any external compulsion, but by openly accrediting, on their authority, the truthfulness of the prophet's testimony, and calling upon the people to meet the evil that threatened them in a becoming spirit. Happy for Nineveh at such a season that her rulers knew thus the time of their visitation! And happy must it be for any land, when those who occupy its highest places of power and influence are the foremost in confessing the truth of God, and acting suitably to its requirements! Unfortunately, it is rather the reverse of this which usually attracts our notice. The spirit of the gospel, instead of coming down from the higher places of the earth, recommended by all that is attractive and influential in society, has for the most part been left to work its way upward in the face of a counter spirit, nowhere so firmly seated and so vigorously put forth as in the palaces of the great. But whether among great or small, whenever the word of God really takes hold of the conscience, the first symptom always discovers itself in such a spirit of heartfelt concern as we find here, leading men to grapple in earnest with the things of God, and rendering it impossible for them any longer to trifle with interests so momentous, and dangers so pressing.

2. Secondly, The repentance at Nineveh was marked by a spirit of deep humiliation and abasement. This was manifested by a variety of outward actions, in accordance partly with the lively temperament of the people of the East, and partly also with the symbolical spirit which so deeply pervaded the religions of antiquity. Both circumstances naturally led the Ninevites to embody in external acts and corporeal gestures the pungent feelings that were experienced in their bosom. The clothing with sackcloth, therefore, sitting in ashes and fasting, in which to some extent even the cattle were made to take their share, in token of the felt urgency of the case, is merely to he regarded as the sign in their circumstances the natural and appropriate sign of a deeply humbled and prostrate heart. Apart from this, such things were not then, neither are they now, of any worth in the sight of God, and hence are never enjoined in Scripture as in themselves ordinances of God, having an inherent efficacy and value. Appropriate forms they were, and nothing more, through which the heart, pierced with convictions of sin, and trembling for fear of God's judgments, might give outward expression to what it felt within. It was still the state of heart itself on which God looked with satisfaction both then, when such external forms were commonly resorted to, and now, when they are as commonly laid aside. (Some even among Protestants (to say nothing of the ceremonialists of Rome, and their semi-Protestant imitators) are disposed to make an exception in favour of fasting, and to regard it as in the proper sense an ordinance of God, and one still in force. Such persons can of course appeal to the practice of the apostolic Church. On more than one occasion we read of the disciples giving themselves to fasting; and in 1 Corinthians 7:5, St Paul, according to the authorized version, exhorts believers at Corinth in certain circumstances “rather to give themselves to fasting and prayer.” The reading of this text is now universally regarded as corrupt, and in the later editions of the original the word for fasting is omitted. In regard to the practice of the primitive Church, it is neither set forth, nor can it properly be viewed, as a rule; for it was evidently continued as a custom from former times, just as the anointing of the sick in Mark 16:13, and James 5:14, the abstinence from blood, and observance of Jewish customs generally. But not even in the law of Moses (notwithstanding that fasting came to be much in use among the Jews), was there any command respecting fasting. The only thing approaching to it is the injunction on the people “to afflict their souls” on the day of atonement, which in later times was understood to require a corporeal fast, as in earlier ones it was very probably accompanied with the same. Hence the day itself was familiarly called the fast. (Acts 27:9) Such corporeal abstinence was never properly enjoined; it is even plainly disparaged by the prophets (Isaiah 58:3-6; Zechariah 7:5; Joel 2:12-13), on account of the strong tendency of the mind to substitute this mere bodily deprivation for internal compunction. And what our Lord says in Matthew 6 evidently points in the same direction; even when men did feel it proper to fast, they were still to anoint their heads, and not appear unto others to fast. Our Lord sought to call men away from the mere outward act to the humbled and contrite spirit, which alone was of any account in the sight of God. When persons find from experience that this spiritual effect may be best produced by the accompaniment of outward fasting, they are doubtless at liberty to follow the practice, though the danger will always require to be well guarded against of its degenerating into formalism, and feeding the spirit of self-righteousness. A judicious and sensible essay on this subject was lately published by Mr John Collyer Knight, London.)

3. Again, the reformation at Nineveh discovered its genuineness by proper resolutions and purposes of amendment. The sorrow and regret that were felt for the past, gave rise to better counsels for the future; each one turned from his evil way, and from the violence that was in their hands. By this the Ninevites showed how well they had come to understand the character of God. They knew him to be no capricious and arbitrary being, but holy, just, and good one who comes near to the execution of judgment only as the righteous avenger of sin, and who must, therefore, regard all repentance as a mockery which stops short of a renunciation and abhorrence of the misdeeds which have provoked his displeasure. By turning from their misdeeds on this occasion, the Ninevites justified God as righteous for having come near to them, as he did, in the way of judgment; and virtually declared that they had no reason to expect the reversal of the doom but by entering on paths conformable to his holiness. What a reflection would it involve on the character of God for any one to think otherwise! God must first cease to be the Holy One and the Just, before he can recall the sentence of condemnation against transgressors, and make them partakers of blessing while they are still following the ways of unrighteousness he must appear, if not directly the patron of sin, at least comparatively indifferent to the distinctions between right and wrong!