Jonah 3:8-9

4. The last step in a true repentance the return in faith and confidence to God is also represented to have been taken by the Ninevites. Without this their repentance could certainly not have been complete; for as the essence of all sin consists in the spirit of independence and enmity it manifests in respect to God, so it is only when the soul has returned to seek repose and blessing in God, that the evil can be said to have ceased in its root. This return, we are led to understand, was made by the people of Nineveh, since they are said to have “cried mightily to the Lord,” and to have sought with one heart to obtain an interest in his favour and blessing; a procedure the more remarkable in their case, as, being naturally heathens, they had to break through the wall of long-established prejudices before they could make any approach to Jehovah. And remarkable still farther, when it is considered how narrow the ground was on which they had to stand for the exercise of hope and confidence toward God. For the word, which they are said to have believed, held out no promise of good; it breathed only threatening and destruction; it was with them now precisely as it had already been with Jonah when cast into the deep the heavens seemed all so enveloped in darkness, that scarcely an opening remained for hope to enter. Without any special grounds of encouragement, they were obliged to betake themselves to merely general considerations. “Who can tell,” they said, “but God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? We cannot plead this on the score of justice, neither can we ply his faithfulness with any specific assurance of mercy, given to meet the necessities of our case; we have nothing to encourage us but the general character of God himself, as manifested in his dealings with men on earth. But still we have that, and the matter is not altogether hopeless. For why should God have sent his prophet to admonish us of sin, and foretell his approaching judgment, a prophet, too, who has himself been the subject of singular mercy and forbearance? If destruction alone had been his object, would he not rather have allowed us to sleep on in our sinfulness? And why, in particular, should these forty days have been made to run between our doom and our punishment? Surely this bespeaks some thought of mercy in God; it must have been meant to leave the door still open to us for forgiveness and peace.”

So undoubtedly they reasoned, and, as the event proved, reasoned justly. Like men in earnest to be saved, they were determined to seize the present moment; and, in their manner of doing so, showed somewhat of that quickness of perception in apprehending grounds of forgiveness and hope, which had previously been manifested by Jonah himself in the hour of his extremity. Little as they had to warrant their confidence in God, that little, with faith, was sufficient. And, putting the whole together, we certainly have before us, in the case of the people of Nineveh, an example of sincere and genuine repentance. Their conduct on the occasion exhibited the usual marks and exercises of grace, which are the proper characteristics of such a repentance; and it received the indubitable seal of the divine approbation. For we are told, “God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way;” and our Lord pointed to them as a people who had in truth repented of sin and turned to God.

Possibly, however, certain thoughts may suggest themselves not altogether consistent with the view now given; for if the Ninevites indeed broke off their sins, and turned with one heart to the living God, why, it may be asked, do we hear nothing of their frequenting, as true worshippers, the temple of God in Jerusalem? and why, in all the subsequent accounts presented to us of Nineveh, both in the history of ancient Israel and in the prophets, do they constantly appear as a race of idolaters, maintaining a rival interest with God's covenant people, and themselves, in process of time, visited with destruction, for their intolerable pride, revelry, and lust?

There can be no question that the reformation effected at Nineveh, through the instrumentality of Jonah, was not perpetuated so as to impress a lasting change on the character of the people, and it is possible that in comparatively few of them was it of that high kind which endures unto life everlasting. Yet we have no reason to suppose that there was an immediate or even very rapid return to the former state of things. For, taking the visit of Jonah to have occurred about the middle of the reign of Jeroboam II, which is probably even later than the period of its actual occurrence, the earliest notice we have subsequently of the Assyrian empire or people is at a distance of thirty or forty years, and consists simply of the fact, that Pul, the king of Assyria, came up against Menahem, king of Israel, and laid him under tribute; but in what spirit this act of aggression was made, or what it indicated morally respecting Assyria, we are utterly ignorant. It is not till the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib, in the reign of Hezekiah, that the king and people of Nineveh appear in the attitude of defiers of Jehovah, and as the representatives of the world-power in its opposition to the kingdom and glory of God. But this could scarcely have been less than a century after the preaching of Jonah, leaving ample room for an entire change meanwhile entering into the moral condition of the people, as there seems also to have sprung up a new spirit in the government and direction of its civil affairs a spirit of military ambition and conquest, of which no traces exist in the earlier history of the kingdom. By the period of Sennacherib's reign, not only had two entire generations passed away since the memorable preaching of Jonah; but it is more than probable that, as happened shortly after in Babylon, a new and more warlike race had obtained the mastery of affairs at Nineveh, so that no conclusion can be drawn thence respecting the posture of things at the time now under consideration. (No one who is at all read in ancient history needs to be told of the sudden changes, and even entire revolutions, to which the cities and empires of a remote antiquity were subject. The revolution referred to above in the case of Babylon may especially help us to understand, how easily the whole aspect of affairs may have changed at Nineveh in a far shorter time than that now supposed. Speaking of the Babylonians about 630 years before Christ, Heeren says, “A revolution then took place in Asia, similar to that which Cyrus afterwards effected. A nomad people, under the name of Chaldean, descending from the mountains of Taurus and Caucasus, overwhelmed Southern Asia, and made themselves masters of the Syrian and Babylonian plains. Babylonia, which they captured, became the chief seat of their empire, and their king Nebuchadnezzar, by subduing Asia to the shores of the Mediterranean, earned his title to be ranked among the most famous of Asiatic conquerors.” To this event the prophet Isaiah has been thought to point in chap. 23:13, “Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not; Assyria founded it for them that dwelt in the wilderness;” i.e. as many understand it, the Chaldeans, who possessed Babylon, were not its original occupants, nor were they of ancient origin; the Assyrians in a manner founded and prepared it for them.)

If these later notices of the Assyrian empire are not fitted to involve the reformation effected by Jonah in any doubt, neither certainly is the absence of any intimation of worshippers having come from Nineveh to Jerusalem. It was in the nature of things impossible, that persons at so great a distance, on the supposition of their being sincere converts to the knowledge and worship of Jehovah, should come in any considerable numbers to wait on him at Jerusalem. And it is doubtful how far this was required at the hands of any not actually incorporated with the seed of Jacob, and residing within the bounds of the land of Canaan. The whole economy and institutions of Moses were adapted to such; and those who might come to the knowledge of God, while incapable from their situation or distance of complying with the letter of the law, were left to follow such a course as seemed most accordant with the general spirit of its enactments. Hence no fault is found with Naaman the Syrian because he purposed to erect an altar in his native land, and call there upon the name of the Lord. Nor, at a much later period, is the least doubt thrown upon the sincerity of the homage paid to the infant Jesus by the eastern Magi, or the worth of their testimony depreciated on account of their at once and for ever disappearing from the scene of gospel history. They had a special light granted them from heaven, and their wisdom consisted in faithfully following its direction as far as it carried them. In like manner, the Ninevites in the days of Jonah were placed for the time under a peculiar dispensation; it was their wisdom to have followed with ready alacrity the light of that dispensation; and our inability to lift the veil which scripture has allowed to rest upon their future condition, or to determine certain ulterior questions respecting them, should on no account be turned into an occasion for disputing the reality of their conversion, or depreciating the character of the work wrought in the midst of them. They had for a time a supernatural light; they so used and rejoiced in that light as to receive the benediction of God; and who are we, that we should eye them with suspicion and doubt?

The case of the Ninevites stands for all ages as a memorable example how little instruction will suffice when the heart is properly disposed to make a profitable use of it. The light that shone upon them was but a faint glimmering compared with the full blaze of truth which now irradiates the world and yet it proved sufficient to bring them into the way of peace and blessing. Would that the believing and earnest spirit, which then wrought so powerfully at Nineveh, did but pervade and rest upon the lands of the Bible now what different fruits would appear from those which are commonly seen amongst men! Instead of seeking for excuses to cloak their indifference, or standing aloof under benumbing fears and doubts, as multitudes are wont to do, sinners would be every where seen awaking to spiritual life, and laying hold of the arm of God for salvation. Nineveh, alas! must still be to most but a witness to condemn in judgment, not an example to prompt and encourage their return to God. Yet seldom has God given a more unequivocal proof, than in his dealings with Nineveh, that he wills not the death of the sinner, but that the sinner should turn to him and live.