JONAH
3:4-6
JONAH
PROPHESIES
NINEVEH’S
DEMISE
Jonah
3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and
said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Susie: Jonah
walked into the city on the first day and preached to them as he went 1/3 of
the way through the great city.
Susan: God
gave Jonah a specific message to proclaim to the Ninevites that within forty
days’ time Nineveh would conquered. I wonder what is the significance of the
specific time-frame of forty days?
Encyclopedia
of the Bible:
FORTY.
One of the favorite numbers of the Israelites, often having symbolical
significance. It was frequently used as the approximate time span of a
generation and to designate an extended period of testing, repentance, vigil,
or punishment. It is associated with important new developments in the
unfolding drama of redemption (e.g. the Flood, the Exodus, Elijah and the
prophetic era, the life of Christ, and the birth of the church).
The
following are a few of the many examples of the use of the number forty in
Scripture: At the time of the Flood it rained for forty days, and the waters
subsided for an equal period (Gen 7:4, 12, 17; 8:6); Moses was forty years old
when he visited his brethren (Acts 7:23), was forty years in Midian (Acts 7:29,
30), was on the Mount forty days (Exod 24:18), and prayed for Israel for forty
days (Deut 9:25). The Israelites wandered forty years in the wilderness (Num
14:33; 32:13). David and Solomon each reigned forty years (2 Sam 5:4; 1 Kings
11:42). Jonah called on Nineveh to repent within forty days (Jonah 3:4); Jesus
fasted in the desert forty days (Matt 4:2) and remained on earth forty days
after His resurrection (Acts 1:3).
Susie: Note
that he was not instructed to offer a way out of this calamity or to teach them
about the mercy and grace of God. He was simply to prophesy their doom. However,
forty days was an amount of time sometimes set for repentance, so perhaps that
is our first hint that God may extend grace to them.
Jonah
3:5 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.
Susan: They
believed Jonah as the prophet of God and instituted a national fast from the
king to the peasant.
Susie: As we
noted in the introduction, Jonah may have told them or they may have heard that
Jonah had been spit out on shore by a humongous fish. Since they worshipped
Dagon, an idol half human and half fish, this may have peaked their interest.
For whatever reason, though, they believed Jonah was delivering a message from
his God and responded in mourning and repentance.
Susan: “What
exactly is sackcloth,” you may ask, “and why the ashes?” Good questions. We
looked up sackcloth in a Bible dictionary:
Sackcloth
[N] [T] [S]
cloth
made of black goats' hair, coarse, rough, and thick, used for sacks, and also
worn by mourners (Genesis 37:34; 42:25; 2 Sam. 3:31; Esther 4:1 Esther 4:2;
Psalms 30:11, etc.), and as a sign of repentance (Matthew 11:21). It was put
upon animals by the people of Nineveh (Jonah 3:8).
These
dictionary topics are from
M.G.
Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible
Dictionary, Third Edition,
published
by Thomas Nelson, 1897. Public Domain, copy freely.
Susie: We
found a good article on the use of sackcloth and ashes which listed more
biblical instances of this custom. You can find it at the link below.
Jonah
3:6 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.
Susie: Historians
and biblical commentators seem to be divided on whether “the king of Nineveh”
was a governor of that province only or king of all Assyria. However you slice
it, he was the top dog in the city of Nineveh.
Susan: Jonah
may have had an audience with the king of Nineveh; or the king’s chief advisors
may have come to the king and said, “This prophet Jonah has a message from
God,” and shared it with him. When he was made aware of Jonah’s prophecy of
doom, he took action immediately.
Susie: He
threw off his splendid royal robes and donned coarse, ugly, uncomfortable
sackcloth. He stepped down from his mighty throne and sat on a pile of wood
ashes on the ground.
Susan: The
leader of Nineveh set the example of a repentant and contrite heart for the people
of his province.
QUESTIONS
1.
What was the message God told Jonah to proclaim
to Nineveh?
2.
Did that message itself offer any hope of
avoiding this calamity?
3.
How did the Ninevites respond to Jonah’s
message?
4.
What did the king of Nineveh do as soon as he
became aware of Jonah’s prophecy?
5.
How do you respond when God makes it clear you
need to repent (to turn away from) a sin or complete wrong direction in your
life?
No comments:
Post a Comment