Moved to Repent



Jonah 3:3b-5
3Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! [changed]” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

Jonah finally, after 3 days in the guts of a fish, does as God has commanded and goes to Nineveh to preach the Word to that great city. His message is brief but effective. “Yet in forty days Nineveh is about to be changed”. Of interest for me is the Hebrew word at the end of that message.

הָפַךְ

In this context, “overthrown or changed” is a double entendre promoting either Law and judgment, or Law and Gospel. Either way, Nineveh will be changed! Whether the city disregards the warning and is destroyed or repents and is spared, his oracle will come true. As the story proceeds, we find that Nineveh responds positively to God’s call for repentance and they fall before Him in sackcloth and fasting. Jesus even mentions the Ninevites as He speaks to the Pharisees about their hard hearts and unwillingness to repent. Comparing the Pharisees to a city filled with Gentiles who fall before Yahweh was quite a slap.

Matthew 12:41
The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

What cannot be lost here is that Nineveh did repent and they experienced 120 years of continued life because of that repentance. Jonah's brief message had impact because it came from the mouth of God and the people heard the truth. They could have just as easily turned their backs on this call but the Holy Spirit must have been moving, for their hearts turned toward God and He heard their cries of sorrow, just as He hears ours.

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