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Chapter 22
"Nineveh, That Great City"
AMONG the cities of the ancient world in the days of divided Israel one of the greatest
was Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian realm. Founded on the fertile bank of the Tigris,
soon after the dispersion from the tower of Babel, it had flourished through the centuries
until it had become "an exceeding great city of three days' journey." Jonah 3:3.
In the time of its temporal prosperity Nineveh was a center of crime and wickedness.
Inspiration has characterized it as "the bloody city, . . . full of lies and
robbery." In figurative language the prophet Nahum compared the Ninevites to a cruel,
ravenous lion. "Upon whom," he inquired, "hath not thy wickedness passed
continually?" Nahum 3:1, 19.
Yet Nineveh, wicked though it had become, was not wholly given over to evil. He who
"beholdeth all the sons of men" (Psalm 33:13) and "seeth every precious
thing" (Job 28:10) perceived in that city many who were reaching
out after something better and higher, and who, if granted opportunity to learn of the
living God, would put away their evil deeds and worship Him. And so in His wisdom God
revealed Himself to them in an unmistakable manner, to lead them, if possible, to
repentance.
The instrument chosen for this work was the prophet Jonah, the son of Amittai. To him came
the word of the Lord, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for
their wickedness is come up before Me." Jonah 1:1,2.
As the prophet thought of the difficulties and seeming impossibilities of this commission,
he was tempted to question the wisdom of the call. From a human viewpoint it seemed as if
nothing could be gained by proclaiming such a message in that proud city. He forgot for
the moment that the God whom he served was all-wise and all-powerful. While he hesitated,
still doubting, Satan overwhelmed him with discouragement. The prophet was seized with a
great dread, and he "rose up to flee unto Tarshish." Going to Joppa, and finding
there a ship ready to sail, "he paid the fare thereof and went down into it, to go
with them." Verse 3.
In the charge given him, Jonah had been entrusted with a heavy responsibility; yet He who
had bidden him go was able to sustain His servant and grant him success. Had the prophet
obeyed unquestioningly, he would have been spared many bitter experiences, and would have
been blessed abundantly. Yet in the hour of Jonah's despair the Lord did not desert him.
Through a series of trials and strange
providences, the prophet's confidence in God and in His infinite power to save was to be
revived.
If, when the call first came to him, Jonah had stopped to consider calmly, he might have
known how foolish would be any effort on his part to escape the responsibility placed upon
him. But not for long was he permitted to go on undisturbed in his mad flight. "The
Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a might tempest in the sea, so that
the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto
his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of
them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast
asleep." Verses 4, 5.
As the mariners were beseeching their heathen gods for help, the master of the ship,
distressed beyond measure, sought out Jonah and said, "What meanest thou, O sleeper?
arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not."
Verse 6.
But the prayers of the man who had turned aside from the path of duty brought no help. The
mariners, impressed with the thought that the strange violence of the storm betokened the
anger of their gods, proposed as a last resort the casting of lots, "that we may
know," they said, "for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and
the lot fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause
this evil is upon us; what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy
country? and of what people art thou?
"And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which
hath made the sea and the dry land.
"Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this?
For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
"Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto
us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast
me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this
great tempest is upon you.
"Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the
sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and
said, We beseech Thee, O Lord, we beseech Thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and
lay not upon us innocent blood: for Thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased Thee. So they
took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. Then
the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows.
"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the
belly of the fish three days and three nights.
"Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and said:
"I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord,
And He heard me;
Out of the belly of hell cried I,
And Thou heardest my voice.
"For Thou hadst cast me into the deep,
In the midst of the seas;
And the floods compassed me about:
And Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me.
"Then I said, I am cast out of Thy sight;
Yet I will look again toward Thy holy temple.
The waters compassed me about,
Even to the soul:
"The depth closed me round about,
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains;
The earth with her bars was about me forever:
"Yet hast Thou brought up my life from corruption, O
Lord my God.
When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord:
And my prayer came in unto Thee,
Into Thine holy temple.
"They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
But I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving;
I will pay that that I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord."
Verse 7 to 2:9.
At last Jonah had learned that "salvation belongeth unto the Lord." Psalm 3:8.
With penitence and a recognition of the saving grace of God, came deliverance. Jonah was
released from the perils of the mighty deep and was cast upon the dry land.
Once more the servant of God was commissioned to warn Nineveh. "The word of the Lord
came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and
preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." This time he did not stop to question
or doubt, but obeyed unhesitatingly. He "arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the
Lord." Jonah 3:1-3.
As Jonah entered the city, he began at once to "cry against" it the message,
"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Verse 4. From street to
street he went, sounding the note of warning.
The message was not in vain. The cry that rang through the streets of the godless city was
passed from lip to lip until all the inhabitants had heard the startling announcement. The
Spirit of God pressed the message home to every heart and caused multitudes to tremble
because of their sins and to repent in deep humiliation.
"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 causeth 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 anything: 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 everyone 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?" Verses 5-9.
As king and nobles, with the common people, the high and the low," "repented at
the preaching of Jonas" (Matthew 12:41) and united in crying to the God of heaven,
His
mercy was granted them. He "saw their words, that they turned from their evil way;
and God repented of the evil, that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it
not." Jonah 3:10. Their doom was averted, the God of Israel was exalted and honored
throughout the heathen world, and His law was revered. Not until many years later was
Nineveh to fall a prey to the surrounding nations through forgetfulness of God and through
boastful pride. [For an account of the downfall of Assyria, see chapter 30.]
When Jonah learned of God's purpose to spare the city that, notwithstanding its
wickedness, had been led to repent in sackcloth and ashes, he should have been the first
to rejoice because of God's amazing grace; but instead he allowed his mind to dwell upon
the possibility of his being regarded as a false prophet. Jealous of his reputation, he
lost sight of the infinitely greater value of the souls in that wretched city. The
compassion shown by God toward the repentant Ninevites "displeased Jonah exceedingly,
and he was very angry." "Was not this my saying," he inquired of the Lord,
"when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that
Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest
Thee of the evil." Jonah 4:1, 2.
Once more he yielded to his inclination to question and doubt, and once more he was
overwhelmed with discouragement. Losing sight of the interests of others, and feeling as
if he would rather die than live to see the city spared, in his dissatisfaction he
exclaimed, "Now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for
me to die than to live."
"Doest thou well to be angry?" the Lord inquired. "So Jonah went out of the
city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it
in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared
a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to
deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd." Verses 3-6.
Then the Lord gave Jonah an object lesson. He "prepared a worm when the morning rose
the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun
did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of
Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die
than to live."
Again God spoke to His prophet, "Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?" And
he said, "I do well to be angry, even unto death."
"Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not
labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: and
should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand
persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much
cattle?" Verses 7-11.
Confused, humiliated, and unable to understand God's purpose in sparing Nineveh, Jonah
nevertheless had fulfilled the commission given him to warn that great city; and though
the event predicted did not come to pass, yet the
message of warning was nonetheless from God. And it accomplished the purpose God designed
it should. The glory of His grace was revealed among the heathen. Those who had long been
sitting "in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and
iron," "cried unto the Lord in their trouble," and "He saved them out
of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake
their bands in sunder." "He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them
from their destructions." Psalm 107:10, 13, 14, 20.
Christ during His earthly ministry referred to the good wrought by the preaching of Jonah
in Nineveh, and compared the inhabitants of that heathen center with the
professed people of God in His day. "The men of Nineveh," He declared,
"shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they
repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here."
Matthew 12:40, 41. Into the busy world, filled with the din of commerce and the
altercation of trade, where men were trying to get all they could for self, Christ had
come; and above the confusion His voice, like the trump of God, was heard: "What
shall it profit a man, it he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what
shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Mark 8:36, 37.
As the preaching of Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so Christ's preaching was a sign to
His generation. But what a contrast in the reception of the word! Yet in the face of
indifference and scorn the Saviour labored on and on, until He had accomplished His
mission.
The lesson is for God's messengers today, when the cities of the nations are as verily in
need of a knowledge of the attributes and purposes of the true God as were the Ninevites
of old. Christ's ambassadors are to point men to the nobler world, which has largely been
lost sight of. According to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, the only city that will
endure is the city whose builder and maker is God. With the eye of faith man may behold
the threshold of heaven, flushed with God's living glory. Through His ministering servants
the Lord Jesus is calling upon men to strive with sanctified ambition to secure the
immortal inheritance. He urges them to lay up treasure beside the throne of God.
There is coming rapidly and surely an almost universal guilt upon the inhabitants of the
cities, because of the steady increase of determined wickedness. The corruption that
prevails is beyond the power of the human pen to describe. Every day brings fresh
revelations of strife, bribery, and fraud; every day brings its heart-sickening record of
violence and lawlessness, of indifference to human suffering, of brutal, fiendish
destruction of human life. Every day testifies to the increase of insanity, murder, and
suicide.
From age to age Satan has sought to keep men in ignorance of the beneficent designs of
Jehovah. He has endeavored to remove from their sight the great things of God's law-- the
principles of justice, mercy, and love therein set forth. Men boast of the wonderful
progress and enlightenment of the age in which we are now living; but God sees the earth
filled with iniquity and violence. Men declare that the law of God has been abrogated,
that the Bible is not authentic; and as a result, a tide of evil, such as has not been
seen since the days of Noah and of apostate Israel, is sweeping over the world. Nobility
of soul, gentleness, piety, are battered away to gratify the lust for forbidden things.
The black record of crime committed for the sake of gain is enough to chill the blood and
fill the soul with horror.
Our God is a God of mercy. With long-sufferance and tender compassion He deals with the
transgressors of His law. And yet, in this our day, when men and women have so many
opportunities for becoming familiar with the divine law as revealed in Holy Writ, the
great Ruler of the universe cannot behold with any satisfaction the wicked
cities, where reign violence and crime. The end of God's forbearance with those who
persist in disobedience is approaching rapidly.
Ought men to be surprised over a sudden and unexpected change in the dealings of the
Supreme Ruler with the inhabitants of a fallen world? Ought they to be surprised when
punishment follows transgression and increasing crime? Ought they to be surprised that God
should bring destruction and death upon those whose ill-gotten gains have been obtained
through deception and fraud? Notwithstanding the fact that increasing light regarding
God's requirements has been shining on their pathway, many have refused to recognize
Jehovah's rulership, and have chosen to remain under the black banner of the originator of
all rebellion against the government of heaven.
The forbearance of God has been very great--so great that when we consider the continuous
insult to His holy commandments, we marvel. The Omnipotent One has been exerting a
restraining power over His own attributes. But He will certainly arise to punish the
wicked, who so boldly defy the just claims of the Decalogue.
God allows men a period of probation; but there is a point beyond which divine patience is
exhausted, and the judgments of God are sure to follow. The Lord bears long with men, and
with cities, mercifully giving warnings to save them from divine wrath; but a time will
come when pleadings for mercy will no longer be heard, and the rebellious element that
continues to reject the light of truth will be blotted out, in mercy to themselves and to
those who would otherwise be influenced by their example.
The time is at hand when there will be sorrow in the world that no human balm can heal.
The Spirit of God is being withdrawn. Disasters by sea and by land follow one another in
quick succession. How frequently we hear of earthquakes and tornadoes, of destruction by
fire and flood, with great loss of life and property! Apparently these calamities are
capricious outbreaks of disorganized, unregulated forces of nature, wholly beyond the
control of man; but in them all, God's purpose may be read. They are among the agencies by
which He seeks to arouse men and women to a sense of their danger.
God's messengers in the great cities are not to become discouraged over the wickedness,
the injustice, the depravity, which they are called upon to face while endeavoring to
proclaim the glad tidings of salvation. The Lord would cheer every such worker with the
same message that He gave to the apostle Paul in wicked Corinth: "Be not afraid, but
speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt
thee: for I have much people in this city." Acts 18:9, 10. Let those engaged in
soul-saving ministry remember that while there are many who will not heed the counsel of
God in His word, the whole world will not turn from light and truth, from the invitations
of a patient, forbearing Saviour. In every city, filled though it may be with violence and
crime, there are many who with proper teaching may learn to become followers of Jesus.
Thousands may thus be reached with saving truth and be led to receive Christ as a personal
Saviour.
God's message for the inhabitants of earth today is, "Be ye also ready: for in such
an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." Matthew 24:44. The conditions
prevailing in society, and especially in the great cities of the nations, proclaim in
thunder tones that the hour of God's judgment is come and that the end of all things
earthly is at hand. We are standing on the threshold of the crisis of the ages. In quick
succession the judgments of God will follow one another--fire, and flood, and earthquake,
with war and bloodshed. We are not to be surprised at this time by events both great and
decisive; for the angel of mercy cannot remain much longer to shelter the impenitent.
"Behold, the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for
their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her
slain." Isaiah 26:21. The storm of God's wrath is gathering; and those only will
stand who respond to the invitations of mercy, as did the inhabitants of Nineveh under the
preaching of Jonah, and become sanctified through obedience to the laws of the divine
Ruler. The righteous alone shall be hid with Christ in God till the desolation be
overpast. Let the language of the soul be:"Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, O, leave me not alone!
Still support and comfort me.
"Hide me, O my Saviour, hide!
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide,
O receive my soul at last!"
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