Jonah 3 Jonah, being sent again, preacheth the overthrow of Nineveh, Jonah 3:1–4. Upon their repentance, Jonah 3:5–9, God repenteth him of the evil, John 3:10.

And, after that Jonah had been well disciplined for his contumacy, and was set at liberty, the word of the Lord came; the command, or the prophetic Spirit: see John 1:1.

Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city; see Amos 1:2; great in extent of ground, in strength of its fortifications, height and breadth of its walls, and multitude of its towers; great in the multitude of its numbers, and riches of its citizens, and every whit as great in the multitude of its sins:…

So, Heb. And; as God commands and directs, so Jonah with ready, resolved, and obedient mind sets about the work. Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh; though it was a long journey, yet three weeks’ or three months’ travel by land is more eligible than three days in the belly of hell.

The former verse gives us intelligence of Jonah’s arrival at Nineveh; now, so soon as come, he preacheth. Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said; to walk through and to preach the dreadful threats of God against Nineveh, and he proclaimed openly and plainly what…

So, Heb. And, the people of Nineveh; the inhabitants who heard; they first believed who first heard, and successively others as soon as they heard. Believed God, speaking by his prophet; they knew their own sins.

This now accounteth for the people’s proclaiming a fast, Jonah 3:5, they did it because it was commanded, and they had the king’s example herein. Word came to the king: whether Jonah did particularly speak to his hearers to send word to the king, or whether the strangeness of the thing might move…

And he, the king, caused it to be proclaimed; took a particular care to have speedily a fast ordered, and notified to the people by those public officers who were wont to proclaim the decrees and edicts of the king and his council.

But let man, every man, from the greatest, the king on the throne, to the least, the beggar on the dunghill, put off his usual and softer habit, and afflict himself in coarsest garments.

Here is the ground of the Ninevites’ fasting and praying, there is a possibility that they may escape; there is fairly argued a probability, for why should the ruin beforehand be threatened, but to give warning so many days ere it come: unless it be to try us, whether we will fast, pray, repent,…

God saw; not only with naked and single intuition, hut he saw and approved, was singularly well pleased with that he saw. Their works: works, not words, are sure signs of what men are humbling themselves to the dust, extraordinary fasting, and crying unto God, these were some of their works; but…