How does Ninive respond to the forty-day warning?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Belief, fasting and the royal decree precede the reported mercy.

Chapter breakdown

The heading introduces a renewed commission, fasting and repentance, and the recalled destruction sentence. God’s word comes to Jonas a second time, directing him to Ninive to preach what he is bidden. Jonas goes according to the word. The city is three days’ journey; the edition cites some ancient historians’ estimate of about fifty miles round and explains the journey through chief streets and public places.

After entering a day’s journey Jonas announces destruction in forty days. The people believe God, proclaim a fast and wear sackcloth from greatest to least. The word reaches the king, who rises, removes his robe, wears sackcloth and sits in ashes. His and his princes’ proclamation forbids men, beasts, oxen and sheep food and water, directs men and beasts to be covered with sackcloth, and calls for wholehearted cries to God and each person’s turning from evil and iniquity.

The proclamation asks who can tell whether God will turn, forgive and avert anger so they do not perish. This hope precedes the reported outcome: God sees their works and turning, has mercy regarding the threatened evil and does not do it. The response is recorded for Ninive; it is not a universal guarantee of pardon or a medical recommendation to reproduce the fast.

The story inside

The city estimate is attributed to some ancient historians. The decree joins sackcloth with turning from evil. The hope of forgiveness remains uncertain before the outcome.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The city estimate is attributed to some ancient historians.
2
The decree joins sackcloth with turning from evil.
3
The hope of forgiveness remains uncertain before the outcome.

Test your recall

What question about forgiveness appears in the proclamation?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 101346–101350
3:2. Arise, and go to Ninive, the great city: and preach in it the preaching that I bid thee. 3:3. And Jonas arose, and went to Ninive, according to the word of the Lord: now Ninive was a great city of three days’ journey.
Lines 101356–101360
3:4. And Jonas began to enter into the city one day’s journey: and he cried and said: Yet forty days and Ninive shall be destroyed. 3:5. And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least.
Lines 101362–101369
3:6. And the word came to the king of Ninive: and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed in sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 3:7. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published in Ninive, from the mouth of the king and of his princes, saying: Let neither men nor beasts, oxen, nor sheep taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water.
Lines 101378–101380
3:10. And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and God had mercy with regard to the evil which he had said that he would do to them, and he did it not.