Jonah 3

KJV · Chapter 3/4

¹And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying,

²Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

³So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.

⁴And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

⁵So 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.

⁶For 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.

⁷And he caused 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 any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:

⁸But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

⁹Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

¹⁰And God saw their works, 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.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Jonah finally obeys and preaches in Nineveh; to everyone's surprise, the whole city, from the king to the common people, repents in fasting and ashes, and God decides not to destroy the city.

Explanation

Jonah's preaching is extremely simple — just a single sentence of judgment, with no explicit mention of repentance or mercy — yet the result is the fastest and most sweeping revival recorded in the Bible: an entire pagan city turns to God. The king steps down from his throne, puts on sackcloth, and decrees a fast even for the animals, an extreme gesture of humility rarely seen in any other biblical account. The key verse, 'God saw their works... and God repented of the evil,' does not mean that God changed in character, but that His merciful response genuinely corresponds to human repentance. The application for today: no person or city is beyond the reach of God's grace when there is a sincere willingness to change.

Fun facts

The description of Nineveh as a city of 'three days' journey' likely includes the entire metropolitan area and surrounding farmland, not just the walls of the central city, since archaeological excavations show a smaller urban area — though still very large for its time.
The custom of covering animals in sackcloth (v. 8) seems strange to modern readers, but it reflected a mourning and humility so total that it embraced all creation under the king's rule, a practice documented in other ancient Near Eastern cultures.

Verse-by-verse explanation

Jonah 3:1God gives Jonah a second chance, repeating the call after the whole experience of the previous chapter.
Jonah 3:2Repeats the same command from the start of the book, to go to Nineveh, but this time Jonah actually obeys.
Jonah 3:3Calling Nineveh a city 'of three days' journey' describes the size of the city and the metropolitan area around it, one of the largest in the ancient world — not a single street, but a territory that took days to cross.
Jonah 3:4Jonah's message is short and blunt: just a warning of judgment in forty days, with no explicit call to repentance — even so, its effect will be enormous.
Jonah 3:5A surprising reaction: the whole city, from the greatest to the least, believes the message and repents in fasting — a success no prophet of Israel ever had historically.
Jonah 3:6The king of Nineveh getting off his throne, taking off his royal robes, and sitting in ashes was a public, extreme gesture of humiliation and mourning, normally reserved for national tragedies — here used as a sign of repentance.
Jonah 3:7The king's official decree extends the fast even to the animals — an exaggerated detail showing how seriously the city took the warning.
Jonah 3:8Covering even the animals in sackcloth and forbidding them to eat is a deliberately exaggerated detail, showing that the entire city, without exception, took the warning seriously.
Jonah 3:9The pagan king himself expresses the same hope Israel's prophets often had: that God might relent in the face of sincere repentance.
Jonah 3:10God 'repenting of the evil' doesn't mean He made a mistake; it's biblical language for saying He changed His stance in response to Nineveh's genuine change — the opposite of what Jonah wanted to happen.