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.
Understand This
Jonah 3, explained
What Jonah 3 is saying
God's word comes to Jonah a second time with the same commission: go to Nineveh. Jonah obeys and delivers a terse five-word oracle in Hebrew: 'Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.' Astonishingly, the entire city repents—from king to commoner—putting on sackcloth and fasting. God sees their deeds, relents from the declared disaster, and does not destroy Nineveh.
The background behind it
Nineveh was an enormous city ('three days' journey in breadth'), and the wholesale repentance of an Assyrian population has no historical parallel. Some scholars note that Assyrian religious practice included civic repentance rituals, which may have provided a cultural framework for the response. The verb 'overthrown' (hapak) is the same used for Sodom's destruction.
Themes running underneath
The chapter demonstrates that divine warning contains implicit invitation—the 'forty days' provides a window for response. The use of hapak (which can mean 'overturned' or 'transformed') creates deliberate ambiguity: Nineveh was indeed 'overturned'—not by destruction but by repentance. God's relenting is consistent with Jeremiah 18:7–8's principle of conditional prophecy.
Why it still matters
The greatest enemy of God's people responds to five words of prophecy with more repentance than Israel ever showed. This challenges every assumption about who is capable of responding to God.
Scripture text: King James Version — public domain.