Jonah 3

Jonah 3 is the third chapter of the Book of Jonah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.^[1][2] This book contains the prophecies spoken by the prophet Jonah, and is a part of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets.^[3][4]

Text

• The original text is written in Hebrew language.
• This chapter is divided into 10 verses.

Textual versions

The whole Book of Jonah in Latin as a part of Codex Gigas, made around 13th century.

Some most ancient manuscripts containing this chapter in Hebrew language:

• Masoretic Text (10th century)
• Dead Sea Scrolls: (2nd century BC)^[5][6]
  • 4Q76 (4QXII^a): extant: verses 2^[5]
  • 4Q82 (4QXII^g): extant: verses 1, 3^[5]
  • Wadi Murabba'at (MurXII): extant: verses 1‑10^[5]

Ancient translations in Koine Greek:

• Septuagint (3rd century BC)
• Dead Sea Scrolls: (2nd century BC)^[5]
  • Naḥal Ḥever (8ḤevXII^gr): extant: verses 2‑5, 7‑10^[5]
• Theodotion version (~AD 180)

Structure

NKJV groups this chapter into:

• Jonah 3:1-4 = Jonah Preaches at Nineveh
• Jonah 3:5-10 = The People of Nineveh Believe

Verse 1

And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying,^[7]

• "The second time": He is forgiven and restored to his office, and the commission formerly given is renewed. Commentators have supposed that he went up to Jerusalem to pay his vows, and that the word of the Lord came unto him there. But all unnecessary details are omitted from the account, and we know nothing about this matter. The beginning of the next verse, "arise," seems to imply that he was then in some settled home, perhaps at Gath-hepher.^[8]

Verse 3

So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.

Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.^[9]

• "Of three days' journey": that is 60 miles in circumference. It was a great city. Jonah speaks of its greatness, under a name which he would only have used of real greatness.^[10] Jonah's statement is confirmed by heathen writers, such as Diodorus Siculus, who describe Nineveh as four hundred eighty stadia in circumference.^[11] Herodotus defines a day's journey to be one hundred fifty stadia, which make about nineteen miles, so three days' journey will not be much below Diodorus' estimate.^[12] The parallelogram in Central Assyria covered with remains of buildings has Khorsabad northeast; Koyunjik and Nebbi Yunus near the Tigris, northwest; Nimroud, between the Tigris and the Zab, southwest; and Karamless, at a distance inward from the Zab, southeast. From Koyunjik to Nimroud is about eighteen miles; from Khorsabad to Karamless, the same; from Koyunjik to Khorsabad, thirteen or fourteen miles; from Nimroud to Karamless, fourteen miles. The length thus was greater than the breadth; compare Jonah 3:4, "a day's journey," which is confirmed by heathen writers and by modern measurements. The walls were a hundred feet high, and broad enough to allow three chariots abreast, and had moreover fifteen hundred lofty towers. The space between, including large parks and arable ground, as well as houses, was Nineveh in its full extent. The oldest palaces are at Nimroud, which was probably the original site. Austen Henry Layard latterly has thought that the name Nineveh belonged originally to Koyunjik, rather than to Nimroud. Jonah (Jonah 4:11) mentions the children as numbering one hundred twenty thousand, which would give about a million to the whole population. Existing ruins show that Nineveh acquired its greatest extent under the kings of the second dynasty, that is, the kings mentioned in Scripture; it was then that Jonah visited it, and the reports of its magnificence were carried to the west [Layard].^[13][14] According to the Jewish writers, a middling day's journey is ten "parsas",^[15] and every "parsa" makes four miles, so that with them it is forty miles: or else it was three days' journey in the length of it, as Kimchi thinks, from end to end.^[16]

Verse 6

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.^[17]

• "For word came": ἤγγισεν ὁ λόγος, "the word came near" (Septuagint). The tokens of penitence mentioned in verse 5 were not exhibited in obedience to any royal command. Rather, as the impression made by the prophet spread among the people, and as they adopted these modes of showing their sorrow, the news of the movement reached the king, and he put himself at the head of it. The reigning monarch was probably either Shalmaneser III. or one of the two who succeeded him, Asshur-danil and Asshur-nirari, whose three reigns extended from 781 to 750. B.C.^[8]
• "King of Nineveh": The Hebrew phrase melek nînĕveh (‘king of Nineveh’) is found in the Old Testament only in Jonah 3:6.^[18] It never occurs in any contemporary documents. Most literature proceeds on the assumption that the author used this expression to refer to the king of the Assyrian empire. If this be the case, then one must consider why, if the author of the book lived centuries after the ‘historical Jonah’ of 2 Kings 14:25, he would ignore the usual designation ‘king of Assyria’.^[18] This phrase is found thirty times in 2 Kings 18-20. This problem is heightened by the fact that he is in the habit of meticulously selecting exact phrasing from the ‘Kings corpus’.^[19][18] At this time the north-west Semitic word for ‘king’ (mlk), especially when associated with a city, often meant ‘governor’ of a province rather than king over a nation. This is clearly displayed on a bilingual statue from Gozan, a western Assyrian province. This is the only text of any size so far discovered in both Aramaic and Assyrian. The Aramaic word mlk is regularly translated with the Assyrian šakin which means ‘governor’.^[20] It should be noted at this point that the language of the book of Jonah is not pure, official, Jerusalem dialect. As early as 1909 S.R. Driver suggested that some of the unusual linguistic features in this work ‘might possibly be compatible with a pre-exilic origin in northern Israel’.^[21][22] German archaeologist Walter Andrae found 135 stone monuments in the city of Aššur. Most of them are probably from the century just preceding the historical Jonah.^[23] Some of these stelae actually designate the governor of Nineveh by substantially the same cuneiform signs used on the bilingual statue.^[23] In one stele he is called the ‘governor of the city of Nineveh’ (no. 128) and on another the ‘governor of the province of Nineveh’ (no. 66).^[23] Both expressions could be expressed in Hebrew by the phrase ‘king of Nineveh’ (melek nînĕveh). Apparently in such contexts Assyrians did not carefully distinguish between a province or a city.^[24] The terms could be used interchangeably.^[18] The same basic phrasing occurs in the eponym lists. These are the names of Assyrian officials who had the honour of having the year named after them. Governors of Nineveh held this office in 789 and 761 BC.^[25] Their names were Ninurta-mukin-ahi and Nabu-mukinahi, respectively.^[26][18]
• "In ashes": Emblem of the deepest humiliation (Job 2:8; Ezekiel 27:30).^[14]

See also

• Related Bible parts: Jonah 1, Jonah 2

Notes and references

Bibliography

External links

Jewish

• Jonah 3 Hebrew with Parallel English
• Jonah 3 Hebrew with Rashi's Commentary

Christian

• Jonah 3 English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate