God Relents

Yahweh's word came to Jonah the second time, repeating the call of chapter 1: arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you. The God who sent the storm and the fish now gives Jonah a second chance, and this time Jonah arose and went according to Yahweh's word. Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey across.

Jonah went a day's journey into the city and cried out a short message: in forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown. The response was immediate. The people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least. The king himself arose from his throne, laid aside his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

The king's decree called for a fast for people and animals alike. Everyone was to cry mightily to God and turn from his evil way and from the violence in his hands. The king did not presume on God's mercy; he said, who knows whether God will not turn and relent? Then the narrator tells us that God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God relented of the disaster which he said he would do, and he didn't do it. In the New Testament, Jesus says the people of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah.