Jonah Commentary Chapter 3

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Jonah Commentary Chapter 3

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*3:4And Jonah began to proceed into the city, as of day one. And he preached and said, “Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed.”

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Etiology “This did not happen because of the threat, their sins, ceased on account of the penance that was done. But if they had not done penance the warning would have been carried out. Although God may have revealed or affirmed some fact to a person, it can become greater or less, or change, or be taken away entirely according to the variation of this person’s tendency or of the cause upon which it is based. Thus the event may not turn out as expected, and frequently no one but God knows why.” [St. John of the Cross The Ascent of Mount Carmel Chapter 20:2-3] 1542AD

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Concerning the variant reading “But someone may say, ‘How shall I know whether the prophet Jonah said to the Ninevites, ‘Yet three days and Nineveh shall be destroyed’, ‘or forty days.’’ I rather think what is read in the Hebrew, ‘Yet forty days.’ Yet the Septuagint, translating afterward, could say what was different and yet applicable to the matter. And this may admonish the reader not to despise the authority of either. I also, according to my capacity, following the footsteps of the apostles, who themselves have quoted both, that is, from the Hebrew and the Septuagint, have thought that both are one, and divine….

Allegory Christ Himself was signified both by the forty and by the three days: by the forty, because He spent that number of days with His disciples after the resurrection, and then ascended into Heaven, but by the three days, because He rose on the third day. So that, if the reader desires nothing else to adhere to the history of events, he may be aroused from his sleep by the Septuagint translators, as well as the Hebrew.” [St. Augustine City of God Book XLV Chapter 44] 400AD

Moral Analogy “Nineveh would have not stood had it not been for this threat. And if Hell had not been threatened, we should all have fallen into Hell. If the fire had not been denounced, no one would have escaped the fire. God wills that death not come to a sinner, and therefore He threatens the sinner with death, that He may not have to inflict death.” [St. John Chrysostom Homilies On Timothy XV. 20] 390AD

3:5And the men of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest to the least.

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Moral “In Jerome’s commentary on Jonah, he comes to the passage where the infants were mentioned as chastened by the fast, he says; ‘The greatest age comes first, and then all the rest is spread down to the least. For there is no man without sin, whether the span of his age be but that of a single day or many years, since we all are held subject to the sin of Adam.’” [St. Augustine On Forgiveness of Sins, and Baptism Book III Chapter 12] 400AD

Etiology and Moral “Learn how delighted God is when fasting is honored. Like a heavenly power overseeing Nineveh’s charge, fasting snatched the city from these gates of death and returned Nineveh to life.” [St. Ambrose On Repentance 5:4] 395AD

 

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3:6And the word came to the king of Nineveh and he rose up from his throne, and he removed his robe from himself, and put on sackcloth, and sat upon ashes.

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Moral “The king preferred to escape in a hair-shirt, rather than to perish in purple garments. We must understand, dearly beloved, that lowliness avails more than power.” [St. Caesarius of Arles Sermon 144. 2] 470AD

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Moral “A king serves God one way as a man, another as a king. He serves him as a man by living according to faith. He serves Him as king by exerting the necessary strength to sanction laws that command goodness and prohibit its opposite. The king of the Ninevites served God by compelling the whole city to appease the Lord.” [St. Augustine Letter 185.5.19] 400AD

Etiology and Moral “The king won God over by humility. He is a wise king who, in order to save his people, owns himself a sinner rather than a king. He forgot that he is a king, fearing God the King of all. He does not bring to mind his own power but rather comes to possess the power of the Godhead. Marvelous! When he forgets that he is a king of men, he begins to be a king of righteousness. The prince, becoming religious, did not lose his empire but changed it.” [St. Maximus of Turin Commentary on Jonah] 380AD

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3:7And it was proclaimed and spoken in Nineveh from the king, and from his chief men, saying, “Do not let the people, and the cattle, and the oxen, and the sheep, taste nor eat * anything, and do not let them drink water.”

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E****tiology “It is fitting that children should exercise themselves in fasting, more or less, in accordance with their age. Nevertheless when some great calamity threatens, even children are commanded to fast, in sign of more severe penance, as in Jonah 3:7, ‘*Do not let the people, and the cattle, and the oxen, and the sheep, taste nor eat * anything, and do not let them drink water.’” *[St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica] 1225AD

Etiology “You may say, “Why must even the animals fast?” Inasmuch then as these would participate in the punishment, let them also do so in the fast.” [St. John Chysostom Concerning Statues Homily III. 9] 390AD

Etiolgy “The Ninevites made use of the remedy of fasting and won from the Lord a relief. Animals as well as human beings were included in the fast, so that all living things would abstain from evil practices. This response won the favor of the Lord of all.” [St. John Chrysostom Homilies on Genesis 1:7] 390AD

Etiology “Now why should the little children , who had committed no sin, fast? Evidently, the innocent fasted in order that sinners might escape punishment; the little child cried out that the older man might not perish. But even if the fasting of infants was necessary, why the further fasting of flocks and herds? Surely, in order that the hunger of even the animals might manifest the repentance of men. By their roaring to God beneath their burden, what was committed by a few men was to be redeemed by all creatures.” [St. Caesarius of Arles Sermon 144. 3] 470AD

*3:8And the people and the cattle put on sackcloth, and cried out earnestly * to God. And they each turned from their evil way, and from the iniquity in their hands, saying,

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Etiology “Coarseness of attire is sometimes a sign of sorrow: wherefore those who are in sorrow want to wear coarser clothes, just as on the other hand in times of festivity and joy they wear finer clothes. Just as a man’s mind is uplifted by fine clothes, so is it humbled by lowly apparel.” [St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica] 1225AD

Etiology “They had a covering of sackcloth at a time when, since all were mourning over the approaching destruction of the city and were clothed with the same garments, none could be accused of excessive display.” [John Cassian Institutes Book 1 Chapter 2] 360AD

 

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3:9”Who knows if God will change His mind and turn from the anger of His rage, so that we shall never perish.”

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Etiology “God is said ‘to change His mind,’ metaphorically, inasmuch as He bears Himself after the manner of one who repents, by ‘changing His sentence, although He does not change His plan.” [St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica] 1225AD

Etiology “God will never repent of an act of justice. Although man repents frequently on the recollection of sin, and occasionally even from the unpleasantness of some good action, this is never the case with God. For inasmuch as God neither commits sin nor condemns a good action, in so far is there no room in Him for repentance of either a good or an evil deed. Divine repentance takes in all cases a different form from that of man, in that it is never regarded as the result of improvidence or of fickleness, or of any condemnation of a good or an evil work.

For it will have no other meaning than a simple change of a prior purpose; and this is admissible without any blame even in a man, much more in God, whose every purpose is faultless. Now in Greek the word for repentance (METANOIA) is formed, not from the confession of sin, but from a change of mind, which in God we have shown to be regulated by the occurrence of varying circumstances.” [Tertullian Against Marcion Book II Chapter XXIV] 150AD

Literal “They, repenting of their sins, satisfied God by prayer, and obtained salvation, although they were aliens to the covenant of God.” [St. Clement of Rome 1 Corinthians VII] 90AD

Moral “Now if barbarians, and unreasoning men could perceive so much, much more ought we to do this who have been trained in the divine doctrines and have seen such a crowd of examples of this kind both in history and actual experiences.” [St. John Chrysostom Letter to the Fallen Theodore Letter 1.15] 390AD

 

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3:10And God saw their works, and that they turned from their evil ways: and God changed His mind over the wickedness in which He spoke of doing to them, and He did not do it.

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Literal “For the fear was the cause of its safety. The threatening effected the deliverance from the peril. The sentence of destruction put a stop to the destruction. O strange and astonishing event! The threatening of death brought forth life.” [St. John Chrysostom *Concerning Statues Homily V. 16] 390AD

Analogy “I think that it was fulfilled that Nineveh was destroyed. Destroyed in evil, built up in good. Just as Saul of Tarsus the persecutor was destroyed, Paul the Apostle was built (Acts 9:4).” [St. Augustine On the Psalms Psalm LI. 11] 400AD

Etiology “A punishment threatened prophetically is only then commuted when there is a change in the merits of the person threatened. So: ‘I will suddenly speak against a nation and against a kingdom, to root out and to pull down and to destroy it. If that nation…. shall repent of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do to them’ (Jeremiah 18:7). Nevertheless the prophecy of destruction is always fulfilled in a certain sense, because as Augustine says (De Civ. Dea. Xxi, 24): ‘Nineveh has been destroyed, that was evil, and a good Nineveh is built up, that was not: for while the walls and the houses remained standing, the city was destroyed in its wicked ways.’” [St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica] 1225AD

Moral “After this, are we not ashamed, must we not blush, if it turns out that in three days only the barbarians laid aside all their wickedness, but that we, who have been urged and taught, have not got the better of our bad habits? Nevertheless, with three days they were capable of being transformed to a state of complete virtue. For where the fear of God is, there is no need of days, or of an interval of time; as likewise, on the contrary, days are of no service where there is this kind of holy fear.” [St. John Chrysostom Concerning Statues XX.21] 390AD

Moral “ You see that he who is temperate and watchful not only suffers no injury at the hands of man, but even turns back Heaven-sent wrath!” [St. John Chrysostom None Can Harm Him Who Does Not Injure Himself XIV]

Moral “God foreknew that Nineveh would repent. Though each man’s end is known beforehand to Him before his birth, yet somehow He so orders all things by a plan and method for all, and with regard to man’s disposition, that He decides on everything not by mere exercise of His power, nor according to the ineffable knowledge which His Prescience possesses, but according to the present actions of men, and rejects or draws to Himself each one, and daily either grants or withholds His grace.” [John Cassian 2nd Conference of John Abbot Joseph Chapter XXV] 360AD

 

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**Etiology **“There was no response to their repentance; rather, God met their questioning with silence. Thus the outcome of their repentance is left uncertain to them, so that they may be doubtful of their salvation, they may repent more fully and know the mercy, patience and compassion of God even more.”****[St. Jerome Commentary on Jonah] 400AD

Etiology ‘*and God changed His mind over the wickedness in which He spoke of doing to them’ “*Not that these are properly wicked or evil in their nature, but because they are imagined to be wicked or evil by those on whom they are brought upon. For when divine judgment is reasoning with men it must speak with the language and feelings of men.” [John Cassian The Conference of Theodore Chapter VI] 360AD

History “Nineveh arose and it has become still more distinguished; and long as is the time which has elapsed, it has not effaced its glory, but we still celebrate and admire it even to this day.” [St. John Chrysostom Concerning Statues Homily V. 15] 390AD

Etiology “At one time, God had been offended by the sins of the Ninevites. He was appeased by the crying and the wailing of children. For, though we read that the whole people wept, yet the lot and the innocence of the little ones merited the greatest mercy.” [Salvian the Presbyter Letter 4] 400AD