Wenstrom Bible Ministries Marion, Iowa Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom wenstrom

1. Wenstrom Bible MinistriesMarion, IowaPastor-Teacher Bill Wenstromwww.wenstrom.org

2. Thursday November 4, 2010Jonah: Jonah 3:3b-The Narrator Describes Nineveh As An Enormous City Belonging To God, A Three Days JourneyLesson # 37

3. Please turn in your Bibles to Jonah 3:1.

4. Next, we will note the beginning of the fifth scene that appears in Jonah 3:3b-10, which records Jonah proclaiming judgment against the city of Nineveh and in response the inhabitants of this great city believe in God and repent of their evil conduct.

5. In Jonah 3:3b, the narrator describes Nineveh as belonging to God and an enormous city requiring three days to walk through.

6. Jonah 3:1, “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.’

7. 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.

8. 4 Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’

9. 5 Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.

10. 6 When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes.

11. 7 He issued a proclamation and it said, ‘In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water.

12. 8 But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands.

13. 9 Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.’

14. 10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.” (NASU)

15. Let’s look at verse 3.Jonah 3:3, “So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.”

16. “Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk” is transitional signaling the completion of the fourth scene that appears in Jonah 3:1-3a and marking the beginning of the fifth scene, which appears in Jonah 3:3b-10.

17. It also signals a parenthetical digression about the city of Nineveh.

18. Jonah 3:3b contains gives a two-fold description of this city.

19. Nineveh was one of the capitals of the Assyrian Empire occupying 1800 acres and was located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River in northeastern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, in the area of the city of Mosul).

20. After Jonah’s day it was made the capital of Assyria by Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.), the successor of Sargon II (722-705 B.C.) who destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel and was destroyed in 612 B.C. by the Medes and the Persians.

21. Ancient Greek and Roman writers state that it was in the shape of a trapezium and was the largest city in the world in that day.

22. The accounts of these ancient Greek and Roman writers have been confirmed by modern archaeological excavations.

23. The New American Commentary: Amos, Obadiah and Jonah, “Nineveh was situated on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, opposite the modern city of Mosul, north of the city of Zab.

24. It was an old city, dating back to approximately 4500 b.c., and one of the principal cities of ancient Assyria. According to Gen 10:11, the city was built by the ‘great hunter’ Nimrod.

25. It became an extremely important city in the reign of the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib (705–681 b.c.). During his reign he strongly fortified the city and for a time made it the capital of Assyria.” (Page 224)

26. The Bible Knowledge Commentary writes, “The city of Nineveh was located on the east side of the Tigris River about 550 miles northeast of Samaria. That distance required a journey of more than a month, if Jonah traveled the normal distance of 15-20 miles a day. The great city was second in size only to Babylon. (volume 1, pages 1464)

28. Jonah 3:3, “So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.”

29. “An exceedingly great city” is composed of the feminine singular form of the noun îr (עִיר) (aw-yar), “the city” and the feminine singular form of the adjective gadhol (גָּדֹול) (ga-dol), “great” the preposition le (לְ) (lamed) and the masculine plural form of the noun ʾělō∙hîm (אֱלֹהִים) (el-o-heem), “God.”

30. The noun îr means “city” referring to a population center that was enclosed by walls but also including surrounding villages.

31. As was the case in Jonah 1:2 and 3:2, the adjective gadhol, “great” emphasizes the size of the city of Nineveh highlighting its importance so that just as is the size of the city, so is the magnitude of its wickedness (The JPS Bible Commentary: Jonah, page 4).

32. Some scholars contend that the adjective in Jonah 3:3b denotes that Nineveh was an important city to God in relation to the population of the city.

33. However, the expression šelō·šěṯ yā·mîm’ mǎ·hǎlǎḵ (מַהֲלַךְ שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים), “a three days’ walk” obviously elaborates upon the city’s size.

34. D. J. Wiseman has noted that Scripture uses the adjective “great” of only four cities: Babylon (Dan 4:30), Jerusalem (Jer 22:8), Gibeon (Josh 10:2), and Nineveh.” (Jonah’s Nineveh; Tyndale Bulletin 30 (1979); 29-52; Cited by New American Commentary: Amos, Obadiah, Jonah; page 256)

35. The noun ělō∙hîm means “God” emphasizing the transcendent character of God and in particular His attributes of omnipotence, sovereignty and love and refers to the Lord’s complete sovereign power over Nineveh.

36. This word is employed here rather than the noun Yahweh since the latter is used to emphasize Israel’s covenant relationship to God whereas the latter emphasizes that the Ninevites as Gentiles did not have a covenant relationship with God.

37. Some scholars contend that this word is not a reference to God but rather has a superlative force, which is how the NASU, ESV and NKJV interpret the word.

38. However, it is the object of the preposition le which is a circumlocution for a genitive to denote possession indicating that the prepositional phrase means “belonging to God.”

39. This prepositional phrase emphasizes the Lord’s sovereignty over the inhabitants of Nineveh who are one of Israel’s staunchest enemies and is anticipating the faith of the Ninevites in God and their repentance towards Him.

40. This is indicated by the events recorded in the rest of the chapter in which the king of Nineveh and his subjects respond to Jonah’s message of judgment by exercising faith in God and repenting from their evil conduct.

41. This continues the argument of the book of Jonah that God is sovereign over the Gentiles and not just the Israelites.

42. This prepositional phrase also emphasizes that God seeks to save the Gentiles.

43. He is the God of the Gentiles and not just the Jews as Paul writes in Romans 3:29.

44. “A three days’ walk” first of all speaks of the amount of time it would take for Jonah to visit the whole district administered by Nineveh, which in the days of the prophet would include Sinjar-Calah-Dur-Sharrukin.

45. Supporting this interpretation is that the phrase “the great city” (הָעִיר הַגְּדוֹלָה, 1:2; 3:2; 4:11) is the very same expression that appears in Genesis 10:11-12 that refers to Nineveh.

46. In Genesis 10:11-12, the great city refers to the entire metropolitan area composed of Nineveh and the other cities.

47. This would indicate that the phrase is to be understood in a semi-technical sense, meaning “Greater Nineveh.”

48. Also, supporting the interpretation that the expression “a three days’ journey” refers to the amount of time it would take for Jonah to visit the whole district administered by Nineveh is that the city was approximately 60 miles in length and a traveler like Jonah could cover 20 miles a day.

49. Thus it would take him three days to cover the city of Nineveh and its surrounding district.

50. Also, undoubtedly as Wiseman suggests, the expression “a three days’ journey” refers to a diplomatic process or following the protocol of a visit by a diplomat.