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

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

2. Wednesday November 10, 2010Jonah: Jonah 3:5-The Ninevites Believe In God And Declare A Fast And Put On Sackcloth From The Greatest To The LeastLesson # 40

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

4. This evening, we will note Jonah 3:5, which records the Ninevites believing in God and humbling themselves from the least to the greatest of them by declaring a fast and putting on sackcloth.

5. 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.’

6. 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.

7. 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.’

8. 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.” (NASU)

9. Verse 5 is a result clause, which indicates that the Ninevites’ faith in God was the direct consequence of the message Jonah delivered to them from the Lord.

10. “The people of Nineveh” is composed of the masculine plural construct form of the noun ʾĕnôš (אֱנוֹשׁ) (en-oshe), “the people” and the feminine singular form of the proper noun nî∙newē(h) (נִינְוֵה) (nee-nev-ay), “Nineveh.”

11. The noun ʾĕnôš is used of the Ninevites and emphasizes their weakness, mortality and impotence as human beings reminding the reader of their transience and dependence upon the omnipotent, transcendent God to show them mercy.

12. It emphasizes to the reader that by exercising faith in God, the Ninevites are acknowledging their weakness, mortality and impotence as human beings and their total dependence upon the mercy of the omnipotent, transcendent God.

13. “Believed” is the third person masculine plural hiphil active imperfect form of the verb ʾā∙mǎn (אָמַן) (aw-man), “believed” and the preposition be (בְּ) (beth), “in” and the masculine plural form of the divine proper noun ʾělō∙hîm (אֱלֹהִים) (el-o-heem), “God.”

14. The verb ʾā∙mǎn is used with the Ninevites as its subject and ʾělō∙hîm, “God” as its object and means “to have confidence in, to trust in.”

15. It means that the Ninevites not only placed their absolute confidence in Jonah’s message that they would be changed or overturned in the sense of destroyed by God or changed in the sense that they would repent but also that they were casting themselves upon the mercy of God.

16. The word does not refer to a mental assent to the existence of God since James 2:19 says that even the demons believe in God in that sense.

17. Rather, the verb means that the Ninevites had absolute total confidence in Jonah’s message from the Lord in the sense that it expresses total assurance that Jonah’s message is true or would come to pass and that they were casting themselves upon the Lord in the sense of appealing to His mercy and grace.

18. The noun ělō∙hîm pertains to the fact that Yahweh, the God of Israel and creator of heaven and earth, is a Savior God or in other words, God who delivers, which is indicated by the Ninevites humbling themselves as recorded in verses 6-9.

19. The narrator uses ělō∙hîm rather than Yahweh since he wants to emphasize that the Ninevites who were Gentiles were not members of the covenant nation of Israel and that Yahweh is God, the only true God.

20. The hiphil stem of the verb ʾā∙mǎn is causative meaning that the message that the Lord delivered to the Ninevites by Jonah “caused” them or persuaded or convinced them to place their absolute total confidence in the Lord.

21. That the Ninevites faith in God was a “saving” faith or a faith that delivered them from eternal condemnation is indicated by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in Matthew 12:41.

22. Further indicating that the Ninevites exercised saving faith in the Son of God, Yahweh is that the Lord would not have relented and withheld judgment if the Ninevites had not acted in faith.

23. The question that arises is that why would the Ninevites even accept Jonah into their city?

24. Why would they be willing to listen to an Israelite prophet in the first place?

25. First of all, he was a very famous prophet in Israel.

26. He would undoubtedly have been known not only by the Assyrians but also the entire Middle East at that time since his prediction that Israel’s borders would enlarge came to pass.

27. 2 Kings 14:25 records that Jonah lived during the reign of Jeroboam II in approximately 793-753 B.C.

28. The Prophet Jonah’s prediction that Israel’s boundaries would extend under Jeroboam II came true.

29. Therefore, Jonah was the most prestigious prophet of his day.

30. Another reason why the Ninevites would give Jonah a hearing was that the Assyrian nation was in a period of upheaval and dissension at that time.

31. Jonah 3:5, “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.” (NASU)

32. “A fast” is the masculine singular form of the noun ṣôm (צֹום) (tsome), which refers to the act of depriving the body of nourishment.

33. Fasting was done for a variety of reasons.

34. First of all it was done by nations as a sign of sorrow in the wake of a national tragedy (Judges 20:26; 1 Samuel 31:13; 1 Chronicles 10:12; 2 Samuel 1:12; 3:35); Esther 4:3; Jeremiah 14:1-12; Joel 1:14; 2:12-15).

35. It was also done by individuals of course who experienced sorrow or suffering (1 Samuel 1:7-8; 20:34; Job 3:24; Psalm 42:3; 102:4; 107:17-18).

36. Fasting was also a sign of repentance from national or corporate sins and was an act of seeking forgiveness from God as a nation (1 Samuel 7:6; Ezra 9:1-10:17; Nehemiah 9:1; Zechariah 8:16-19).

37. Daniel and Nehemiah fasted individually over their nation’s corporate sin as a demonstration of humility and repentance (Daniel 9:3-14; Nehemiah 1:4-7).

38. Many believers in the Old Testament fasted while in intercessory prayer for others (2 Samuel 12:16-23; Nehemiah 1:8-10; Psalm 35:13; Daniel 6:18; 9:15-19) or when offering personal petitions (1 Samuel 1:7-11; Nehemiah 1:11; Psalm 109:21-24; Daniel 9:3; 10:1-3).

39. Leaders prayed and fasted before battles (Judges 20:26; 1 Samuel 7:6; 2 Chronicles 20:3) and for relief from famine (Jeremiah 14:1-12; Joel 1:14; 2:12-15) or for success in other areas (Ezra 8:21-23; Esther 4:16).

40. The Lord Jesus Christ encouraged fasting as an aid to one’s personal devotion to God (Matthew 6:16-18).

41. The first century apostolic church engaged in corporate fasting and prayer meetings (Acts 13:2-3).

42. Fasting was used as an aid to experiencing God’s presence (Exodus 34:28; 1 Kings 19:8) and as an act of ceremonial public worship (Nehemiah 9:1; Esther 9:31; Isaiah 58:3; Jeremiah 36:6-9; Zechariah 7:3-5; 8:19).

43. Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther initiated fasts even though the Mosaic Law did not require them.

44. The fast proclaimed by the Ninevites in a corporate sense as recorded in Jonah 3:5-9 was as a demonstration of their faith in God and their repentance before Him and their desire for forgiveness from Him.

45. “Sackcloth” is the masculine plural form of the noun śǎq (שַׂק) (sak), which refers to a rough clothe that was coarsely woven, usually from goat hair and then dyed.

46. The citizens of Nineveh clothed themselves with sackcloth as a sign of repentance and that they were seeking forgiveness from God.

47. “From the greatest” is composed of the preposition min (מִן) (meen), “from” and the masculine singular construct form of the adjective gadhol (גָּדֹול) (ga-dol), “the greatest” and the third person masculine plural pronomial suffix hē∙mā(h) (־הֵמָה), “them.”

48. “To the least of them” is composed of the conjunction wa (וָ) (wa), which is not translated and then the preposition ʿǎḏ (עַד) (ad), “to” and the masculine singular construct form of the adjective qā∙ṭān (קָטָן) (kaw-tawn), “the least of” the third person masculine plural pronomial suffix hē∙mā(h) (־הֵמָה), “them.”

49. The adjective gadhol is used to describe men of Nineveh who were of distinction and social rank.

50. On the other hand, the adjective qā∙ṭān refers to the antithesis meaning those who are considered the insignificant in the city of Nineveh, namely, the poor and disenfranchised.