Commentary - Jonah 3:10

Bird's-eye view

Jonah 3:10 is the surprising and glorious climax of the first movement of this book. A pagan, Gentile, brutal, and thoroughly wicked city repents at the preaching of a bitter and reluctant Hebrew prophet. And God, in response to this repentance, stays His hand of judgment. This verse is a hinge point, not only for the city of Nineveh, but for our understanding of God's character, the nature of His warnings, and the efficacy of genuine repentance. It is a massive display of divine mercy, a mercy that Jonah himself will soon protest. The verse tackles profound theological questions: Does God change His mind? What constitutes true repentance in God's eyes? The answer to these questions reveals a God who is both immutably sovereign and dynamically relational, whose threatened judgments are not fatalistic decrees but potent invitations to turn and live.

This event is a staggering Old Testament foreshadowing of the Great Commission. The mercy of God crashes over the covenantal boundaries of Israel and floods the capital city of the Assyrian empire. It demonstrates that the central issue for God is not ethnicity but humility and repentance. The verse stands as a permanent rebuke to all forms of tribalism and as a glorious encouragement to all who would preach the gospel, reminding us that no person and no city is beyond the reach of God's sovereign grace.

Outline

Context In Jonah

This verse is the direct outcome of the preceding narrative. In chapter 1, Jonah fled from God's call to preach to Nineveh. In chapter 2, he was disciplined and restored through the belly of a great fish. In chapter 3, the call is reissued, and this time Jonah obeys. He enters the great city and preaches a stark, five-word sermon in Hebrew: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" (Jonah 3:4). The response is immediate and total. From the king on his throne to the lowest subject, the entire city believes God, proclaims a fast, and dresses in sackcloth (Jonah 3:5-9). Verse 10 is God's official response to this city-wide act of repentance. It sets the stage for Jonah's angry reaction in chapter 4, where the prophet's own heart is exposed as being far harder than the hearts of the pagan Ninevites.

Key Issues

When God Changes His Mind

The central theological knot in this verse is the statement that "God relented." In some translations, it says God "repented." This immediately raises a problem for us, because other Scriptures are emphatic that God does not repent. "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent" (Num 23:19). So, what are we to do with this? The solution is found when we understand that the Bible speaks of God in two ways. It speaks of God as He is in Himself, in His eternal, unchanging essence, and it speaks of God as He relates to us in our time-bound, changing world. Theologians call the latter kind of language anthropomorphism, ascribing human characteristics to God so that we might understand Him.

When the Bible says God relented, it is not telling us that God was surprised by Nineveh's repentance and had to scramble for a Plan B. God's eternal decree never changes. But His relationship to a person or a nation changes when that person or nation changes its relationship to Him. The warning of judgment was itself the instrument God used to bring about the repentance He had decreed from all eternity. The threat was entirely real, but it was also conditional. Jeremiah 18:7-8 lays out this principle perfectly: If God pronounces judgment on a nation, and that nation turns from its evil, then God will relent of the disaster He had planned. God does not change His character; He is always a God who judges unrepentant sin and forgives repentant sin. The Ninevites changed, and so God's action toward them changed, in perfect consistency with His unchanging character.

Verse by Verse Commentary

10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, so God relented concerning the evil which He had spoken He would bring upon them. And He did not bring it upon them.

Then God saw their works... This is the language of a judge rendering a verdict. It does not mean God was previously unaware and was just now catching up on the news from Nineveh. It means He took formal, judicial notice of their actions. And what did He see? Not just their outward religious observances. The fasting, the sackcloth, the ashes, the crying out to God, these were all important. But they were important because they were the outward expression of an inward reality. God saw past the ceremony to the substance. He saw "their works," and the text immediately defines the primary work that mattered: that they turned from their evil way.

...that they turned from their evil way... This is the biblical definition of repentance. It is not simply feeling sorry for your sin. It is not just remorse. It is a turning, a complete change of direction. The Ninevites were famous for their violence and wickedness (Jonah 3:8), and God saw that they had stopped. Their repentance had feet. It resulted in a changed life. This is the constant testimony of Scripture: faith without works is dead (James 2:26). The works do not save, but they are the necessary and inevitable evidence of a saving faith. God saw the fruit, and He knew the root was genuine.

...so God relented concerning the evil which He had spoken He would bring upon them. Here is the heart of the matter. The word "evil" here simply means calamity or disaster, not moral evil. Because the Ninevites turned from their moral evil, God turned from the promised calamity. As we noted above, this is not a change in God's eternal nature, but a change in His dealings with men based on their response to Him. The threat, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown," was a genuine covenantal warning. It was a summons. And when the summons was heeded, the sanction was lifted. God's warnings are meant to produce repentance, and when they do, mercy triumphs over judgment. God's ultimate purpose was not the destruction of Nineveh, but the demonstration of His mercy, and He used the threat of destruction to accomplish it.

And He did not bring it upon them. The conclusion is simple and stark. The judgment was averted. The sentence was stayed. Grace won the day. This is a glorious picture of the gospel. We all stand under a sentence of condemnation. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. But when we, by God's grace, hear the warning and turn from our evil way and trust in Christ, God relents. He pours out the calamity that we deserved upon His own Son, and for us, the verdict is "not guilty." He does not bring the judgment upon us. This is what happened for Nineveh on a temporal, corporate level, and it is what happens for every believer on an eternal, individual level.

Application

First, we must learn the lesson that Jonah himself failed to learn. We must delight in the mercy of God, especially when it is shown to our enemies. The church can be tempted to become a holy club, jealously guarding God's grace for ourselves. But the story of Nineveh blows the doors off that kind of thinking. Our God is a great and merciful God, and His compassion is not limited by our prejudices or tribal loyalties. We should therefore be eager to proclaim the message of repentance and faith to everyone, knowing that God can save anyone.

Second, this passage gives us a clear picture of what God is looking for in repentance. It is not enough to feel bad about our sin. It is not enough to perform religious duties. God is looking for a genuine turning, a change in our behavior that flows from a changed heart. We must examine our own lives. Are there "evil ways" from which we have refused to turn? Repentance is not a one-time event at conversion; it is the daily posture of the Christian life. We must continually be turning from our sin and turning to Christ.

Finally, we must take God's warnings seriously. The threat against Nineveh was not a bluff. And the warnings in Scripture against sin and unbelief are not bluffs either. The wages of sin is death, and the wrath of God abides on those who do not obey the Son. But these warnings are not meant to drive us to despair. Like the warning to Nineveh, they are a severe mercy, a gracious summons from a God who does not delight in the death of the wicked, but desires that all should turn and live. The threat of hell is one of God's great kindnesses, for it shows us what we are being saved from and drives us to the cross of Christ, where we find that God has, for all who believe, relented.