Jonah 3:5

"And the people of Nineveh believed God, and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them."

"The people of Nineveh believed God ..." Actually, the Hebrew text in this would be better translated "believed in God," according to Barnes, who also made the distinction between the two expressions thus:

"To believe God means to believe what God says, to be the truth; to believe in God expresses not belief only, but that belief resting and trusting in God; it combines hope and trust with faith and love, since without love there cannot be trust."[21]

That the people of Nineveh should have done such a thing as that which is here related must be accounted one of the wonders of all time. That a lone Jewish prophet, a member of a hated and despised race, who reciprocated in every way the hostility and hatred in which their respective nations held each other - that a man like that could simply walk into the city, declare its immediately forthcoming destruction, and be greeted by the enthusiastic and wholesale repentance which greeted Jonah's denunciation - all that is such an extraordinary occurrence, that some of the commentators have hailed it as a miracle. However, this was no miracle. The people heard the Word of God, believed it, and obeyed it; and that same opportunity to hear, believe, and obey the truth is still available today for every man on earth.

The people of Nineveh, however, did have a very remarkable "sign" from God that Jonah's message was the truth.

"To the Ninevites, Jonah himself was not merely a prophet, but a wonder in the earth, as one who had tasted of death, and yet had not seen corruption, but had now returned to witness among them for God."[22]

Such an observation as this is undoubtedly true, as attested by the following scripture:

"This generation is an evil generation: it seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah. For even as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of Man be to this generation" (Luke 11:29,30).

"Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites ..." This is the only proof needed that the Ninevites were fully aware of the supernatural wonder involved in Jonah's deliverance. Here again, we have that great New Testament word used also in John 2:11, etc., which "denotes a miraculous act, given as a token of divine power and authority."[23] The Scriptures do not tell us "how" Nineveh learned about this, but they do clearly inform us that they did learn of it. As to the "how"; it may be assumed that Jonah himself related his experience with God's anger, and with God's punishment, and following his repentance, with God's mercy. If Jonah did not himself tell, there were other witnesses, the mariners; at any rate there was ample human testimony.

There is also another very important possibility, and that regards the matter of Jonah's appearance following his deliverance. Many writers have wondered if he carried in his body any evidence of the terrible ordeal through which he had passed. Was his skin forever altered in color by the digestive juices in the fish? Were there scars that he would carry to the grave? We have no answers to such questions; but our Lord Jesus Christ exhibited the pierced hands and feet, and invited Thomas to thrust his hand into our Saviour's side after the resurrection! Again, the likeness between the antitype and type suggests that one of the ways in which Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites might very well have been that of the evidence exhibited in his body of what had occurred. Certainly, it was true in the case of Jesus our Lord.

To be sure, the critics of the New Testament have moved every part of heaven and earth they could reach in order to make "the sign" here anything except the wonder of Jonah's deliverance. As Summers asserted:

"In Luke, the `sign' was not the experience but the preaching. Jonah proclaimed God's message ... the ancient heathen city responded in repentance."[24]

It is a mystery how any student either of the Bible or of human nature could believe that Jonah's preaching, unsupported by any substantive proof, would be hailed in Scripture as a "sign." Jonah's preaching would never have been believed at all, except for the fact that Jonah's deliverance from death was such an astounding wonder that "when the word came unto the king of Nineveh," he immediately believed every word of it! Without the prior miracle of Jonah's deliverance from death, only a fool could believe that the king of Nineveh would have come down from his throne, cast off his royal robes, clothed himself in sackcloth and ashes, and led the whole nation in repentance. "Preaching" alone was never made the "sign" of anything!

Before leaving this verse, we should note that the first step in the conversion of the Ninevites was their "belief in God." As, noted above, this refers to a genuine, deep-seated, and sincere conviction that God is God and that all of our allegiance is owed to him. The New Testament evangelists referred to it as "believing with all of one's heart." (Acts 8:37 @@AV). It may be feared, as Butler thought, that:

"Preachers are guilty of expecting nominal Christians to lead lives of repentance when their belief is only nominal. Conviction must come before conversion! Persuasion precedes penitence!"[25]

In this connection, it should also never be forgotten that our Lord was absolutely fair and equitable in his dealings with the Pharisees who had demanded a" sign." "No sign," said Jesus, would be given "except the sign of the prophet Jonah"; and then Jesus went on beyond that to affirm that:

"Just as Jonah was delivered from death after having been inside of the great fish for three days and three nights, SO SHALL THE SON OF MAN be in the heart of the earth (dead and buried) for three days and three nights, and then RISE FROM THE DEAD." (Paraphrase).

Of course, this was a far greater wonder for the Pharisees, and all mankind, than the wonder of Jonah's deliverance. Furthermore, the Pharisees would have a much closer view of the wonder than that which was accorded the Ninevites, whose belief, at best rested upon tenuous and uncertain testimony; but the Pharisees themselves had witnessed the crucifixion, procured the guard at the grave, and instigated the action that sealed it. Yes indeed, the Lord was more than fair with them.

Nevertheless, Jonah's deliverance was indeed a marvelous sign in its own right; and it is to the eternal credit of the Ninevites that they honored God by believing it. The action of the Ninevites in this matter proved to be an accurate prophecy of what would happen in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the deliverance of Jonah which convinced them; and it was the resurrection of Jesus Christ which convinced the whole Gentile world of the power and godhead of the Son of God.