Jonah 3:8

"But let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and beast, and let them cry mightily unto God; yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands."

"Let them turn every man from his evil way ..." No matter how terribly the conscience of man may be seared, there must always remain within him some basic knowledge of what is right or wrong. It does not appear that Jonah elaborated the sins of the Ninevites; he did not need to do so; they already knew what actions of theirs were sinful in the eyes of the one true and Almighty God.

The Ninevites also recognized the fundamental truth that the mere putting on of sackcloth and ashes would be futile and useless without the fundamental change in their lives which such outward tokens of repentance promised. In a manner that reminds us of the words of John the Baptist who commanded the people to "Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance" (Matthew 3:8), this ancient governor of Nineveh laid the same commandment upon himself and his fellow-citizens.

The fact of there being no mention of this great turning unto the Lord by the Ninevites in any of the books of the Hebrew Bible has, to be sure, been alleged as argument against the historicity of Jonah; but all such allegations ignore the Very nature of secular Israel. Their hatred and prejudice against Nineveh was exactly like that manifested by Jonah, and we may be absolutely certain that they omitted, by design, any reference whatever to the conversion of any Gentiles, especially of the hated Ninevites. Furthermore, we shall dare to engage in a little speculation. with reference to this very thing. Jonah himself, after having successfully turned an entire pagan city to the Lord, would forever afterward have been persona "non grata" in the whole nation of Israel. Jonah could not have failed to be aware of that, and it may accordingly be doubted that he ever went back, either to the northern or to the southern kingdom. There has to be some good reason why tradition places the grave of Jonah in Nineveh! Furthermore, if the animus of "the chosen people" against Jonah in any wise matched that which they directed toward the destruction of the apostle Paul, another Jew who converted many Gentiles, then, they would have held a public funeral for Jonah, buried him in effigy, and engraved his name on a grave near Gath-Hepher, which was Jonah's home; and if this supposition appears in any manner unreasonable to anyone, let him explain how, otherwise, it was possible for Jonah to have two graves, one at Gath-Hepher, and the other in Nineveh! We shall devote a little further space to the examination of this hypothesis at the end of the commentary on Jonah. We conclude it here with the comment by Deane to the effect that the records of the Jews, "never touched" such things, especially events happening so far away, and to a people whom they so thoroughly disliked.[35]