Nineveh Turns, and God Relents
5 The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least. 6 The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, “Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water; 8 but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?” 10 God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn’t do it.
A pagan city repents on the strength of five words, and God does exactly what he said he would not have to do.
Nineveh believes God — not Jonah, God — and the response runs from the greatest of them to the least before the king has said anything at all. When the news does reach the throne, the king does not issue the repentance; he joins it, coming down off the seat, out of the robe, and into the ashes. Then he makes it law, and adds the sentence that matters: let them turn from their evil ways and from the violence in their hands.
That is the tell. What the king demands is not ritual but the abandonment of the specific sin Assyria was famous for. A later prophet would call the same city a place of blood and plunder Nahum 3:1. The fasting is the sign; the violence laid down is the thing signified, and it is what God is said to see.
The king's reasoning is the most honest line in the chapter — who knows, God may turn and relent. He claims no promise, because none was given him. Jonah's sermon offered nothing. He repents on the bare possibility that a God he does not know might be merciful, and he is right. God sees what they did, and relents. The word used of God's turning is the same one used of theirs.
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