What does Jonah 1:2 Mean?

Study Notes

Nineveh

Nineveh stands in Scripture as the representative of apostate religious Gentiledom, as Babylon represents the confusion into which the Gentile political world-system has fallen Daniel 2:41-43 , (See Scofield " Isaiah 13:1 ") , Under the preaching of Jonah, B.C. 862, the city and king had turned to God (Elohim), Jonah 3:3-10 But in the time of Nahum, more than a century later, the city had wholly apostatized from God. It is this which distinguishes Nineveh from all the other ancient Gentile cities, and which makes her the suited symbol of the present religious Gentile world-system in the last day. Morally, Nineveh is described in Romans 1:21-23 . The chief deity of apostate Nineveh was the bull-god, with the face of a man and the wings of a bird: "an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts."

The message of Nahum, uttered about one hundred years before the destruction of Nineveh, is, therefore, not a call to repentance, but an unrelieved warning of judgment: "He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time." Nahum 1:9 ; see, also, Nahum 3:10 . For there is no remedy for apostasy but utter judgment, and a new beginning. Cf.; Isaiah 1:4 ; Isaiah 1:5 ; Isaiah 1:24-28 ; Hebrews 6:4-8 ; Proverbs 29:1 .

It is the way of God; apostasy is punished by catastrophic destruction. Of this the flood and the destruction of Nineveh are witnesses. The coming destruction of apostate Christendom is foreshadowed by these. (Cf) Daniel 2:34 ; Daniel 2:35 ; Luke 17:26 ; Luke 17:27 ; Revelation 19:17-21 .

burden See note 1, (See Scofield " Isaiah 13:1 ")

Verse Meaning

Nineveh was indeed a great city whose history stretched back as far as Nimrod, who built it as well as Babel and several other cities in Mesopotamia ( Genesis 10:8-12). ^[1] The word "great" occurs frequently in this book ( Jonah 1:2; Jonah 1:4; Jonah 1:12; Jonah 1:16-17; Jonah 3:2; Jonah 4:1; Jonah 4:6; Jonah 4:11). Nineveh occupied about1800 acres and stood on the east bank of the Tigris River across from the modern Iraqi city of Mosul. [source][source]

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Jonah was to "cry against it" (NASB) or "preach against it" (NIV) in the sense of informing its inhabitants that God had taken note of their wickedness. He was not to identify their sins as much as announce that judgment was imminent. God apparently intended that Jonah"s condition as an outsider would have made the Ninevites regard him as a divine messenger. The Lord did not send him to be merely a foreign critic of that culture. [source][source]

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Context Summary

Jonah is mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25. He was clearly very patriotic, and did not despair of his country in its darkest days. This commission to Nineveh was therefore not to his taste, because he had no desire to see the great heathen city brought to her knees. Another century would have to pass before Isaiah and Micah would proclaim that the heathen world would turn to God, Micah 4:1; Isaiah 2:2.

Rather than go upon this errand of mercy, Jonah hurried down to the one seaport, that he might escape his duty. Sin is always a descent; we always have to pay heavily in tolls and fares when we take our own way instead of God's, and we must never reckon that opportunity implies permission.

Weary with excitement and travel, the prophet is oblivious to the weighing of the anchor. The disasters that block the way of disobedience are harder than our difficulties in performing God's bidding. Note the divine agency in our lives: the word of the Lord came; the Lord hurled forth a great wind; the Lord prepared a great fish. There were, in these heathen sailors, beautiful traits which ought to have abashed the prophet. Their prayer to their idols and their endeavor to save this stranger Jew are as instructive as remarkable. [source]

Chapter Summary: Jonah 1

¹  Jonah, sent to Nineveh, flees to Tarshish
⁴  He is betrayed by a great storm;
¹¹  thrown into the sea;
¹⁷  and swallowed by a fish