And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. (Jonah 2:10)
Jonah had now been in the fish’s belly for three days and three nights. Physically, he was in a terrible state, but spiritually, Jonah had finally repented. Because Jonah was finally ready to obey, God spoke to the fish and told it to release Jonah.
Here we see a fish obeying God better than His own prophet. God had told Jonah to go to Nineveh, but Jonah disobeyed and went in the opposite direction. God told the fish to swallow Jonah, and it obeyed. Then God told it to spit Jonah out, and the fish swam close to dry land and obeyed.
The Jonah that went into the fish’s belly may have been disobedient, but the Jonah that came out of the fish three days and nights later was finally ready to obey.
And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. (Jonah 3:1-2)
God’s second message to Jonah was no different from the first: “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it…” (See Jonah 1:1-2) God had to issue the same command twice because Jonah had failed to obey Him the first time. Now Jonah was back to where he started.
Sometimes, life works this way. Whenever we fail a test, we sometimes receive an opportunity to take it again, to fix the mistakes we made the first time. Often, however, we must deal with the consequences of those failures without the opportunity to make things right. Jonah was very fortunate to receive another opportunity to obey the Lord.
So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. (3:3a)
This time, Jonah obeyed the Lord; he immediately went to Nineveh. After trying to escape his prophetic mission, Jonah learned his lesson. Now, he responded differently; he did not rebel against God’s command as he had previously. Rather, Jonah did “according to the word of the LORD”; he carefully followed what God had told him to do.
Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. (3:3b-4)
Nineveh was a very large city for its day. The Bible tells us it would take three days to walk from one end to the other. In a time when many people lived in tents or small towns, a city of this size may have seemed very intimidating to Jonah. However, it seems that Jonah’s obedience came with confidence as well.
Jonah boldly walked a third of the way into the city and began to proclaim God’s message to the people of Nineveh: Repent or be destroyed. God put a limit on how much time He would give them to do as He commanded. Forty days, then destruction.
We see that, even in His anger against them, God still showed mercy to the Ninevites. He could have chosen to just destroy them because of their great wickedness. Instead, He chose to send His prophet to warn them and give them a chance to repent first.
God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked:
Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live… (Ezekiel 33:11)
Rather, God’s desire is for each person to repent and come to Him:
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
However, we, as sinful human beings, do not always take advantage of the mercy that God offers. We do not always obey Him as we should. God always uses the preaching of His Word to warn against sin and its consequences. The question is: Do we listen? Do we obey?