The narrative indicates God wasted no time in renewing His call to Jonah. Without delay, Jonah was to proceed directly to Nineveh and proclaim God’s doom on them.
In our modern Western vernacular, the word “city” conjures the image of a dense urban congregation of tall buildings and vast acreages of pavement, surrounded closely by suburbs and outlying industrial and other service structures. In ancient times, it would have been wholly different. A city would be a rather small and dense urban build-up, surrounded with a good bit of agricultural property to feed the residents. Farther out would be any number of smaller cities, towns and villages to house people and activities which supported the central city. To visit a particular great city in ancient times could refer to any part of the entire vast area which supported the actual city itself.
Jonah made his way to the imperial capital. In ancient times, it’s all but inconceivable someone would actually hike the major trade routes 800 miles (1300km) alone. The very idea of any trip more than a few days’ walk would mean joining a caravan at the least, or traveling with a small entourage if you had the resources to pay an armed guard and ride animals. We are looking at no less than one month if one pursued a breakneck pace on fast onagers or horses across the ancient terrain. We can assume Jonah had at least a servant and probably some friends along for the journey, but probably traveling as light as possible. We should expect it would take easily two or three months.
On his first day working through Nineveh’s suburbs, Jonah begins to proclaim his warning. The term “forty days” was seldom meant literally. Such precision was foreign to Ancient Near Eastern cultures. As it was, with the pace of life so much slower than we can imagine today, it was still a doom impending all too closely. We know during this time Nineveh had suffered several events people in those days would have taken as portents and omens, including famines and celestial signs. It’s not hard to imagine they were primed for such a message of doom, but more importantly, God was working through His own message to bring a powerful sense of fear. Messengers made sure the rulers knew that first day.
Nothing in the imperial edict recorded here is unusual. Assyrian imperial records indicate similar edicts. These plus other contemporary records indicate Assyrians were particularly cruel and violent, and were proud of it at times. The ritual acts of penitence were common to that entire region of the world back then. Provoking domestic animals to moan about thirst and hunger was considered proper for placating angry deities. The noise would have been incredible, with all normal activity suspended. We are told God did, indeed, relent. The city was saved.
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