2 Chronicles 20:3

20:3 Jehoshaphat was afraid, so he decided to seek the Lord’s advice. ¹  He decreed that all Judah should observe a fast.

Isaiah 22:12

22:12 At that time the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, called for weeping and mourning,

for shaved heads and sackcloth. ² 

Joel 1:14-15

1:14 Announce a holy fast; ³ 

proclaim a sacred assembly.

Gather the elders and ⁴  all the inhabitants of the land

to the temple of the Lord your God,

and cry out to the Lord.

1:15 How awful that day will be! ⁵ 

For the day of the Lord is near;

it will come as destruction from the Divine Destroyer. ⁶ 

Joel 2:12-17

An Appeal for Repentance

2:12 “Yet even now,” the Lord says,

“return to me with all your heart –

with fasting, weeping, and mourning.

Tear your hearts, ⁷ 

not just your garments!”

2:13 Return to the Lord your God,

for he is merciful and compassionate,

slow to anger and boundless in loyal love ⁸  – often relenting from calamitous punishment. ⁹ 

2:14 Who knows?

Perhaps he will be compassionate and grant a reprieve, ¹⁰ 

and leave blessing in his wake ¹¹  –

a meal offering and a drink offering for you to offer to the Lord your God! ¹² 

2:15 Blow the trumpet ¹³  in Zion.

Announce a holy fast;

proclaim a sacred assembly!

2:16 Gather the people;

sanctify an assembly!

Gather the elders;

gather the children and the nursing infants.

Let the bridegroom come out from his bedroom

and the bride from her private quarters. ¹⁴ 

2:17 Let the priests, those who serve the Lord, weep

from the vestibule all the way back to the altar. ¹⁵ 

Let them say, “Have pity, O Lord, on your people;

please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked,

to become a proverb ¹⁶  among the nations.

Why should it be said ¹⁷  among the peoples,

“Where is their God?”

Jonah 3:4-9

3:4 When Jonah began to enter the city one day’s walk, he announced, “At the end of forty days, ¹⁸  Nineveh will be overthrown!” ¹⁹ 

3:5 The people ²⁰  of Nineveh believed in God, ²¹  and they declared a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. ²²  3:6 When the news ²³  reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat on ashes. 3:7 He issued a proclamation and said, ²⁴  “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water. 3:8 Every person and animal must put on sackcloth and must cry earnestly ²⁵  to God, and everyone ²⁶  must turn from their ²⁷  evil way of living ²⁸  and from the violence that they do. ²⁹  3:9 Who knows? ³⁰  Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind and relent ³¹  and turn from his fierce anger ³²  so that we might not die.” ³³ 

[20:3]  ¹ tn Heb “and he set his face to seek the Lord.”

[22:12]  ² tn Heb “for baldness and the wearing of sackcloth.” See the note at 15:2.

[1:14]  ³ tn Heb “consecrate a fast” (so NASB).

[1:14]  ⁴ tc The conjunction “and” does not appear in MT or LXX, but does appear in some Qumran texts (4QXII^c and 4QXII^g).

[1:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “Alas for the day!”

[1:15]  ⁶ tn There is a wordplay in Hebrew here with the word used for “destruction” (שׁוֹד, shod) and the term used for God (שַׁדַּי, shadday). The exact meaning of “Shaddai” in the OT is somewhat uncertain, although the ancient versions and many modern English versions tend to translate it as “Almighty” (e.g., Greek παντοκράτωρ [pantokratwr], Latin omnipotens). Here it might be rendered “Destroyer,” with the thought being that “destruction will come from the Divine Destroyer,” which should not be misunderstood as a reference to the destroying angel. The name “Shaddai” (outside Genesis and without the element “El” [“God”]) is normally used when God is viewed as the sovereign king who blesses/protects or curses/brings judgment. The name appears in the introduction to two of Balaam’s oracles (Num 24:4, 16) of blessing upon Israel. Naomi employs the name when accusing the Lord of treating her bitterly by taking the lives of her husband and sons (Ruth 1:20-21). In Ps 68:14, Isa 13:6, and the present passage, Shaddai judges his enemies through warfare, while Ps 91:1 depicts him as the protector of his people. In Ezek 1:24 and 10:5 the sound of the cherubs’ wings is compared to Shaddai’s powerful voice. The reference may be to the mighty divine warrior’s battle cry which accompanies his angry judgment.

[2:12]  ⁷ sn The figurative language calls for genuine repentance, and not merely external ritual that goes through the motions.

[2:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “and great of loyal love.”

[2:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “and he relents from calamity.”

[2:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “turn” or “turn back.”

[2:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “leave a blessing behind him.”

[2:14]  ¹² tn The phrase “for you to offer” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[2:15]  ¹³ tn See the note on this term in 2:1.

[2:16]  ¹⁴ sn Mosaic law allowed men recently married, or about to be married, to be exempt for a year from certain duties that were normally mandatory, such as military obligation (cf. Deut 20:7; 24:5). However, Joel pictures a time of such urgency that normal expectations must give way to higher requirements.

[2:17]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “between the vestibule and the altar.” The vestibule was located at the entrance of the temple and the altar was located at the other end of the building. So “between the vestibule and the altar” is a merism referring to the entire structure. The priestly lament permeates the entire house of worship.

[2:17]  ¹⁶ tn For the MT reading לִמְשָׁל (limshol, an infinitive, “to rule”), one should instead read לְמָשָׁל (lÿmashal, a noun, “to a byword”). While the consonantal Hebrew text permits either, the context suggests that the concern here is more one of not wanting to appear abandoned by God to ongoing economic depression rather than one of concern over potential political subjection of Israel (cf. v. 19). The possibility that the form in the MT is an infinitive construct of the denominative verb II מָשַׁל (mashal, “to utter a proverb”) does not seem likely because of the following preposition (Hebrew בְּ [bÿ], rather than עַל [’al]).

[2:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Why will they say?”

[3:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown!” The adverbial use of עוֹד (’od, “yet”) denotes limited temporal continuation (BDB 728 s.v. עוֹד 1.a; Gen 29:7; Isa 10:32). Tg. Jonah 3:4 rendered it as “at the end of [forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown].”

[3:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “be overturned.” The Niphal נֶהְפָּכֶת (nehpakhet, “be overturned”) refers to a city being overthrown and destroyed (BDB 246 s.v. הָפַךְ 2.d). The related Qal form refers to the destruction of a city by military conquest (Judg 7:3; 2 Sam 10:3; 2 Kgs 21:13; Amos 4:11) or divine intervention as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:21, 25, 29; Deut 29:22; Jer 20:16; Lam 4:6; BDB 245 s.v. 1.b). The participle form used here depicts an imminent future action (see IBHS 627-28 §37.6f) which is specified as only “forty days” away.

[3:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “men.” The term is used generically here for “people” (so KJV, ASV, and many other English versions); cf. NIV “the Ninevites.”

[3:5]  ²¹ sn The people of Nineveh believed in God…. Verse 5 provides a summary of the response in Nineveh; the people of all ranks believed and gave evidence of contrition by fasting and wearing sackcloth (2 Sam 12:16, 19-23; 1 Kgs 21:27-29; Neh 9:1-2). Then vv. 6-9 provide specific details, focusing on the king’s reaction. The Ninevites’ response parallels the response of the pagan sailors in 1:6 and 13-16.

[3:5]  ²² tn Heb “from the greatest of them to the least of them.”

[3:6]  ²³ tn Heb “word” or “matter.”

[3:7]  ²⁴ tn Contrary to many modern English versions, the present translation understands the king’s proclamation to begin after the phrase “and he said” (rather than after “in Nineveh”), as do quotations in 1:14; 2:2, 4; 4:2, 8, 9. In Jonah where the quotation does not begin immediately after “said” (אָמַר, ’amar), it is only the speaker or addressee or both that come between “said” and the start of the quotation (1:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 4:4, 9, 10; cf. 1:1; 3:1).

[3:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “with strength”; KJV, NRSV “mightily”; NAB, NCV “loudly”; NIV “urgently.”

[3:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “let them turn, a man from his evil way.” The alternation between the plural verb וְיָשֻׁבוּ (vÿyashuvu, “and let them turn”) and the singular noun אִישׁ (’ish, “a man, each one”) and the singular suffix on מִדַּרְכּוֹ (middarko, “from his way”) emphasizes that each and every person in the collective unity is called to repent.

[3:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “his.” See the preceding note on “one.”

[3:8]  ²⁸ tn Heb “evil way.” For other examples of “way” as “way of living,” see Judg 2:17; Ps 107:17-22; Prov 4:25-27; 5:21.

[3:8]  ²⁹ tn Heb “that is in their hands.” By speaking of the harm they did as “in their hands,” the king recognized the Ninevites’ personal awareness and immediate responsibility. The term “hands” is either a synecdoche of instrument (e.g., “Is not the hand of Joab in all this?” 2 Sam 14:19) or a synecdoche of part for the whole. The king's descriptive figure of speech reinforces their guilt.

[3:9]  ³⁰ sn The king expresses his uncertainty whether Jonah’s message constituted a conditional announcement or an unconditional decree. Jeremiah 18 emphasizes that God sometimes gives people an opportunity to repent when they hear an announcement of judgment. However, as Amos and Isaiah learned, if a people refused to repent over a period of time, the patience of God could be exhausted. The offer of repentance in a conditional announcement of judgment can be withdrawn and in its place an unconditional decree of judgment issued. In many cases it is difficult to determine on the front end whether or not a prophetic message of coming judgment is conditional or unconditional, thus explaining the king’s uncertainty.

[3:9]  ³¹ tn “he might turn and relent.” The two verbs יָשׁוּב וְנִחַם (yashub vÿnikham) may function independently (“turn and repent”) or form a verbal hendiadys (“be willing to turn”; see IBHS 540 §32.3b). The imperfect יָשׁוּב and the perfect with prefixed vav וְנִחַם form a future-time narrative sequence. Both verbs function in a modal sense, denoting possibility, as the introductory interrogative suggests (“Who knows…?”). When used in reference to past actions, שׁוּב (shub) can mean “to be sorry” or “to regret” that someone did something in the past, and when used in reference to future planned actions, it can mean “to change one’s mind” about doing something or “to relent” from sending judgment (BDB 997 s.v. שׁוּב 6). The verb נִחַם (nikham) can mean “to be sorry” about past actions (e.g., Gen 6:6, 7; 1 Sam 15:11, 35) and “to change one’s mind” about future actions (BDB 637 s.v. נחם 2). These two verbs are used together elsewhere in passages that consider the question of whether or not God will change his mind and relent from judgment he has threatened (e.g., Jer 4:28). The verbal root שׁוּב is used four times in vv. 8-10, twice of the Ninevites “repenting” from their moral evil and twice of God “relenting” from his threatened calamity. This repetition creates a wordplay that emphasizes the appropriateness of God’s response: if the people repent, God might relent.

[3:9]  ³² tn Heb “from the burning of his nose/face.” See Exod 4:14; 22:24; 32:12; Num 25:4; 32:14; Deut 9:19.

[3:9]  ³³ tn The imperfect verb נֹאבֵד (no’ved, “we might not die”) functions in a modal sense, denoting possibility. The king’s hope parallels that of the ship’s captain in 1:6. See also Exod 32:7-14; 2 Sam 12:14-22; 1 Kgs 8:33-43; 21:17-29; Jer 18:6-8; Joel 2:11-15.