God gave Jonah a second chance to obey Him as He has many of His servants (e.g., Peter, John Mark, et al.).
3:1 The writer did not clarify exactly when this second commission came to Jonah. It may have been immediately after Jonah reached dry land or it may have been sometime later. The writer's point seems to be that God gave the prophet a second commission, not when it came to him. God does not always give His servants a second chance to obey Him when they refuse to do so initially. Often He simply uses others to accomplish His purposes. In Jonah's case God sovereignly chose to use Jonah for this mission just as He had sovereignly sent the storm and the fish to do His will. The sovereignty of God is a strong revelation in this book.
Nineveh was about 550 miles northeast of Samaria.
3:2 Another evidence of God's sovereignty is the Lord's instruction to proclaim the message that He would give Jonah. Those who speak forth a message from God (i.e., prophets) must communicate the Lord's words, not their own ideas.
Nineveh was a "great"(Heb. gadol) city in several respects. It was the capital of one of the most powerful nations in the world then. It was also a large city (cf. v. 3, 4:11).
3:3 Having learned that he must fulfill the Lord's commission or suffer the most unpleasant consequences Jonah this time obeyed and travelled east to Nineveh rather than west (cf. 1:3).
The writer's description that Nineveh "was"a great city has led some interpreters to conclude that it was not great when the book was written. Some of them take this as evidence for a late date of writing even during the postexilic period. However it seems more likely that the writer was simply describing Nineveh as it was when God sent Jonah to it. Probably "was"implies that Nineveh had already become a great city when Jonah visited it. The Hebrew syntax favors this view. Roland de Vaux has estimated that Israel's largest city, Samaria, had a population of about 30,000 at this time.47Nineveh was at least four times larger (4:11).
The meaning of "a three days' walk"remains somewhat obscure. The Hebrew phrase is literally "a distance of three days,"which does not solve the problem. It may mean that it took three days to walk through the city from one extremity to the opposite one. It may also mean that it took three days to walk around the circumference of the city though this seems unlikely (cf. v. 4). Whether the size refers to the area enclosed by the major eight-mile wall, which seems improbable, or includes the outlying suburbs is also unclear. Regardless the description clearly points to Nineveh's geographical size as being very large.48
3:4 Apparently after Jonah arrived at the edge of the city he proceeded into it and began announcing his message during his first day there.49The essence of his proclamation was that Nineveh would be overthrown in only 40 days.50As mentioned in the introduction section of these notes, Nineveh's neighbors to the north posed a considerable threat to her security between 782 and 745 B.C. The Septuagint has three instead of 40, but there is no justification for the change in the Hebrew text.
Note that Jonah's message was an announcement of impending doom, not a call to believe in the God of Israel. Physical deliverance rather than spiritual salvation was what the people of Nineveh would have wanted.
The same Hebrew word (haphak, overthrown, destroyed) describes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:25. Possibly Jonah expected God to destroy Nineveh as He had overthrown Sodom and Gomorrah.
The basic simplicity of Jonah's message contrasts with the greatness of Nineveh. The word of the Lord is able to change even a complex and sophisticated urban population.
