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And the word of the Lord - The same oracle as that before given; and which, from what he had felt and seen of the justice and mercy of the Lord, he was now prepared to obey.
And the word of the Lord came a second time to Jonah - o“Jonah, delivered from the whale, doubtless went up to Jerusalem to pay his vows and thank God there. Perhaps he hoped that God would be content with this his punishment and repentance, and that He would not again send him to Nineveh.” Anyway, he was in some settled home, perhaps again at Gath-hepher. For God bids him, “Arise, go”. “But one who is on his way, is not bidden to arise and go.” God may have allowed an interval to elapse, in order that the tidings of so great a miracle might spread far and wide. But Jonah does not supply any of these incidents. He does not speak of himself, but only of his mission, as God taught him.
“The Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.... Under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.... All the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.” Ezekiel 31:3-9. PK 363.1
But the rulers of Assyria, instead of using their unusual blessings for the benefit of mankind, became the scourge of many lands. Merciless, with no thought of God or their fellow men, they pursued the fixed policy of causing all nations to acknowledge the supremacy of the gods of Nineveh, whom they exalted above the Most High. God had sent Jonah to them with a message of warning, and for a season they humbled themselves before the Lord of hosts and sought forgiveness. But soon they turned again to idol worship and to the conquest of the world. PK 363.2
The prophet Nahum, in his arraignment of the evildoers in Nineveh, exclaimed: PK 363.3
Read in context »
“For Thou hadst cast me into the deep,
In the midst of the seas;
And the floods compassed me about:
And Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me.
PK 269.1
“Then I said, I am cast out of Thy sight;
Yet I will look again toward Thy holy temple.
The waters compassed me about,
Even to the soul:
PK 269.2
“The depth closed me round about,
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains;
The earth with her bars was about me forever:
PK 269.3