Jonah 3:5

The Happy Result of Jonah's Preaching

5. believed God Or, believed in God. Three things their faith certainly embraced. They believed in the God of the Hebrews, as the true God. They believed in His power to execute the threat which He had held out. They believed in His mercy and willingness to forgive the penitent. And this was marvellous faith in heathen, contrasting favourably with that of the chosen people. "So great faith" had not been found, "no not in Israel." What they knew of the Hebrews and their God (for doubtless they recognised in Jonah a Jewishprophet) may have contributed to the result. That they knew also the miraculous history of Jonah's mission to them, and so were the better prepared to credit him, appears to be plainly taught us by our Lord. It is difficult to understand how Jonah should have been "a sign unto the Ninevites," corresponding in any way to the sign, which by His resurrection the "Son of man" was to "the men of that generation," (Luke 11:30 with Matthew 12:38-41,) unless they were aware that he had passed, as it were, through death to life again, on his way to preach to them. How that information reached them we have no means of judging certainly. Of course it may have come to them from the lips of Jonah himself, though we have seen reason (see note on Jonah 3:4) to regard that as improbable. Alford speaks of "his preaching after his resurrection to the Ninevites, announcing (for that would necessarily be involved in that preaching) the wonderful judgment of God in bringing him there, and thus making his own deliverance, that he might preach to them, a signto that people."