The Ninevites turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil he had threatened to inflict upon them. The story of Jonah and his mission to the Ninevites is, without any doubt, among the intriguing and humorous stories found in the bible. It is a story that affords us a side of God that we perhaps never dare or want to imagine. Nineveh was a city in Mesopotamia and served as residence of the Assyrian kings. It was a pagan/gentile city and naturally an enemy of Israel. The city of Nineveh had caught the attention of God because of the wickedness of her inhabitants which appears to have gone out of control. In a rather unusual move, God decided to send prophet Jonah not merely to warn but most importantly to preach repentance to the inhabitants of the city. It was an errand that even Jonah himself saw as a waste of his time: who had heard of pagans turning away from their sinful ways in order to embrace God?
To Jonah, being sent to preach repentance to the Ninevites amounted to belittling his office as a prophet. Was he going to risk his life preaching to a people who would not know what he was talking about? If God had thought that this was going to be funny, Jonah was having none of that. He decided to show God that he did not intend to do as God was directing him. He decided to run away from both God and the mission (yesterday’s reading). But God insisted and Jonah was left with no choice but to carry out the Lord’s command, albeit reluctantly and for a totally different reason. Jonah wanted to see the city and its inhabitants totally annihilated by God (thus the content of his preaching: forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed). With a smirk on his face, Jonah informed the Ninevites of the impending doomsday. To Jonah’s utter surprise, the city heeded his message and embarked on a fast, animals included. It was a move that was unforeseen. At the sight of the city’s remorse at their wickedness, the Lord repented from the plan the Lord had of destroying Nineveh.
God was ordinarily not known to repent. Repentance, as we understand it, is an act that is exclusive to creatures that are capable of sinning. God is not capable of sinning. Repentance is turning away from one’s wicked ways (evil). Even though the action God had planned to take upon the Ninevites had they refused to turn away from their wicked ways was to be considered “just,” it was to be an act that was also “evil” (evil here understood as a destructive act). God had “planned” to destroy the city as a punishment for the Ninevites’ sinful ways. However, God’s “plan” was cut short when the city repented. God’s change of heart was something new. It portrayed God as someone capable of having feelings/emotions. The unmoved moverbecame moved by the behavior of his creatures. It was a turn of events that portrayed God as “human,” so to speak. God’s repentance also portrayed a God who cared for the wellbeing of all God’s creatures. For while to Jonah the Ninevites were just another group of troublemakers, to God, the Ninevites were God’s sons and daughters who had lost their way but who needed to be guided back into the fold.