Jonah 3 is a short chapter, but there is a lot in there. We are shown how the individual Ninevites responded to the message of Jonah. The repentance of the people grabbed the attention of the king of Nineveh who encouraged their repentance. The people of Nineveh believed God, and “it was credited to them as righteousness” (cf. Gen. 15:6), just as it was for Abraham.
The book of Jonah is the Haftarah reading during the Day of Atonement/Yom Kippur. The main theme of Jonah is how God deals with different kinds of sinners and brings them into His fold: repentance and sacrifice. We have been taught this idea that all sinners are equal and because all sinners are equal, all sinners require the same remedy, but it’s not that simple. As Yonah sets out to run away from God’s mission, we discover that the more we know, the more God requires. Although God saved both the mariners and the people of Nineveh from His wrath, He did not use the same method to do so.
Amaziah king of Yehudah (Judah) started out good but didn’t remove the pollution of the land — “high places,” places to worship other gods. This historical account helps provide the backdrop for the messages of a number of prophet-writers in the Bible, such as Yonah (Jonah), Amos and Yeshiyahu (Isaiah).
One of the ways we can look at the mysterious apocalyptic phrase “abomination of desolation” is to see it as a “Tale of Three Cities” — Babylon, Tyre and Ninevah — and how all three cities are really symbolic of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) herself. The carnage of the “abomination of desolation” will not come on Babylon, Tyre, Ninevah or any of our great cities of modern times like London, New York or Tokyo. From God’s prophets, we understand that it was and will be the people of Yerushalayim who will have a front row seat, and it will be for the same reasons for the previous desolations.
George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We are blessed to read these repeated warning of the spiritual condition of people God calls before an “abomination of desolation” — and internalize the lessons.