Jona 3:3

Lutherbibel

Da machte sich Jona auf und ging hin gen Ninive, wie der HERR gesagt hatte. Ninive aber war eine große Stadt vor Gott, drei Tagereisen groß.

Parallel Translations

Schlachter Bibel (1951)
Da machte sich Jona auf und ging nach Ninive, nach dem Wort des Herrn . Ninive aber war eine große Stadt Gottes, drei Tagereisen groß.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

So: Genesis 30:8, *marg. Psalms 36:6,*marg. Psalms 80:10, *marg.

arose: Genesis 22:3, Matthew 21:28, Matthew 21:29, 2 Timothy 4:11

an exceeding great city: Heb. a city great of God

Reciprocal: Exodus 5:1 - and told Isaiah 37:37 - Nineveh Daniel 6:18 - and passed Jonah 3:2 - Nineveh Jonah 4:11 - Nineveh Nahum 1:1 - Nineveh

Gill's Notes on the Bible

So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord,.... He was no longer disobedient to the heavenly vision; being taught by the rod, he acts according to the word; he is now made willing to go on the Lord's errand, and do his business, under the influence of his power and grace; he stands not consulting with the flesh, but immediately arises and sets forward on his journey, as directed and commanded, being rid of that timorous spirit, and those fears, he was before possessed of; his afflictions had been greatly sanctified to him, to restore his straying soul, and cause him to keep and observe the word of the Lord; and his going to Nineveh, and preaching to a Heathen people, after his deliverance out of the fish's belly, was a type of the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles by the apostles, according to the commission of Christ renewed unto them, after his resurrection from the dead, Acts 26:23; and after many failings of theirs;

now Nineveh was an exceeding great city: or "a city great to God" m; not dear to him, for it was full of wickedness; not great in his esteem, with whom the whole earth is as nothing; but known by him to be what it was; and the name of God is often used of things, to express the superlative nature and greatness of them, as trees of God, mountains of God, the flame of God, c. Psalms 36:7 it was a greater city than Babylon, of which Psalms 36:7- :;

of three days' journey; in compass, being sixty miles, as Diodorus Siculus n relates; and allowing twenty miles for a day's journey on foot, as this was, and which is as much as a man can ordinarily do to hold it, was just three days journey; and so Herodotus o reckons a day's journey at an hundred fifty furlongs, which make about nineteen miles; but, according to the Jewish writers, a middling day's journey is ten "parsas" p, and every "parsa" makes four miles, so that with them it is forty miles: or else it was three days' journey in the length of it, as Kimchi thinks, from end to end. This is observed to show the greatness of the city, which was the greatest in the whole world, as well as to lead on to the following account.

m גדולה לאלהים "magna Deo", Montanus, Vatablus, Tigurine version, Mercerus, Drusius, Cocceius. n Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 92. o Terpsichore, sive l. 5. c. 53. p T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 94. 1.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh - , ready to obey, as before to disobey. Before, when God said those same words, “he arose and fled;” now, “he arose and went.” True conversion shows the same energy in serving God, as the unconverted had before shown in serving self or error. Saul’s spirit of fire, which persecuted Christ, gleamed in Paul like lightning through the world, to win souls to Him.

Nineveh was an exceeding great city - literally “great to God,” i. e., what would not only appear great to man who admires things of no account, but what, being really great, is so in the judgment of God who cannot be deceived. God did account it great, Who says to Jonah, “Should not I spare Nineveh that great city, which hath more than six score thousand that cannot discern between their right hand and their left?” It is a different idiom from that, when Scripture speaks of “the mountains of God, the cedars of God.” For of these it speaks, as having their firmness or their beauty from God as their Author.

Of three days’ journey - , i. e., 60 miles in circumference. It was a great city. Jonah speaks of its greatness, under a name which he would only have used of real greatness. Varied accounts agree in ascribing this size to Nineveh . An Eastern city enclosing often, as did Babylon, ground under tillage, the only marvel is, that such a space was enclosed by walls. Yet this too is no marvel, when we know from inscriptions, what masses of human strength the great empires of old had at their command, or of the more than threescore pyramids of Egypt . In population it was far inferior to our metropolis, of which, as of the suburbs of Rome of old , “one would hesitate to say, where the city ended, where it began. The suburban parts are so joined on to the city itself and give the spectator the idea of boundless length.”

An Eastern would the more naturally think of the circumference of a city, because of the broad places, similar to the boulevards of Paris, which encircles it, so that people could walk around it, within it . “The buildings,” it is related of Babylon, “are not brought close to the walls, but are at about the distance of an acre from them. And not even the whole city did they occupy with houses; 80 furlongs are inhabited, and not even all these continuously, I suppose because it seemed safer to live scattered in several places. The rest they sow and till, that, if any foreign force threaten them, the besieged may be supplied with food from the soil of the city itself.” Not Babylon alone was spoken of, of old, as “having the circumference of a nation rather than of a city.”

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jonah 3:3. Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days' journey. — See on John 1:2. Strabo says, lib. xvi., πολυ μειζων ην της Βαβυλωνος, "it was much larger than Babylon:" and Ninus, the builder, not only proposed to make it the largest city of the world, but the largest that could be built by man. See Diodor. Sic. Bib. l. ii. And as we find, from the lowest computation, that it was at least fifty-four or sixty English miles in circumference, it would take the prophet three days to walk round upon the walls, and announce from them the terrible message, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed!"