Yona 3 | The Repentance of Nineveh

After failing to flee from his mission, Yona reluctantly goes to Nineveh to carry out God's command. The verses emphasize Yona’s minimal effort in fulfilling his task. Nineveh is described as a large city, “three days' walk across” (v. 3), while Yona traverses only “a day's walk” (v. 4), and delivers a very brief proclamation.

Yona’s minimal call brings about a dramatic transformation in Nineveh: the text tells us that the people of Nineveh believed in God – “The people of Nineveh believed in God” (3:5) – and they quickly responded by fasting, putting on sackcloth, and calling out to God. It appears that this process extended throughout all groups within the city: from the king (v. 6), including everyone “from the greatest of them to the least” (v. 5), and even to the animals (v. 8).

This part of Sefer Yona can be read in two main ways, and commentators and scholars have debated the issue. In fact, this debate appears already in Chazal: how should we view the repentance and appeal to God by the people of Nineveh? In the Talmud Bavli (Ta’anit 16a), their repentance is praised as an impressive process of sincere depth: “They turned from their evil way and from the violence in their hands... Shmuel said: Even if someone stole a beam and built it into a mansion – he must dismantle the entire mansion and return the beam to its owner.” But in Talmud Yerushalmi (Ta’anit 2), their repentance is portrayed as a deceptive act: “Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: The people of Nineveh repented in trickery.”

As noted, these two interpretive approaches have continued to engage readers and scholars throughout the generations. On the one hand, the chapter can be read as describing a thorough and impressive process of repentance, encompassing the entire population, combining fasting and prayer with correcting their behavior. On the other hand, the rapid and sweeping description of their repentance might also be read with cynicism: most of the detailed repentance actions (vv. 7–9) are presented in the king’s decree, rather than as a narrative of actual events. The description of people and animals alike crying out to God – “All must be covered in sackcloth, man and beast, and must cry out to God with all their strength” (3:8) – invites a reading that sees this as a cynical portrayal of repentance rather than a sincere one. What is the meaning of putting sackcloth on animals?

Perhaps our difficulty, as readers, in deciding whether the people of Nineveh truly repented or were being cynical is no coincidence. Maybe the chapter is written in such a way as to reflect that, in reality, it was also hard to determine how genuine their repentance was. And that is precisely what angers Yona: he claims that their repentance isn’t real, and he is frustrated that God nevertheless forgives them. If that is the core of Yona’s protest, then perhaps here lies the central message God seeks to teach him: the sincerity of a person’s intentions is always open to doubt. It is always possible to question someone’s motives. And yet, God chooses to trust people. If a person takes even partial steps toward repentance, God will forgive them and grant them the opportunity for change.

Perhaps from here we can learn a principle that is relevant to the situations that concern us today: when there are attempts to repair and to act together, it’s always easy to be suspicious and to question the other side’s sincerity. Let us hope that we learn from this prophecy to put our trust in “the other side,” even when there is reason to doubt them — and that through trust, we can succeed in building something together.