BIBLE STUDY LESSON 21

SERIES P --- YHVH’S PROPHETS

YHVH’S COMPASSION

THE MESSAGE OF THE GOURD

From Jonah 3-4

Once again Adonai spoke to Jonah about Nineveh. [Go to the great city of Nineveh with the message I will give you,] Adonai said. This time Jonah obeyed immediately and went to Nineveh. It was a great city, so large that it would take someone three days to walk around it. Jonah went into the city as far as he could walk in a day. Then he began to preach, warning the people. [Within forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed,] he proclaimed. The people of Nineveh believed YHVH and proclaimed a fast, dressing themselves in sackcloth to show that they repented of their sins. This wave of repentance swept through the city from the greatest people to the most humble. Before long the news reached the king of Nineveh, He, too, repented and stepped down from his royal throne to put on sackcloth to show how sorry he was for his sins. Then he sent a proclamation throughout the city. [The king and his nobles decree that men and animals must fast, eating and drinking nothing for a while. All people must wear sackcloth to show their repentance and pray earnestly to YHVH. Let everyone turn from his sins, his violence, and evil ways. Perhaps YHVH will change His mind and restrain His anger against us, so that we will not be destroyed.] YHVH did restrain His anger when He saw how the people repented, and He abandoned His plan to destroy the city. Jonah, however, was not pleased with this change in YHVH’s plans. In fact, he was very angry, and in his prayers, he complained to Adonai about it. [Was this not what I was afraid You would do when You first told me to come to Nineveh?] Jonah asked. [That is why I ran away toward Tarshish, for I knew that You are a YHVH of mercy and kindness and that You might abandon Your plans to destroy this wicked city. Now, please destroy me, Adonai, for I would rather die than to see nothing come of my prophecy.] [Is it right for you to be angry about this?] Adonai asked Jonah. Jonah made a booth for himself east of the city and sat in the shade of it while he waited to see what would happen to Nineveh. The foliage on the booth soon withered, the air became very hot, and Jonah sweltered in the heat. Then Adonai caused a gourd plant to grow rapidly and to spread its large leaves above Jonah’s head. This gave great relief from the hot sun, and Jonah was grateful for it. But the next morning Adonai caused a worm to eat away the heart of the plant, and soon it withered, and the hot sun beat down on Jonah again. YHVH also caused a hot east wind to blow upon him. Finally, he became so faint from the heat that he prayed that Adonai would let him die. [Even death is better than this kind of life,] he complained. [Should you be angry because the gourd plant died?] Adonai asked. [Angry enough to die!] replied Jonah. [You grieve for that plant which you did not cause to grow, and for which you did not work,] Adonai said. [It was here only for a day, growing up in a night and withering the next day. If you can grieve like that for a plant, why shouldn’t I grieve for a great city with one hundred and twenty thousand people in it, people who do not know good from evil, and for all their animals?]

COMMENTARY

NINEVEH

Around 3000 B.C. Babylonian settlers dedicated Nineveh to Ishtar, goddess of love and war, and built a great temple in her honour. {Nineveh,} probably from the Babylonian {Nina,} became an Assyrian name for Ishtar. During the reigns of Assyria’s kings around 1200 B.C., Nineveh grew large and strong. When Sargon II built a new capital thirteen miles away at Khorsabad in 700 B.C., Nineveh was threatened until Sargon’s son, Sennacherib, used the vast resources of the new Assyrian Empire to restore the ancient city. After a quarter century, Nineveh had an immense new palace of brick and cedar beams, panelled inside with sculptured alabaster slabs depicting hunting scenes and war victories. Winged bulls of stone, and lions and genii of bronze, silver and copper, protected the doorways, halls and rooms of the palace. Sennacherib’s city walls enclosed nearly two thousand acres of land and covered over seven miles. With over one hundred thousand residents, Nineveh ranked close to first place among the largest ancient cities. Jonah’s reference to a three-day journey across Nineveh probably included settlements outside the walls that stretched as far south as Calab and as far north as Khorsabad. To thwart invasions from under the walls, Sennacherib had the base of the outer walls reach underground water level. Fifteen gates provided access into the city from commercial roads. Around the walls Sennacherib laid out orchards, parks and zoos, featuring exotic trees, plants and animals from across the Assyrian Empire. Rejecting the muddy waters of the Tigris River, he built an elaborate system that brought pure water from mountain streams fifty miles distant. Sennacherib’s grandson Ashurbanipal deserves credit for the great library at Nineveh. Two small chambers of Ashurbanipal’s palace have yielded more than sixteen thousand clay tablets and fragments. During the reigns of Ashurbanipal’s successors, Nineveh’s supremacy ended with a siege and fierce fighting between the Ninevites and a coalition of Medes, Babylonians and Scythians. A Tigris tributary that ran through the capital flooded its shores, weakening the city wall, and the city was defeated.