The LORD spoke to Jonah, “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen HOW WICKED its people are.” (Jonah 1:1-2) King Sennacherib transformed Nineveh into a magnificent city with new streets, squares, and a canal system within a walled area and built a vast and splendid palace. “…Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it.” (Jonah 3:3) At the end of Jonah’s book it says, “Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness…” (Jonah 4:11)
When the armies of Nineveh captured a city or a country, unspeakable brutalities would occur, such as skinning people alive, decapitation, mutilation, ripping out tongues, making a pyramid of human heads, piercing the chin with a rope. Ancient records from Assyria boast of this kind of cruelty as a badge of courage and power. When King Sennacherib came to destroy Jerusalem, “That night the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp.” (2 Kings 19:35)
Our gracious God wanted to spare the Ninevites so He called Jonah to go there, when he tried to escape, God prepared special transportation (a huge fish) for him. “Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The Ninevites believed God. A FAST WAS PROCLAIMED, and ALL OF THEM, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth…By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink.” (Jonah 3:4-5, 7)
GOD WAS MOVED BY THEIR REPENTANCE, PRAYER AND FASTING AND SPARED THEM! 120,000 SAVED BY A FAST!!!
-Bill Stockham