Adventistische Schriften über: "Explanation of the Book of Jonah, Nineveh, repentance, God's mercy"

The book of Jonah tells of the prophetic call to Nineveh and the prophet's initially reluctant mission.

God's mercy becomes evident when the city repents in response to the warning and averts the foretold judgment.

As the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that divine grace extends even to pagan nations when genuine repentance takes place, and that Jonah personally struggles with this unexpected grace, illustrating the tension between human resistance and divine grace.

Ultimately, it becomes clear that God's compassion requires sincere repentance and reaches beyond cultural and national boundaries.

Jonah and the Repentance of Nineveh

»In the days of Jonah and the glory of the Assyrian Empire, before the Babylonian Empire had entered history, God called one of His people, Jonah, to go to this pagan nation and tell them what judgment hung over them and what destruction would come, so that, warned, they might repent and escape ruin. He said to the Lord: Why should I go and do what You have commanded me? For You are a gracious God and relent concerning the evil; and if I go and tell them what You have commanded me to say, and if they turn from their evil and forsake their wicked ways, You will not destroy the city. What good will it do me, then, to go and say that the city will be destroyed? You will not do it if they turn from their evil ways. But the Lord insisted that he should go to Nineveh, yet he still held to his own views and set out for Joppa to sail to Tarshish. The Lord brought him back, and by that time he was convinced that it was better to go to Nineveh. He went to Nineveh and entered the city—a three days' journey—and preached: 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.' Word came to the king of Nineveh, and he sent word to all the people to renounce their evil ways, put on sackcloth and scatter ashes, and even to make the animals fast, and for the people to cry mightily to God. The Lord heard their cry, accepted their repentance, and saved the city. Jonah went out and sat on a height outside the city to see whether God would destroy it; and He did not destroy it; and then Jonah was not at all pleased. He said: Now this is exactly what I told You before I set out. I told You that if I came here and told them what You told me to say, they would turn from their evil, and You would forgive them and not destroy their city, and it turned out exactly so; and I would rather have stayed at home. And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented concerning the evil that He had said He would do to them; and He did not do it. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became very angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said: I pray You, O Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I fled earlier to Tarshish.«

1 - General Conference of SDA, General Conference Bulletin, vol. 1 (GCB March 5, 1895, page 467.6)

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