he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water:  8.  But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God; yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. 9.  Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not? 10.  And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not.’—­JONAH iii. 1-10.

This passage falls into three parts:  Jonah’s renewed commission and new obedience (vs. 1-4), the repentance of Nineveh (vs. 5-9), and the acceptance thereof by God (ver. 10).  We might almost call these three the repentance of Jonah, of Nineveh, and of God.  The evident intention of the narrative is to parallel the Ninevites turning from their sins, and God’s turning from His anger and purpose of destruction; and if the word ‘repentance’ is not applied to Jonah, his conduct sufficiently shows the thing.

I. Note the renewed charge to the penitent Prophet, and his new eagerness to fulfil it.  His deliverance and second commission are put as if all but simultaneous, and his obedience was swift and glad.  Jonah did not venture to take for granted that the charge which he had shirked was still continued to him.  If God commands to take the trumpet, and we refuse, we dare not assume that we shall still be honoured with the delivery of the message.  The punishment of dumb lips is often dumbness.  Opportunities of service, slothfully or faintheartedly neglected, are often withdrawn.  We can fancy how Jonah, brought back to the better mind which breathes in his psalm, longed to be honoured by the trust of preaching once more, and how rapturously his spirit would address itself to the task.  Duties once unwelcome become sweet when we have passed through the experience of the misery that comes from neglecting them.  It is God’s mercy that gives us the opportunity of effacing past disobedience by new alacrity.

The second charge is possibly distinguishable from the first as being less precise.  It may be that the exact nature of ’the preaching that I bid thee’ was not told Jonah till he had to open his mouth in Nineveh; but, more probably, the second charge was identical with the first.

The word rendered ‘preach’ is instructive.  It means ‘to cry’ and suggests the manner befitting those who bear God’s message.  They should sound it out loudly, plainly, urgently, with earnestness and marks of emotion in their voice.  Languid whispers will not wake sleepers.  Unless the messenger is manifestly in earnest, the message will fall flat.  Not with bated breath, as if ashamed of it; nor with hesitation, as if not quite sure of it; nor with coldness, as if it were of little