The Outcry Against Nineveh

FROM THE BIBLICAL SERIES BY GUSTAVE DORÉ.

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"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”— Jonah, 3, 4.

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SECOND time "the word of the Lord" came to Jonah, that he should arise and go to Nineveh, and preach "that I bid thee." So, the fear of God driving out the fear of the Ninevites, Jonah went. The Assyrian capital was a city so vast that to pass through it was a three days' journey. For the first day Jonah advanced steadily through the streets crying out his warning, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." His terrible figure, his awful cry, the consciousness of their own wickedness, all smote the citizens with conviction. Instead of assaulting the prophet they humbled themselves before him. A general fast was proclaimed, gay garments were thrown aside and the sackcloth typical of repentance was the only garb "from the greatest of them even to the least of them." The king himself sent out a proclamation that they should all "cry mightily unto God;" for, said he, "Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?"

Even so it came about. The Divine Will had been to rouse these people into purer life, rather than to destroy them. At the uprising of their universal prayer, He spared the city.

ISAIAH LXIII-THE CHOSEN PEOPLE

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9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

10 ¶ But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.

11 Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is he that put his holy Spirit within him? 12 That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name? 13 That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble?

14 As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name.

15¶ Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained?

16 Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.

17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

18 The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.

19 We are thine: thou never barest rule over them; they were not called by thy name.

Chapter 64

1 The church prayeth for the illustration of God's power. 4 Celebrating God's mercy, it maketh confession of their natural corruptions. 9 It complaineth of their affliction.

H that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,

2 As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!

3 When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.

4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.

5 Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.