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If that nation against which I have spoken shall repent of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I thought to do them." Jonas sent from God, had positively announced that in forty days Nineveh should be destroyed, and nevertheless the penitence of the Ninevites hindered the destruction of their city. St.
But for any thing like a public conscience so kindling since the repentance of the Ninevites, it is not to be thought of. The pretence of such a thing is a sign of the last state of national hypocrisy. It was not that sense which emancipated the Negroes and forbade the slave trade.
The Ninevites had numerous idols, but their honour for the Lord had not quite faded away; and about the year 830, about the time of Amaziah in Judah, and Jeroboam II. in Israel, the prophet Jonah was sent to rebuke them for their many iniquities.
Great banquets seem to have been frequent at the court, as at the courts of Babylon and Persia, in which drinking was practised on a large scale. The Ninevites generally are reproached as drunkards by Nahum. In the banquet-scenes of the sculptures, it is drinking and not eating that is represented. The arrangement of the banquets is curious.
After he had told the Ninevites that their city would be overthrown in forty days, God had relented, and utterly ruined Jonah's reputation as a prophet. So he made himself a booth outside the city, and sat in its shadow, to watch what would happen, with a deep feeling, which he plainly expressed to the Almighty, that now his reputation was gone he might as well die.
What a telling blow, even in those old days, at the "middle wall of partition" by which the Jew fenced out the Gentile from his sympathy! And then the gentle rebuke of Jonah's petulant narrowness! How true is the touch that describes Jonah as angry because God had forgiven the Ninevites! His credit as a prophet was gone.
As a specimen of Matthias' preaching and sentiments, the following is said to be reliable: 'The spirit that built the Tower of Babel is now in the world-it is the spirit of the devil. The spirit of man never goes upon the clouds; all who think so are Babylonians. The only heaven is on earth. All who are ignorant of truth are Ninevites. The Jews did not crucify Christ- it was the Gentiles.
He wanted to have the Ninevites see that he was a true prophet, for if no destruction came upon them he feared that they might call him a false prophet. So he complained to God, and said, "Now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me, for it is better to die than to live!" The Lord's gentle word to Jonah was, "Doest thou well to be angry?"
His resurrection was to be the crowning miracle, the sign forever confronting his nation, Jonah's deliverance from apparent death was such a miracle as convinced the Ninevites that he had a message from God for them, so Christ's resurrection was to become the keystone of the arch on which the whole structure of the redemptive system should rest. "He was raised for our justification."
He paused a moment, and thus resumed: "It was on the banks of the frozen Seine, this day thirty-and-one winters ago, that two holy monks, to whom the gift of prophecy was vouchsafed, told me of direful woes that should fall on England; 'For God, said they, 'after thy death, has delivered England into the hand of the enemy, and fiends shall wander over the land. Then I asked in my sorrow, 'Can nought avert the doom? and may not my people free themselves by repentance, like the Ninevites of old? And the Prophets answered, 'Nay, nor shall the calamity cease, and the curse be completed, till a green tree be sundered in twain, and the part cut off be carried away; yet move, of itself, to the ancient trunk, unite to the stem, bud out with the blossom, and stretch forth its fruit. So said the monks, and even now, ere I spoke, I saw them again, there, standing mute, and with the paleness of dead men, by the side of my bed!"
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