Introduction: A Second Mission
Chapter 3 of Sefer Yonah is the chapter in which the mission is finally fulfilled. Yonah, who fled from before Hashem, boarded a ship, and was swallowed by a fish, has returned to dry land, and the word of Hashem comes to him a second time. From here on, we follow the journey of Nineveh's repentance - an entire city of Gentiles awakened by the words of a single prophet. We will proceed verse by verse, following the commentary of the Malbim, alongside the insights of Chazal and the Radak.
וַיְהִי דְבַר־יְהֹוָה אֶל־יוֹנָה שֵׁנִית לֵאמֹר׃ קוּם לֵךְ אֶל־נִינְוֵה הָעִיר הַגְּדוֹלָה וּקְרָא אֵלֶיהָ אֶת־הַקְּרִיאָה אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי דֹּבֵר אֵלֶיךָ׃ - And the word of Hashem came to Yonah a second time, saying: Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation that I tell you.
"According to the Word of Hashem" - Prophecy Alone, Without Rebuke
וַיָּקׇם יוֹנָה וַיֵּלֶךְ אֶל־נִינְוֵה כִּדְבַר יְהֹוָה וְנִינְוֵה הָיְתָה עִיר־גְּדוֹלָה לֵאלֹהִים מַהֲלַךְ שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים׃ - So Yonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of Hashem. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city before God, a three days' walk across.
What is meant by "according to the word of Hashem"? In the first mission, Yonah was commanded only to speak words of rebuke to them, and no prophecy of punishment was given to him. Now, Hashem commands him to deliver an explicit prophecy: "In another forty days, Nineveh will be overturned." Yonah was in doubt: Should he also deliver the rebuke he was originally commanded to give, or only the prophecy? Since he thought that the decree was already sealed and rebuke would no longer be of any use, he acted "according to the word of Hashem" - exactly as Hashem spoke to him now, to deliver the prophecy alone. The words of rebuke from the first mission, he did not utter.
"A great city to God" - there are two explanations: A city that was great and significant in the eyes of God. Alternatively, whenever the Torah wishes to describe something of immense magnitude, it links it to Heaven, such as "mighty mountains" (harrei El) or "a mighty flame" (shalhevet-Yah) - to say that it was extraordinarily vast.
Why Did Yonah Wait a Day's Walk?
וַיָּחֶל יוֹנָה לָבוֹא בָעִיר מַהֲלַךְ יוֹם אֶחָד וַיִּקְרָא וַיֹּאמַר עוֹד אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם וְנִינְוֵה נֶהְפָּכֶת׃ - And Yonah began to enter the city, a day's walk, and he proclaimed and said: Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overturned!
Seemingly, if the city was a three days' journey across, why didn't Yonah begin proclaiming as soon as he entered? The Malbim offers a wonderful explanation: Had he proclaimed at the edge of the city, "In forty days," they would have eventually reached the forty-first day, and seeing that Nineveh had not yet been overturned, they would have claimed that the prophet fabricated his words. After all, proclaiming the prophecy throughout the entire city would take three days, leaving the exact count ambiguous. Yonah therefore walked to the center of the city and proclaimed from there - ensuring that the count was exact, with the forty days counted from the day the proclamation was made in the center.
Why Did the People of Nineveh Believe?
וַיַּאֲמִינוּ אַנְשֵׁי נִינְוֵה בֵּאלֹהִים וַיִּקְרְאוּ־צוֹם וַיִּלְבְּשׁוּ שַׂקִּים מִגְּדוֹלָם וְעַד־קְטַנָּם׃ - And the people of Nineveh believed in God; they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
On the surface, this is puzzling: a man arrives and proclaims, "In forty days Nineveh will be overturned!" - why would they believe him? There is no shortage of dreamers, no shortage of people with wild imaginations, and certainly no shortage of fools. The Radak explains: the sailors from the ship happened to be in the city at that time, and they recounted everything that had happened. Once the people learned that such wonders had been performed for this man on account of his mission, they understood that this was truly a mission from God.
What is a tzom (fast)? The Radak cites in the name of his father: tzom comes from the concept of gathering, like tzomet (an intersection) - a place where several paths come together, and like the anatomical term tzomet hagiddim (the junction of the sinews) - a place where many sinews cluster together. A "fast day" (yom tzom) is originally a day of assembly, when everyone gathers together to be aroused to teshuvah. And since on that occasion they would also afflict themselves with fasting, the name tzom was subsequently borrowed to mean fasting itself.
They believed and did not ask for a sign or a wonder; they immediately began to pray, donned sackcloth, and fasted. But notice: they had not yet repented. They heard that disaster loomed and began to pray, but teshuvah means changing one's deeds - and that, they had not yet done.
The King Rises from His Throne
וַיִּגַּע הַדָּבָר אֶל־מֶלֶךְ נִינְוֵה וַיָּקׇם מִכִּסְאוֹ וַיַּעֲבֵר אַדַּרְתּוֹ מֵעָלָיו וַיְכַס שַׂק וַיֵּשֶׁב עַל־הָאֵפֶר׃ - When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes.
Here begins the genuine change. The matter reaches the king, and the king does not suffice with prayer alone; he alters his ways: he removes his robe, covers his body with sackcloth, and sits on the ashes. And who was that king? Chazal say: Pharaoh. Pharaoh lived a long life and came to reign in Nineveh. When he heard such words, he said: "This I already know well. Once before I tried to outsmart the Holy One, Blessed be He, and I received more than enough plagues." Now, when they come and announce to him, "In forty days," he takes no chances and immediately changes his ways.
"And Let Them Call Mightily to God"
וַיַּזְעֵק וַיֹּאמֶר בְּנִינְוֵה מִטַּעַם הַמֶּלֶךְ וּגְדֹלָיו לֵאמֹר הָאָדָם וְהַבְּהֵמָה הַבָּקָר וְהַצֹּאן אַל־יִטְעֲמוּ מְאוּמָה אַל־יִרְעוּ וּמַיִם אַל־יִשְׁתּוּ׃ - And he caused it to be proclaimed throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying: "Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not graze, nor drink water."
The king issued a proclamation concerning repentance. Even though the people had already begun to pray, he told them two things: first, prayer alone is not enough - there must be teshuvah. Second, the animals must also be made to suffer. And the Gemara asks: if man sinned, what did the animals do wrong?
וְיִתְכַּסּוּ שַׂקִּים הָאָדָם וְהַבְּהֵמָה וְיִקְרְאוּ אֶל־אֱלֹהִים בְּחׇזְקָה וְיָשֻׁבוּ אִישׁ מִדַּרְכּוֹ הָרָעָה וּמִן־הֶחָמָס אֲשֶׁר בְּכַפֵּיהֶם׃ - "And let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call mightily to God; and let everyone turn from his evil way and from the injustice that is in their hands."
"And let them call mightily to God" - as if attempting by force to compel Hashem to remove the decree from upon them. What did they do? They penned the mothers separately and their offspring separately, so that the beasts would low and wail. Therefore it says, "and let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call to God" - meaning that the animals, too, cried out to God. When the cow saw that her calf had been taken from her, and when the young saw that their mothers had been distanced from them, they all burst out in lowing and crying. This is what is meant by "mightily." And they said: Master of the Universe, if You do not have mercy upon us, we will not have mercy upon these!
Who Knows If He Will Turn
מִי־יוֹדֵעַ יָשׁוּב וְנִחַם הָאֱלֹהִים וְשָׁב מֵחֲרוֹן אַפּוֹ וְלֹא נֹאבֵד׃ - Who knows? God may turn and relent, and turn back from His fierce anger, and we will not perish.
The king says to them: "Whoever knows - let him repent." Whoever knows within himself that he has committed a transgression, let him turn away from it. "And God will relent" - and if he turns away from it, Hashem will relent from the calamity He intended to bring upon us, "and turn back from His fierce anger, and we will not perish." Thus, our remedy lies in repentance.
"From the violence that is in their hands" - Restoring Stolen Property
Chazal tell us: how far did their repentance reach? Even someone who had stolen a beam from his fellow many years prior and had already embedded it into his building went and dismantled the structure, tearing down the story just to extract the beam and return it to its owner. To such an extent! Incidentally, in Jewish law there is no such requirement: there is the enactment of Takkanat HaShavim (an ordinance to ease repentance), establishing that if a person has already built a stolen beam into a structure, he reimburses its monetary value and does not need to dismantle his home. For were it not so, a person would despair of repenting, thinking: "What, shall I destroy my house?" But among the gentiles there was no such enactment, and everything had to be returned in kind.
"And God saw... that they turned from their evil way"
וַיַּרְא הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת־מַעֲשֵׂיהֶם כִּי־שָׁבוּ מִדַּרְכָּם הָרָעָה וַיִּנָּחֶם הָאֱלֹהִים עַל־הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת־לָהֶם וְלֹא עָשָׂה׃ - And God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil way, and God relented concerning the evil that He had spoken of doing to them, and He did not do it.
Initially, we saw that they merely felt regret and prayed without altering their conduct, but here it states, "that they turned from their evil way" - they did not content themselves with wearing sackcloth and proclaiming a fast. From this emerges a great moral lesson, and this is one of the reasons we read this passage on Yom Kippur. Chazal observe: it does not say, "And God saw their sackcloth," nor does it say, "And God saw their fasting," but rather, "And God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil way." What is demanded of a person is to change his ways. The fasting, the prayers, and the confessions of Yom Kippur are all wonderful, but the crucial question is what you take with you afterward: do you carry on as before, or do you change your ways? They turned from their evil ways and actively returned what was stolen, and therefore "God relented."
And Why Were They Spared Even Though They Remained Idolatrous?
The Malbim notes: they repented only from robbery, but they did not abandon idolatry and continued to worship idols. Why, then, did Hashem save them? Because had the disaster been decreed upon them according to the natural celestial order - that is, by the influence of the heavenly bodies - it would have befallen them regardless. But this calamity was decreed through Divine Providence, and that providence was invoked on account of the sin of robbery. Once they repented of robbery, the Holy One, blessed be He, removed the calamity from them through complete Divine Providence.
In summary:
Yonah embarks on his second mission and delivers solely the prophecy "according to the word of Hashem," waiting until he reaches the center of the city so that the count of forty days will be precise. The people of Nineveh believe, thanks to the testimony of the men from the ship, and proclaim a fast - a day of gathering - yet initially they suffice with prayer and sackcloth. The king, who is Pharaoh whose life was prolonged, recognizes that this is insufficient; he decrees repentance upon man and beast alike, crying out with might, and restoring stolen goods even to the point of tearing down a building. And Scripture testifies: "And God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil way" - not the sackcloth and not the fasting, but the transformation of their path. This is the core message of Yom Kippur: it is not merely what you do on the day of the fast, but what you take with you moving forward.