The Assyrian Empire subjugated the northern 10 tribes of Israel and forcibly deported and exiled many prominent Israelites to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria (between 732 to 722 BCE). The Assyrians also repopulated Samaria, the northern capital of Israel, with pagan settlers, emasculating the religious and ethnic homogeneity of the Israelites to prevent them from rebelling. Thus, understandably, Jonah did not want to prophesy to the Ninevites because these might repent of their sins and be spared of God’s punishment of destruction.

In the Gospel, Jesus rebukes the people for adopting the same “Jonah syndrome” of wanting punishment and fomenting hate toward the pagan foreigners. Jesus flips their perspective and enjoins the crowd to acquire a compassionate attitude, even as Jonah himself eventually became instrumental in Nineveh’s repentance.

God’s mercy and forgiveness extend beyond the confines of Israel, and include non-Israelites; this is the real “sign of Jonah”—God’s redemption is for everyone as long as people repent from their sins. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his wickedness and live (Ez 33:11). The Lenten call of conversion and repentance is the starting point toward spiritual transformation and renewal of life. Do we take advantage of the Lenten season’s spiritual itinerary of repentance and sorrow for sins, in order to receive God’s salvific grace?

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s bidding. Now Nineveh was an enormously large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,” when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes. Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles: “Neither man nor beast, neither cattle nor sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water.

Man and beast shall be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; every man shall turn from his evil way and from the violence he has in hand. Who knows, God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath, so that we shall not perish.” When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.

While still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.”

“At the judgment, the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here.

“At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.”

Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2026.” E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.