A Difficult Question Asked and a Response.
A few weeks ago I was asked a very probing question about Jonah by a colleague. I will attempt to respond to here because I think it was a valid, but also very challenging question.
Considering that the events of Jonah were supposed to have taken place only a few decades before the Assyrian defeat of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, how did Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, go from repenting and professing a belief in God, to destroying the northern half of the kingdom that he had given to his chosen people?
After giving it some thought, I think there are a few things I can say in response to this.
First, I think it is necessary to take into account the behaviour of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Throughout 1 and 2 Kings, the Northern Kings are all described as leading the people into idolatry and away from God. This began when Jeroboam created two golden calves at Dan and Bethel for the people to worship so they would not keep going to Jerusalem to worship God. If they kept going to Jerusalem to worship they may have wanted to re-join the Southern Kingdom of Judah (1 Kgs 12:25-33).
Also in 2 Kings 17:21-23, God is seen as the cause of Israel’s exile, thus Assyria is only the instrument that he uses. Isaiah also describes Assyria as a tool of God, which he uses to judge his people (Isa 10:5-6). Thus Nineveh’s repentance in Jonah could have been a necessary part of the city (and by extension, the Assyrian Empire) becoming a tool of God. However, this situation was not to last. While Isaiah does speak of Assyria as God’s tool, he also speaks of Assyria’s forthcoming judgement by God because they boasted that they had achieved this victory by their own power (Isa 10:12-19). Assyria was God’s tool in dealing with the Northern Kingdom (who had turned away from God to idols) but was in turn punished when they trespassed on God’s sovereignty by claiming a victory which was brought about by God.
It is also possible that Nineveh never really knew who the god was who would bring destruction down upon them. In Jonah 3:5, 8 and 9 where God is mentioned by the Ninevites, it is always by the more general name elohim. Thus his identity as YHWH has not been revealed to them. This could have led to their repentance being only temporary, and before long they could have gone back to their old ways, just like Israel did moments after the Exodus. For Israel this behaviour continued right up until the exile of both kingdoms.
These options could account for both the repentance of Nineveh in Jonah (and their apparent turning away from their idols) and the destruction of Israel by Assyria not long afterwards.
A Note about Ancient Sources
It is important to note that these are purely my ideas as to why this could have happened and is in some sense merely speculation. In reality very little is known about the repentance of the Ninevites as the only record that currently exists is that of Jonah 3. While this could point to it being a made up story to teach a lesson about God’s character, it is important to remember two things. Firstly, only a fraction of the literature of the ancient world has survived and is available for us to examine today. This means that there may well have been other records, but they have yet to be discovered or have been lost in the two and a half thousand years since these events took place. Survival of ancient documents comes down to an incredible amount of luck, unless they are copied over and over again over many years and there are numerous copies of them. Most would only have had one or maybe a handful of copies as they had to be written by hand (either on parchment, papyrus, stone or clay) and through a combination of war and the natural erosions of time have ceased to exist.
Secondly, in the ancient world the recording of history was not approached in the same way as we would today. These days we expect our historians go to great lengths to gather all the facts and try to put together an account which is accurate, reliable and fair (how well they succeed at this varies from historian to historian). However, in the ancient world, history was written from the perspective of the victor and could be shaped in accordance with how they wanted to be perceived. A prime example of this is the battle of Kadesh between the Egyptians and the Hittites in around 1274 BC. It is impossible to tell who won as both sides claimed victory. It is possible that any record of the Ninevites worshipping Israel’s God may have been erased or omitted after the exile of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria because that defeat would have proved to the Assyrians that God was not powerful enough to defend the people who worshipped him. The Nineveh incident may well have become an embarrassing event that was even not mentioned again or recorded and was thus forgotten. It may simply have not seemed significant enough for the Assyrians to record, but that would have depended on how long it lasted and we have not information on this.
This demonstrates how limited our information can be concerning ancient history. It is possible there will never be a satisfactory answer that explains how Nineveh can go from believing in God in Jonah 3:5 to being the capital of the empire which destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In the end (as with everything) it comes down to what you choose to believe happened. All I have done here is to put together a few possible explanations that seem to fit the evidence we have.
I think that the most likely explanation to this is that the Ninevites did believe in God for a time, as recorded in Jonah 3. This may have only lasted a short time, but it allowed their Empire to be God’s tool to exile the Northern Kingdom in 722-21 BC, as they now had some knowledge of the God of Israel. Ultimately however, Assyria overstepped this role and claimed the victory for themselves, bringing God’s judgement upon them. The Assyrian Empire fell less than 100 years after the Northern Kingdom. To me, this seems to make the most sense of the evidence that is currently available. But, as archaeologists like to point out, this could all be disproved by the next spade.
If you have any other thoughts or ideas you would like to share about this, please leave a comment below.
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