When you think about kings or national leaders throughout history, you probably think of strength and power. After all, that’s how they came to be leaders. So it might be hard to imagine any world leader “cover[ing] himself with sackcloth” and sitting “down in the dust” (v. 6)—both markers of repentance. Yet that’s exactly what the king of Nineveh did in Jonah 3.

What’s more, the king went beyond personal repentance and called on all his people to “give up their evil ways and their violence” in the hopes that “God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish” (vv. 8–9).

Jonah’s short sermon had cut to the heart of the king of Nineveh! And the king didn’t just command all the people to turn from their wickedness; the king commanded that even “the animals be covered with sackcloth” (v. 8)! The situation was deadly serious, but the author of Jonah gave us a bit of comedic relief with this picture of animals across Nineveh covered in sackcloth.

All of this, and the king is not even sure God would relent. You can hear the desperation in his voice when he states, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish” (v. 9). Though the king doesn’t know that God will relent, the readers have an inkling that He will be based on how He responded to the sailors in chapter 1 (see 1:6–16). In addition, Jonah certainly knows that the Lord will show compassion. Despite the king’s lack of knowledge of God’s compassionate ways, he and his nation have repented and thrown themselves upon God’s mercy. Just like the sailors in chapter 1, here in chapter 3 pagans demonstrate trust in God more clearly than the prophet Jonah.

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