Jonah 3:5–10, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Jonah 3:5–10
Nineveh Turns, and God Relents from Announced Disaster
The city believes, fasts, and the king comes down from the throne
So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. Word reaches the king of Nineveh; he arises from his throne, lays his robe from him, covers himself with sackcloth, and sits in ashes. The people begin before the decree.
The royal cry covers man and beast, herd and flock: let them not feed nor drink water. Let them be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God. Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? That is hope, not presumption.
God sees their turning and withholds the announced disaster
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. Older English repented of the evil means God relented from the disaster he had announced. Nineveh's turning is not God repenting of moral evil, and it is not God calling prior violence harmless.
The narrator emphasizes deeds: they turned from their evil way. Ritual without that turn would not be what God sees here. Mercy meets actual change; it does not rewrite the city's former violence as nothing.
How this should shape us
Join remorse to stopped harm. Welcome real repair without demanding a spectacle, and without pretending a first turn proves permanence or that God needed to confess sin.
Teach it back
Explain Jonah 3:5–10 in your own words. Include the scene's movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, and one misuse the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Readers debate the historical plausibility, satire and hyperbole, the depth or duration of Nineveh's repentance, and the role of animals. The narrator's own emphasis is clear: they believed, turned from evil and violence, and God saw their deeds and relented.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Jonah 3:5–10, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew forms, morphology, repeated roots, clause relationships, names, and the base wording behind translation discussion.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Jonah.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 3:5–10
Supports: Material lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, seafaring, city, repentance, and divine-relenting notes within the unit.
NET Bible Jonah PDF, printed pp. 1735–1737, translation and translator notes on 3:5–10
Supports: Current critical literary framing, section scope, and exposed summary claims; no unexposed paywalled detail is attributed.
Niditch, Jonah: A Commentary, JSTOR record and exposed section summary for pp. 91–101, section Jonah 3:5–10
Supports: Jonah 3 Hebrew, repeated evil/turn language, people and animals, violence, and an explicitly ideological eco-conscious test reading.
Redelinghuys, 'Eco-conscious Translation,' sections E.1–E.4, synopsis and Jonah 3:1–10 translation with notes
Supports: A documented modern satire/novella reading, narrative contrasts, outsider theme, and a clearly bounded fifth-century proposal.
Spangenberg, 'Reading the Old Testament in the 21st century,' article pp. 6–9, Jonah case study
Supports: Whole-book structure, genre and historicity survey, insider-outsider dynamics, social-value analysis, and stated cautions about Nineveh size and population claims.
Schader, doctoral thesis, pp. 254–257 (Jonah 3 and royal-decree structure) and 336–338 (Ninevites and group response)
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Jonah 3:5–10, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Jonah
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew forms, morphology, repeated roots, clause relationships, names, and the base wording behind translation discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Jonah.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 3:5–10
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Jonah with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Material lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, seafaring, city, repentance, and divine-relenting notes within the unit.
Exact location: NET Bible Jonah PDF, printed pp. 1735–1737, translation and translator notes on 3:5–10
Open source ↗modern critical commentary record
Jonah: A Commentary
Susan Niditch
Fortress Press, Hermeneia, 2023
Supports: Current critical literary framing, section scope, and exposed summary claims; no unexposed paywalled detail is attributed.
Exact location: Niditch, Jonah: A Commentary, JSTOR record and exposed section summary for pp. 91–101, section Jonah 3:5–10
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access article
Negotiating an Eco-conscious Translation of the Hebrew Bible: Jonah 3:1-10 as Test Case
C. J. (Neels) Redelinghuys
Old Testament Essays 32.3, 2019
Supports: Jonah 3 Hebrew, repeated evil/turn language, people and animals, violence, and an explicitly ideological eco-conscious test reading.
Exact location: Redelinghuys, 'Eco-conscious Translation,' sections E.1–E.4, synopsis and Jonah 3:1–10 translation with notes
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access article
Reading the Old Testament in the 21st century using the Book of Jonah as reference
Izak J. J. Spangenberg
Verbum et Ecclesia 34.2, 2013
Supports: A documented modern satire/novella reading, narrative contrasts, outsider theme, and a clearly bounded fifth-century proposal.
Exact location: Spangenberg, 'Reading the Old Testament in the 21st century,' article pp. 6–9, Jonah case study
Open source ↗open access doctoral thesis
A literary-exegetical and social-scientific analysis of the book of Jonah: an exposition of its ancient social values
Jo-Mari Schader
University of Pretoria, 2016
Supports: Whole-book structure, genre and historicity survey, insider-outsider dynamics, social-value analysis, and stated cautions about Nineveh size and population claims.
Exact location: Schader, doctoral thesis, pp. 254–257 (Jonah 3 and royal-decree structure) and 336–338 (Ninevites and group response)
Open source ↗