Albert Barnes Commentary Jonah 1:2

"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me." — Jonah 1:2 (ASV)

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city - The Assyrian history, as far as it has been discovered until now, is very lacking in events regarding this period. Until now, we have the names of only three kings for 150 years. But Assyria, as far as we know its history, was at its peak. Just before the time of Jonah, perhaps ending in it, were the victorious reigns of Shalmanubar and Shamasiva; after him was that of Ivalush or Pul, the first aggressor against Israel. It is clear that this was a time of Assyrian greatness: since God calls it “that great city,” not only in relation to its extent, but its power. A large, weak city would not have been called great city unto God (Jonah 3:3).

And cry against it - The substance of that cry is recorded later, but God told Jonah now what message he was to cry aloud to it. For Jonah relates later how he then expostulated with God, and that his expostulation was founded on this: that God was so merciful that He would not fulfill the judgment He threatened. Faith was strong in Jonah, while, like Apostles "the sons of thunder," before the Day of Pentecost, he did not know "what spirit he was of." Zeal for the people and, as he doubtless thought, for the glory of God, narrowed love in him.

He did not, like Moses, pray (Exodus 32:32), or else blot me also out of Your book, or like Paul, desire even to be an anathema from Christ (Romans 9:3) for his people’s sake, so that there might be more to love his Lord. His zeal was directed, like that of the rebuked Apostles, against others, and so it too was rebuked. But his faith was strong. He shrank back from the office, believing, not doubting, the might of God.

He thought nothing of preaching, amid that multitude of wild warriors, the stern message of God. He was willing, alone, to confront the violence of a city of 600,000, whose characteristic was violence. He was ready, at God’s bidding, to enter what Nahum speaks of as a den of lions (Nahum 2:11–12); The dwelling of the lions and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses. He did not fear the fierceness of their lion-nature, but God’s tenderness, and lest that tenderness should be the destruction of his own people.

Their wickedness has come up before Me - So God said to Cain (Genesis 4:10). The voice of your brother’s blood cries unto Me from the ground: and of Sodom (Genesis 18:20–21), The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, because their sin is very grievous; the cry of it has come up unto Me. The “wickedness” is not the mere mass of human sin, of which it is said (1 John 5:19), the whole world lieth in wickedness, but evil-doing toward others.

This was the cause of the final sentence on Nineveh, with which Nahum closes his prophecy, upon whom has not your wickedness passed continually? It had been assigned as the ground of the judgment on Israel through Nineveh (Hosea 10:14–15). So shall Bethel do unto you, on account of the wickedness of your wickedness. It was the ground of the destruction by the flood (Genesis 6:5). God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth.

God represents Himself, the Great Judge, as sitting on His Throne in heaven, Unseen but All-seeing, to whom the wickedness and oppressiveness of man against man “goes up,” appealing for His sentence against the oppressor. The cause often seems long in pleading. God is long-suffering with the oppressor too, in the hope that he may repent.

So a greater good would come to the oppressed also, if the wolf became a lamb. But meanwhile, “every iniquity has its own voice at the hidden judgment seat of God.” Mercy itself calls for vengeance on the unmerciful.