Albert Barnes Commentary Jonah 3:8

"but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and beast, and let them cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands." — Jonah 3:8 (ASV)

Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth - The gorgeous trappings of horses, mules, and camels were part of Eastern magnificence. Who does not know how a man’s pride is fed by the sleekness of his horses, their “well-appointed” adornments? Man, in his luxury and pride, would have everything reflect his glory and contribute to pomp. Self-humiliation would have everything reflect its lowliness. Sorrow would have everything correspond to its sorrow. People think it strange that the horses at Nineveh were covered with sackcloth, and forget how, at the funerals of the rich, black horses are chosen and are clothed with black velvet.

And cry to God mightily - “with might which conquers judgment.” A faint prayer does not express a strong desire, nor obtain what it does not strongly ask for, as having only half a heart.

And let them turn, every man from his evil way (Isaiah 59:6) - “See what removed that inevitable wrath. Did fasting and sackcloth alone? No, but the change of the whole life. How does this appear? From the prophet’s word itself. For he who spoke of the wrath of God and of their fast, himself mentions the reconciliation and its cause.

“And God saw their works.” What works? That they fasted? That they put on sackcloth? He passes by these, and says, “that every one turned from his evil ways, and God repented of the evil which He had said that He would do unto them.” Do you see that not the fast rescued them from the peril, but the change of life made God propitious to these pagans? I say this, not that we should dishonor, but that we may honor fasting.

For the honor of a fast is not in abstinence from food, but in avoidance of sin. So he who limits fasting to abstinence from food only, it is he who above all dishonors it. Do you fast? Show it to me by its works. ‘What works?’ do you ask? If you see a poor man, have mercy; if an enemy, be reconciled; if a friend doing well, do not envy him; if a beautiful woman, pass on. Let not the mouth alone fast; let the eyes too, and hearing, and feet, and hands, and all the members of our bodies.

Let the hands fast, remaining clean from plunder and avarice! Let the feet fast, refraining from going to unlawful sights! Let the eyes fast, learning never to fixate on beautiful objects, nor to look with curiosity at another's beauty, for the food of the eye is gazing. Let the ear also fast, for the fast of the ears is not to hear detractions and slanders. Let the mouth also fast from foul words and reproaches. For what good does it do to abstain from birds and fish, while we bite and devour our brethren? The detractor preys on his brother’s flesh.”

He says, each from his evil way, because, in the general mass of corruption, each man has his own special heart’s sin. All were to return, but by forsaking, each one, his own habitual, favorite sin.

And from the violence - “Violence” is singled out as the special sin of Nineveh, out “of all their evil way;” as the angel says, “tell His disciples and Peter” (Mark 16:7). This was the giant, Goliath-sin. When this should be erased, the rest would give way, as the Philistines fled when their champion fell dead to the earth.

“That is in their hands,” literally “in their palms,” the hollow of their hand. The hands being the instruments both of using violence and of grasping its fruits, the violence clings to them in both ways: in its guilt and in its gains.

So Job and David say, “while there was no violence in my hands” (Job 16:17; 1 Chronicles 12:17); and Isaiah, “the work of wickedness is in their hands.” Repentance and restitution clear the hands from the guilt of the violence: restitution, which gives back what was wronged; and repentance, which, for love of God, hates and abandons the sins of which it repents. “Keep the winning, keep the sinning.”

The fruits of sin are temporal gain, eternal loss. We cannot keep the gain and escape the loss. Whoever keeps the gain of sin, loves it in its fruits, and will have them, all of them. The Hebrews had a saying, “Whoever has stolen a beam and used it in building a great tower, must pull down the whole tower and restore the beam to its owner,” that is, restitution must be made at any cost. “He,” they say, “who confesses a sin and does not restore the thing stolen, is like one who holds a reptile in his hands; who, if he were washed with all the water in the world, would never be purified until he cast it out of his hands. When he has done this, the first sprinkling cleanses him.”