Daily Devotional | A Wicked City

I grew up in a town of about two thousand people and now live in a town of about ten thousand. The nearest city—about 50 miles away— has around 56 thousand people. Chicago has a whopping 2.66 million residents! In the ancient Near East during this time, most “cities” were more like the town I grew up in, and just a few reached that ten- thousand mark. Babylon at its height had a population of only around 200 thousand, considered the largest city in the world. Nineveh, with its population of 120 thousand, was significant by ancient standards.

Besides having a large population, Nineveh was extremely wicked. The city’s wickedness had “come up before” the Lord (Jonah 1:2). This description of Nineveh’s wickedness will remind many readers of Sodom: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin is so grievous” (Gen. 18:20). In the story of Sodom, described in Genesis 18, Abraham eagerly interceded on behalf of the righteous. He was trying to convince God to spare the entire city if only ten righteous people could be found. Since those ten weren’t found, the Lord destroyed the city (Gen. 19:24– 28). The prophet Jonah is put in a similar position. The original readers would have picked up on that comparison right away because of their familiarity with the Pentateuch. Therefore, we are primed in Jonah 1:1–2 to think that Jonah will be a compassionate prophet like Abraham and will intercede for “the great city of Nineveh” (1:2).

Instead, we quickly find out that Jonah held a much different response. Rather than intercede for evil people, Jonah would attempt to withhold God’s word from them.