Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried out, and said, “In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 4. Journey. He records what he said the first day, though he seems to have preached many (Theod.) even during forty days, after which time ( Bible.) he expected the city would fall, and therefore retired out of the walls. Calmet. 4.—Forty. Septuagint three. S. Justin, (dial.) “three, or forty-three.” Theodoret thinks that the mistake was made by some ancient transcriber, and has since prevailed in all the copies of the Septuagint All the rest have forty. Saint Augustine (de civ. Dei. xviii. 44.) believes the Septuagint placed three for a mysterious reason. Origen (hom. xvi. Num.) suggests that the prophet determined the number, and hence God did not execute the threat. Calmet.—This and many other menaces are conditional. If men repent, God will change his sentence. Saint John Chrysostom Saint Gregory Mor. xvi. 18. Worthington.