What’s the Deal with Nineveh?

Those who know their Old Testament prophets will remember that Nineveh is the wicked city where God called Jonah to preach repentance. The story goes that Jonah ran from his calling, was thrown into the sea and swallowed by a giant fish. Three days later he was vomited onto the shore at Nineveh. As a result of Jonah’s preaching, the people repented, and God stayed His hand of judgement – but only temporarily. Some years after Jonah’s tale, Nineveh again draws a notice of judgement by God recorded in the less well-known book of Nahum.

By the time of Nahum’s prophecy, Nineveh had fallen back into its wicked ways. As the capital of Assyria, the city is representative of the whole empire, which was substantial at that time. Assyria’s reach extended from north of the Promised Land south to Egypt and east to Babylon. In 722 B.C., the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria and her people removed and replaced with foreigners. It is this mix of foreigners with the ten northern Jewish tribes that is the basis for the Jews hatred of Samaritans we read about in the New Testament.

For the next century or so, Assyria troubled the southern kingdom of Judah as well. God miraculously stopped the Assyrians from taking Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah. Nahum then came to tell Assyria that things were about to get very bad for them. It appears the Ninevites behaved similarly to their Jewish neighbors: they had moments of recognizing the God of Israel for who He was; then they would fall back into idolatry. We know about their repentance in Jonah’s day. However, by the time of Hezekiah, the Assyrian king mocked God and paid the ultimate price for his indiscretion.

This is a recurring theme throughout the Old Testament. The Pharoah in Moses’ life was forced to admit the superiority of Yahweh over his pantheon of lesser gods. There’s this business with Nineveh. In Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar saw the power of Yahweh, but his allegiance didn’t change. Then, he finally succumbed to the God of Israel being driven insane for a number of years. After the conquest of Judah and her captivity in Babylon, King Darius came to believe in the power of Daniel’s God after the episode in the lion’s den. In Nehemiah’s day, his Persian master saw the righteousness of his servant and granted him not only permission, but finance and protection to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the temple.

We might be tempted to read the Old Testament Bible books as a record of only God’s chosen people. While that is certainly its focus, being the story of redemption through God’s servants, there is much more to see if we look more deeply. There is an idea hidden back in Genesis that I never saw until I read Michael S. Heiser’s book, Unseen Realm. Heiser points out that in the table of nations listed in Genesis 10, the seventy that are identified do not include the one that became known as Israel. That revelation waits until after the scattering of all nations at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. That chapter closes with the continuation of Shem’s descendants down to God’s chosen man, Abraham.

In Genesis 12, God promises to make a great nation of Abraham’s descendants. The rest of Genesis, indeed, the rest of the Old Testament is a record of God’s dealing with His chosen people, Israel. One might wonder what happened to the other seventy nations. Anytime you read the Psalms or the prophets, notice how many times “the nations” or a specific nation are mentioned. One particularly revealing passage is in Psalm 82. I have dealt with this in more detail elsewhere, but briefly, Psalm 82 shows Yahweh God chastising other “gods” for their mismanagement of the nations under their care. Yahweh did not abandon the seventy nations represented in Genesis 10; He was always looking out for them. Psalm 82 closes with the plea, “Rise up, O God, judge the earth, because you shall inherit all the nations.”

The word “inherit” can be translated “take possession.” That is precisely what happened on the cross when Christ defeated the powers which had been attempting to thwart the plan of redemption for generations. Colossians 2:15 says, “[When Christ] had disarmed the rulers and the authorities, he made a display of them in public, triumphing over them by it.” That was the beginning of the fulfillment of the many prophecies in the Old Testament that the nations would eventually bow before the One True God.

I draw two lessons from this. First, God uses whomever He chooses. God’s sovereignty is not limited to His people; He is sovereign over all things. Although it is natural to have concerns about countries like Russia, China, and Iran, the biblical record assures us that nothing can happen anywhere in the world that is not under God’s supervision. We do not rejoice over the war in Ukraine or Chinese persecution of Christians or Iran’s nuclear threats. But we can rest in the knowledge that nothing can hinder the completion of God’s redemptive plan and His kingdom’s advance. We may not be happy about the world situation, but we can have joy that our ultimate future is safe in God’s hands.

The second lesson is that we should always be about the business of reaching the lost. I like the popular song that says no one is so lost that they can’t be found. I am not fooled by the cavalier statement by some that we are all God’s children. We are all His creatures, and He loves everyone (John 3:16). But only those who respond to that love – who put their trust in the One who displayed that love on the cross – only those people are children of God, co-heirs with Christ.

I think the biggest problem facing Christians in America today is that we are so wealthy and well-cared for that the concept of being lost is lost. Here is the scary thing from this lesson: If this nation continues to turn away from God as she has recently, there is no reason to think He won’t do the same thing He did to Nineveh, Babylon, and apostate Israel. He is the God of love, but He is also a God of judgment. Politicians love saying God bless America in their speeches. I think what we ought to be doing is adapting the British saying: God save the King (Jesus). And follow that with God save America. Then put legs on that prayer.

Related posts: Happiness and Joy; The Heiser Effect; Defending the Wrath of God; Why Jesus Wept; Bringing the Kingdom; Answering Rob Bell #4