worse than none.

III. We note the repentance of God (ver. 10). Mark the recurrence of the
word 'turn,' employed in verses 8, 9, and 10 in reference to men and to
God. Mark the bold use of the word 'repent,' applied to God, which,
though it be not applied to the Ninevites in the previous verses, is
implied in every line of them. The same expression is found in Exodus
xxxii. 14, which may be taken as the classical passage warranting its
use. The great truth involved is one that is too often lost sight of in
dealing with prophecy; namely, that all God's promises and threatenings
are conditional. Jeremiah learned that lesson in the house of the
potter, and we need to keep it well in mind. God threatens, precisely in
order that He may not have to perform His threatenings. Jonah was sent
to Nineveh to cry, 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,' in
order that it might not be overthrown. What would have been the use of
proclaiming the decree, if it had been irreversible? There is an
implied 'if' in all God's words. 'Except ye repent' underlies the most
absolute threatenings of evil. 'If we hold fast the beginning of our
confidence firm unto the end,' is presupposed in the brightest and
broadest promises of good.

The word 'repent' is denied and affirmed to have application to God. He
is not 'a son of man, that He should repent,' inasmuch as His
immutability and steadfast purpose know no variableness. But just
because they cannot change, and He must ever be against them that do
evil, and ever bless them that turn to Him with trust, therefore He
changes His dealings with us according to our relation to Him, and
because He cannot repent, or be other than He was and is, 'repents of
the evil that He had said that He would do' unto sinners when they
repent of the evil that they have done against Him, inasmuch as He
leaves His threatening unfulfilled, and 'does it not.'

So we might almost say that the purpose of this book of Jonah is to
teach the possibility and efficacy of repentance, and to show how the
penitent man, heathen or Jew, ever finds in God changed dealings
corresponding to his changed heart. The widest charity, the humbling
lesson for people brought up in the blaze of revelation, that dwellers
in the twilight or in the darkness are dear to God and may be more
susceptible of divine impressions than ourselves, the rebuke of all
pluming ourselves on our privileges, the boundlessness of God's mercy,
are amon