And should not I spare Nineveh, that great
city?
&c.] See ( Jonah 1:2 ) ( 3:3 ) ; what is such a
gourd or plant to that? wherein are more than sixscore
thousand persons;
or twelve myriads; that is, twelve times ten thousand, or a
hundred and twenty thousand; meaning not all the inhabitants of
Nineveh; for then it would not have appeared to be so great a
city; but infants only, as next described: that cannot
discern between their right hand and their left hand;
do not know one from another; cannot distinguish between good and
evil, right and wrong; are not come to years of maturity and
discretion; and therefore there were room and reason for pity and
sparing mercy; especially since they had not been guilty of
actual transgressions, at least not very manifest; and yet must
have perished with their parents had Nineveh been overthrown. The
number of infants in this city is a proof of the greatness of it,
though not so as to render the account incredible; for, admitting
these to be a fifth part of its inhabitants, as they usually are
of any place, as Bochart F5 observes, it makes the number of its
inhabitants to be but six or seven hundred thousand; and as many
there were in Seleucia and Thebes, as Pliny F6 relates
of the one, and Tacitus F7 of the other: and [also] much
cattle;
and these more valuable than goods, as animals are preferable to,
and more useful than, vegetables; and yet these must have
perished in the common calamity. Jarchi understands by these
grown up persons, whose knowledge is like the beasts that know
not their Creator. No answer being returned, it may be reasonably
supposed Jonah, was convinced of his sin and folly; and, to show
his repentance for it, penned this, narrative, which records his
infirmities and weaknesses, for the good of the church, and the
instruction of saints in succeeding ages.