The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
Some commentators have credited the repentance of the Ninevites at least partially to Jonah’s previous experience in the great fish’s stomach. They base this on Jesus’ statement that Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites (Matthew 12:39-41; Luke 11:29-32). Jonah was a sign in a two-fold sense. His three days and nights in the fish foreshadowed Jesus’ three days and nights in the grave (Matthew 12:40), and his ministry as a visiting prophet delivering a call for repentance to an evil people under God’s judgment previewed Jesus’ ministry (Matthew 12:41; Luke 11:30; Luke 11:32). These commentators note that the Ninevites worshipped Dagon, which was part man and part fish. [Note: E.g., Feinberg, p. 33.] They have also pointed out that the Assyrian fish goddess, Nosh, was the chief deity in Nineveh. Some of them have argued that Jonah came to the city as one sent by Nosh to proclaim the true God. However the text of Jonah attributes the repentance of the Ninevites primarily to the message that God had given Jonah to proclaim. Whatever the Ninevites may have known about Jonah’s encounter with the fish-the text says nothing about their awareness of it-the writer gave the credit to the word of the Lord, not to Jonah’s personal background.