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.
That the people of Nineveh should have done such a thing as that which is here related must be accounted one of the wonders of all time.  That a lone Jewish prophet, a member of a hated and despised race, who reciprocated in every way the hostility and hatred in which their respective nations held each other - that a man like that could simply walk into the city, declare its immediately forthcoming destruction, and be greeted by the enthusiastic and wholesale repentance which greeted Jonah's denunciation - all that is such an extraordinary occurrence, that some of the commentators have hailed it as a miracle.  However, this was no miracle.  The people heard the Word of God, believed it, and obeyed it; and that same opportunity to hear, believe, and obey the truth is still available today for every man on earth.