But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid its fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh.
Nineveh, a great city; in fact, the historians say was the largest city in the ancient world. There is a reference later on in Jonah to Nineveh being three-days' journey. What is meant by that is that it took three days to walk through Nineveh. So going from one end of Nineveh to the other walking was a three-day journey. So it was indeed a great city. In fact, the population of Nineveh, no doubt, was quite large, because there were sixty thousand babies in Nineveh, so young as to not know their right hand from their left hand. Now, that is something children will usually learn about four or five years old. So having a population of sixty thousand, say under five, you can come to a rough estimate of what the total population of Nineveh might have been.A great city, but the problem was, it was a wicked city. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians historically were extremely cruel people. History tells us how that the Assyrians would maim their enemies in war. How that they would desecrate the bodies of the victims of war, impelling them, maiming them, cutting off the ears of their prisoners, or cutting off the noses of the prisoners, or pulling out the tongues of the prisoners. They were horribly cruel inflicting grotesque type of maiming processes upon the prisoners of war that they would take. So that history tells us that there were cities that when surrounded by the Assyrian army and doomed to fall that the inhabitants of the cities would all commit suicide.The Assyrian Empire was the empire that finally conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel and they moved against the Southern Kingdom and surrounded Jerusalem. And had cut Jerusalem off and had Jerusalem under siege.Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, sent the Rabshakeh to Hezekiah with threatening letters, blasphemous letters against God. And Hezekiah would take these letters in and would spread them out before the Lord and he'd say, "Look, Lord, what the guy is saying he is going to do." And the guy was promising how he was going to maim them and torture them and what he was going to do when they fell. And Hezekiah just spread the letters out before the Lord and said, "Look at these things that they are saying they are going to do. And Lord, they are able to do them." But all the while the prophet Isaiah was saying to Hezekiah, "Look Hezekiah, don't worry. God is going to take care of you. God is going to deliver you out of the hands of the Assyrians. They are going to be turned back by the hand of the Lord and the king of Assyria is going to be assassinated in his own land. So you don't have to worry, Hezekiah. Just trust in God; God will take care of it." But it was hard to trust in God, because here was this huge Assyrian army, over 185,000 men surrounding the city of Jerusalem. They were cut off from their supplies. And here they were coming up to the wall and they were yelling to the people, "Don't let Hezekiah deceive you saying, 'Trust in the Lord.' Where are the gods of the Israelites? Where are the gods of Syria? Where are the gods of these other nations that we have conquered? They weren't able to deliver them from our hand, and neither will your God deliver out of our hand. Don't believe the words of Hezekiah saying, 'Just trust in the Lord.'" And the men were there on the wall listening and trembling as these threats were being made. And they heard the blasphemes how they were going to cut off every man in Israel; torturing, maiming them. And inside Isaiah is saying, "Hey, keep cool. Hezekiah, don't worry. God is going to take care of it. God is going to deliver them into your hand. Don't worry, Hezekiah."One morning when the children of Israel arose and went to the wall to look at the encampment of the Assyrians, behold, to their amazement the Assyrian forces were all dead corpses. One hundred and eighty-five thousand of them lay slain on the ground. That night the angel of the Lord had gone through the camp of the Assyrians and had destroyed them. King Sennacherib escaped back to Assyria, and as he went in the house of his god Rimmon, his two sons assassinated him and they fled to Armenia. And another son of Sennacherib began to reign in his stead. But the back of Assyria was broken.Now at the point that God said to Jonah go to Nineveh, that great city, that wicked city and prophesy, was when Assyria was ascending in power. Assyria had not yet become the world-dominating power. There was a vying at this point between Egypt and Syria and Assyria, but gradually Assyria was gaining ascendancy and power, and they were becoming a real threat to Israel and to Judah at the time the Lord said to Jonah, "Go to Nineveh that great city and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before Me."