The book of Jonah is primarily about an evil nation turning to God. Jonah preaches to them about their impending destruction, and they cry out to God for deliverance.
This is the second article where I examine some of the details of this extraordinary event. The first article is titled, Nineveh Revival, describing the actual circumstances surrounding Nineveh’s repentance.1
This paper will attempt to answer the question: Did all of Nineveh believe? There will be several articles exploring different aspects of this question.
Repent
The nation repented, but I think some did believe and some probably did not. Certainly there were enough people repenting so that God spared the current generation from being destroyed. As to eternal salvation, my best answer is that we don’t know. The Bible doesn’t say specifically, and to me, the circumstantial evidence is not conclusive.
We will look at these points and some examples to get a better understanding of how one might come to this conclusion.
The Word for Believe
In chapter 3 of Jonah, it says that the Ninevites believed God. Right after Jonah preached repentance to the city of Nineveh, chapter 3:5 says, “Then the people of Nineveh believed in God.”
According to Strong’s, the Hebrew word for ‘believed’ used here is, “ʼâman, (aw-man’); figuratively to render (or be) firm or faithful, to trust or believe.”2 (The entry shows much more information but I simplified it here for purposes of our discussion.)
Two other examples that use the same construction of the Hebrew word ‘believed’, used to mean ‘trust in, believe in’, are:
- Genesis 15:6 Then he [Abraham] believed in the Lord; and He [God] reckoned it to him as righteousness.
- Exodus 14:31 And when Israel saw the great power which the LORD had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the Lord and His servant Moses.
In the example from Genesis, the verse tells us that the belief of Abraham was credited to him as righteousness. Additionally, the context of Abraham’s encounter with God and the covenant between them confirm Abraham’s faith.
The Exodus example reveals that Israel believes both the Lord and Moses, but do not end up with righteousness. In fact, soon afterward, Israel is grumbling against the Lord -a pattern that was repeated over and over, breaking the covenant God had made with them.3 (I will address Israel’s tenuous belief more in one of the other posts.)
In recounting this part of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, Psalm 106:12-14 says,
“Then they believed His words;
They sang His praise.
They quickly forgot His works;
They did not wait for His counsel,
But craved intensely in the wilderness,
And tempted God in the desert.”
In the case of the Ninevites, they believed the message of Jonah and turned from their evil ways to escape destruction. It seems to me that all three examples of ‘believe’ that I have given are different in their context. Therefore, my observation is that all believing is not the same. In other words, if all three were the same, then we could say that all Israel would be credited with righteousness, as well as all of Nineveh, just as Abraham was reckoned with righteousness in Genesis 15:6.4 I don’t think we can say that.
Point 1 -All believing is not the same.
Witnesses
Jonah and Nineveh are mentioned by Jesus in the the book of Matthew. The section we will look at tells us about some witnesses at the judgment.
In this exchange in Matthew, some Pharisees had just asked Jesus for an attesting miracle. Jesus responded that no sign would be given them except the sign of Jonah the prophet.5
Jesus continued speaking (Matthew 12:41-42), and said,
“The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South shall rise up with this generation at the judgment and shall condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.”
Both the men of Nineveh and the Queen of the South are witnesses against the unbelieving Jews. Some have equated being witnesses at the judgment with salvation. However, the queen is never identified as a believer.
The men of Nineveh repented and the queen sought the wisdom of Solomon. All of them were looking for something greater than themselves. By comparison, Jesus was far greater than Jonah or the queen, but was not believed.
The point Jesus is making is that the lesser people were believed and have honor, but He is not believed and does not receive any honor with His generation. Jesus is not trying to show that the Ninevites or the queen are believers, just that they showed honor to whom honor was due.
The background passage given in 1st Kings and 2nd Chronicles concerning the Queen of the South says nothing about her faith.6 She does however refer to God as ‘the Lord your God,’7 when she is speaking to Solomon. This is not the normal language of someone who believes, but of someone looking on from the outside.
As for the Ninevites, they are also witnesses in the judgment. Since the queen is probably not a believer, then neither would the men of Nineveh need to be believers to be there. Indeed, they would not need to be believers in order to be effective witnesses -perhaps even stronger witnesses as non-believers. I think the witnesses are not all believers, possibly none are believers. Therefore this passage does not prove that the Ninevites inherited eternal life.
Point 2 -The Nineveh witnesses may not be saved.
Conclusion
I have made the case that the context of the words used gives us understanding of the passage. We know this in our daily use of language, but sometimes biblical words lose that nuance. Based on this, my first point is: All believing is not the same.
The historical account of the queen leads me to think that she is not a believer. If the queen is at the judgment as a non-believer, then the Ninevites could also be non-believers. Applying this logic to the Matthew 12 passage leads us to point number 2: The Nineveh witnesses may not be saved.
I continue building my case in the next article which looks at the distinction between large groups and individuals. That article is titled, Individuals and the Whole.
1 I am using the word repent in the New Testament (NT) sense. A summary of Vine’s Expository Dictionary usage is, “Chiefly has reference to “repentance” from sin, and this change of mind involves both a turning from sin and a turning to God.”
2 “Strong’s Definitions” is a collection of the unique Greek and Hebrew words and their definitions from the Old and New Testament, organized by Dr. James Strong in 1890. (I am not a language scholar but refer to Strong’s definitions for understanding of how a particular word is used in the context of the passage.)
3 Jeremiah 31:31-32 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
4 I did run across a preacher who concluded that Nineveh, Israel, and Abraham all believed in the same way. He says, “the Hebrew text makes it clear that the Ninevites personally trusted God.” He may be right, but I don’t see it that way at this time, particularly because of Israel’s continued disobedience. http://www.redlandbaptist.org/sermon/the-preaching-prophet/ 6/29/24
5 The sign of ‘Jonah the prophet’ that Jesus refers to is beyond the scope of this article.
6 1 Kings 10:1-13; 2 Chronicles 9:1-12
7 1 Kings 10:9 -emphasis added