Bible Strands
Jonah 3:5
And the Ninevites believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jonah has just entered Nineveh to announce its impending destruction, and the city's inhabitants immediately respond to his warning. This collective reaction occurs before the king personally receives the report and initiates his own repentance.
The words — The text centers on וַֽיַּאֲמִ֛ינוּ (va/i.ya.'a.Mi.nu), translated literally as "and they believed," which directly follows the subject אַנְשֵׁי נִֽינְוֵה (anShei ninVeh), "the people of Nineveh." This verb marks their decisive shift from hearing the warning to trusting its divine origin.
The thread — The pattern of fasting and sackcloth appears in Daniel 9:3 as a standard posture of seeking God during crisis. The same event is later cited in Luke 11:32 to demonstrate that external proclamation can trigger immediate, cross-cultural repentance.
Why it lands — The passage demands that belief in a divine warning produce uniform, visible action across every social tier. It requires readers to align their response with the full scope of the message, leaving no status exempt from the required repentance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
Cross-references
- Luke 11:32 The men of Nineveh will stand at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now One greater than Jonah is here.
- Daniel 9:3 So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
- Joel 2:12 “Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.”
- Matthew 12:41 The men of Nineveh will stand at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now One greater than Jonah is here.
- 2 Chronicles 20:3 Jehoshaphat was alarmed and set his face to seek the LORD. And he proclaimed a fast throughout Judah.
- Joel 1:14 Consecrate a fast; proclaim a solemn assembly! Gather the elders and all the residents of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.
- Exodus 9:18 Behold, at this time tomorrow I will rain down the worst hail that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded until now.
- Jeremiah 31:34 No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”
- Jeremiah 36:9 Now in the ninth month of the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, a fast before the LORD was proclaimed to all the people of Jerusalem and all who had come there from the cities of Judah.
- Acts 8:10 and all the people, from the least to the greatest, heeded his words and said, “This man is the divine power called the Great Power.”