And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
All Commentaries on Jonah 3:4 Go To Jonah 3
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Journey. He records what he said the first day, though he seems to have preached many (Theodoret) even during forty days, after which time (Haydock) he expected the city would fall, and therefore retired out of the walls, chap. iv.
Forty. Septuagint three. St. Justin Martyr, (Dialogue with Trypho) "three, or forty-three. "Theodoret thinks that the mistake was made by some ancient transcriber, and has since prevailed in all the copies of the Septuagint. All the rest have forty. St. Augustine (City of God xviii. 44.) believes the Septuagint placed three for a mysterious reason. Origen (hom. xvi. Num.) suggests that the prophet determined the number, and hence God did not execute the threat. (Calmet)
This and many other menaces are conditional. If men repent, God will change his sentence. (St. Chrysostom; St. Gregory, Mor. xvi. 18.) (Worthington)
