Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.
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Jerome
AD 420
Apart from that which the Septuagint translates as, "the noise of their wickedness has risen up even to me", it has translated the rest similarly. Jonah is sent to the gentiles to condemn Israel, because Nineveh had to repent, but the Israelites still persisted in their sin. And when God says, "their wickedness has come up to me", or "the noise of their wickedness…" it is exactly the text of Genesis: "the noise of Sodom and of Gomorrah is very loud"[8], and to Cain: "the blood of your brother cries to me from the earth"[9]. According to tropology the Lord, our Jonah, that is to say 'dove' or 'suffering', (he is given both meaning, either because the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove and stays with him[10], or because he has suffered for our wounds, wept for Jerusalem[11], and because we have been cured by his malice[12]) is truly the son of Truth, for God is Truth[13]. He is sent to Nineveh the beautiful, that is to the world, where there is nothing more beautiful to our eyes ...
