But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
| Word | Hebrew | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| man | הָֽאָדָם֙ ha.'a.Dam | H120 | ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| beast | וְהַבְּהֵמָ֔ה ve.ha.be.he.Mah | H929 | properly · conjunction + definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute |
| covered | וְיִתְכַּסּ֣וּ ve.yit.ka.Su | H3680 | properly · conjunction + verb, hithpael, 3rd person masculine plural |
| sackcloth | שַׂקִּ֗ים sa.Kim | H8242 | properly · noun, common masculine plural absolute |
| cry | וְיִקְרְא֥וּ ve.yik.re.'U | H7121 | to call out to (i.e. properly · conjunction + verb, qal, 3rd person masculine plural |
| mightily | בְּחָזְקָ֑ה be.cha.ze.Kah | H2394 | vehemence (usually in a bad sense) · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute |
| God | אֱלֹהִ֖ים 'E.lo.Him | H430 | gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute |
| turn | וְיָשֻׁ֗בוּ ve.ya.Shu.vu | H7725 | to turn back (hence · conjunction + verb, qal, 3rd person masculine plural |
| one | אִ֚ישׁ 'ish | H376 | a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| evil | הָֽרָעָ֔ה ha.ra.'Ah | H7451 | bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · definite article + adjective, feminine singular absolute |
| way | מִדַּרְכּ֣וֹ mi.dar.Ko | H1870 | a road (as trodden) · preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular |
| violence | הֶחָמָ֖ס he.cha.Mas | H2555 | violence · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| hands | בְּכַפֵּיהֶֽם be.kha.pei.Hem | H3709 | the hollow hand or palm (so of the paw of an animal · preposition + noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural |
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
cry . . . turn--Prayer without reformation is a mockery of God (; ). Prayer, on the other hand, must precede true reformation, as we cannot turn to God from our evil way unless God first turns us ().
Let man and beast be covered - This was done that every object which they beheld might deepen the impression already made, and cause them to mourn after a godly sort. Virgil tells us that the mourning for the death of Julius Caesar was so general, that the cattle neither ate nor drank: - Non ulli pastos illis egere diebus Frigida, Daphni, boves ad flumina: nulla neque amnem Libavit quadrupes, nec graminis attigit herbam. Ecl. 5:24. "The swains forgot their sheep, nor near the brink Of running waters brought their herds to drink. The thirsty cattle of themselves abstain'd, From water, and their grassy fare disdain'd." Dryden. And that they sometimes changed: or reversed the harness and ornam…
Read the whole note in the consoleBut let man and beast be covered with sackcloth,.... As the king was, and the people also were; and this order enjoined the same to the beasts, horses, and camels, whose rich trappings were to be taken off, and sackcloth put upon them, for the greater solemnity, of the mourning; as at this day, at the funerals of great persons, not only the horses which draw the hearse and mourning, coaches are covered with black velvet, to make the solemnity more awful: but others are led, clothed in like manner: and cry mightily unto God; which clause stands so closely connected with the former, as if it respected beasts as well as men, who sometimes are said to cry for food in times of drought and distre…
Read the whole note in the consoleJonah 3:6-8 6. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 6. Et pervenit verbum (sermo, vel, res) ad regem Nineveh; et surrexit e solio suo, et abjecit splendidam suam vestem a seipso, et induit saccum, et sedit super pulverem: 7. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: 7. Et promulgavit ac dixit per Nineveh ex consilio regis et magnatum ejus, dicendo, Homo et jumentum (vel, bestia,) bos et ovis, ne gustent quidpi…
Recall that Daniel, passionate man though he was, spent many days fasting. He received as recompense an awesome vision so that he tamed the fury of the lions and turned them into the mildest of sheep, not by changing their nature but by diverting their purpose without loss of their ferocity. The Ninevites too made use of the remedy of fasting and won from the Lord a reprieve. Animals as well as human beings were included in the fast, so that all living things would abstain from evil practices. This total response won the favor of the Lord of all.
Nor, indeed, ought this to influence us as a precedent for our daily life, that Joram, the wicked king of Israel, when surrounded by bands of his foes, rent his clothes, and is said to have had sackcloth inside them; or that the Ninevites, in order to mitigate the sentence of God, which had been pronounced against them by the prophet, were clothed in rough sackcloth. The former is shown to have been clothed with it secretly underneath, so that unless the upper garment had been rent it could not possibly have been known by any one, and the latter tolerated a covering of sackcloth at a time when, since all were mourning over the approaching destruction of the city and were clothed with the same garments, none could be accused of ostentation. For where there is no special difference and all are alike no harm is done.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The Ninevites believed in God, since they hearkened to the preaching of the prophet sent to them by God, and humbled themselves before God with repentance. They proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth (penitential garments: see at Joe 1:13-14; Kg1 21:27, etc.), "from their great one even to their small one," i.e., both old and young, all without exception. Even the king, when the matter (had-dâbhâr) came to his knowledge, i.e., when he was informed of Jonah's coming, and of his threatening prediction, descended from his throne, laid aside his royal robe ('addereth, see at Jos 7:21), wrapt himself in a sackcloth, and sat down in ashes, as a sign of the deepest mourning (compare Job 2:8), an…
Read the whole note in the consoleBy extending the fast and the mourning rituals to animals, the king communicated that this dire emergency required all normal operations to cease so that everyone might pray earnestly and repent of their evil ways. The violence that had come to permeate their society topped the list.
and they shall call mightily to God—They bound the dams alone and the young alone. They said to Him, “Lord of the world! If You have no pity on us, we will not have pity on these.” [See Taanith 16a]
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
