I pray on behalf of our nation, that the spirit of pride must bow its knee and that in its place, we ask for a spirit of humility to fill our land so we can see and know the truth. We command the spirit of deception to go.
“Lord help us to see what You see. Help us to see what we are missing and see from Your vantage point today and to walk in truth. We ask for Your glory to be revealed and for revival in our land.”
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Interesting side note: After mentioning Jonah and Ninevah, I did a YouTube search and discovered that Ninevah was a very large very sophisticated city in Assyria with quite educated people of their day. They had a written language and a library. According to the rabbi that I listened to, the King said that the people (and animals) should don ashcloth, repent and humble themselves. According to that rabbi, there was one person who survived crossing the Red Sea when the war chariots were destroyed by Moses. It was the Pharaoh. He had experience with God's prophets and he did not want to make the same mistake. So God did not destroy Ninevah much to Jonah's displeasure.
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Jonah (the book of Jonah is considered a part of the Torah)
3 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
The People of Nineveh Repent
6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the
disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there.
He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the Lord
God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his
head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.
7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that
it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down
on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better
for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the
plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said,
“You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into
being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in
which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left,
and also much cattle?”
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The king of Nineveh was the pharaoh of the Exodus, who had been installed by the angel Gabriel.Nineveh | Encyclopedia.com
In The Aggadah
Nineveh was a huge city, covering 40 square parasangs and containing a million and a half persons. The "six score thousand persons" alluded to in Jonah 4:11 refer to the population of only one of the 12 districts into which the city was divided. The voice of the prophet Jonah was so stentorian that it reached every corner of the city and all who heard his words resolved to turn aside from their ungodly ways (Mid. Jonah, 99–100, in A. Jellinek, Beit ha-Midrash, 1 (19382)). Under the leadership of their king, the people of Nineveh justly compelled God's mercy to descend upon them. The king of Nineveh was the pharaoh of the Exodus, who had been installed by the angel Gabriel. Seized with fear and terror he covered himself with sackcloth and ashes and with his own mouth made proclamation and published this decree through Nineveh: "Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything, let them not feed nor drink water, for know that there is no God beside Him in all the world; all His words are truth, and all His judgments are true and faithful" (Yal. Ex. 176). The repentance of the people of Nineveh was sincere. They held their infants heavenward, crying, "For the sake of these innocent babes hear our prayers." They separated the young of their cattle from their dams and both began to bellow. Then the Ninevites cried, "If Thou wilt not have mercy on us, we will not have mercy upon these beasts" (Ta'an. 16a; Mid. Jonah 100–2). The penitence of the people of Nineveh manifested itself not only in fasting and praying, but also in deeds. If a man had usurped another's property, he would return it, even at the cost of leveling his castle in order to restore a stolen beam to its owner (Ta'an. 16a). Others publicly confessed their secret sins and declared themselves willing to submit to their punishment. According to the Palestinian amoraim, however, the repentance of the Ninevites was not sincere (tj, Ta'an. 2:1, 65b). After 40 days they departed again from the path of piety and became more sinful than ever. Then the punishment foretold by Jonah overtook them and they were swallowed by the earth (pdre 43). The attitude of the Palestinian aggadists in their evaluation of the repentance of the Ninevites may have been a reaction to Christian criticism of the Jews for their stubbornness in not following the example set by the people of Nineveh.
And so, I become a "creepy culture warrior" like Roy Moore and Mo Brooks. I cannot think of better company.
