Jonah 3

Sign of Jonah

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. Jonah 3:4–5

The Gentile city of Nineveh repented when Jonah, a prophet who had come back from the deep, preached to it. Jesus said the men of Nineveh would condemn His generation, because One greater than Jonah, the risen Lord Himself, was preaching to them.

• interpreted by Matthew 12:41 — 'They repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.'
• interpreted by Luke 11:30 — 'As Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation.'

Jehovah

And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. Jonah 3:10

When Nineveh turned from evil, God withheld the destruction. The God of Jonah's commission is the LORD (verses 1-3), Jehovah, the premortal Christ, whose mercy reaches even Israel's enemies when they repent.