Jonah 4:11
“And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →God asks whether He should not spare a great city of more than a hundred twenty thousand people and many animals.
What Does Jonah 4:11 Mean?
The book ends with a question, and it is God's own. If Jonah pities a withered plant, should not God spare Nineveh, that great city of more than a hundred twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and much cattle besides? The phrase about right hand and left likely points to their spiritual blindness, perhaps including the innocent young. God's compassion reaches to the whole teeming city, even its animals.
Scripture leaves the question hanging, unanswered by Jonah, so that it might be answered by us. This is the heart of the book and the heart of God: He looks on a great lost city and longs to spare it. The same boundless mercy that troubled Jonah is the mercy revealed at the cross, where God so loved the world. We are left to ponder whether our hearts are as wide as His. Should not God spare those we are tempted to write off? The book trusts that, having seen His heart, we will say yes.
In the Original Language
chus (חוּס), 'spare' -- to look on with pity and show compassion; the same verb is used of Jonah's pity for the plant and of God's pity for the whole city.