Tafsiran Yunus 3:9: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi, Abarbanel & Malbim

“Who knows but that God may turn and relent?” [3:9]. Whoever knows how we should repent should come and tell us and we will gladly learn. Then the Holy One will have mercy on us so that we will not be destroyed. Soon, God saw their good deeds, had mercy and they remained alive. The prophet Jonah was very despondent that his prophecy did not continue, that he remained a false prophet.¹⁰Rashi, Jonah, 3:9. He said to the Holy One: that is why I did not want to go. I know well that You are a God who is compassionate and will forgive them. I have remained a false prophet. Therefore, Lord of the Universe let me rather not see the suffering of Israel because they did not repent and the gentiles did repent. The Holy One responded: the good is more in your eyes than the evil. I have done good to have mercy on the people. Jonah went out of the city and made himself a booth to live in, at a distance. He wanted to see what would happen with the city. What did the Holy One do? He caused a large gourd to grow over his head to protect him from the heat and the flies, since the trees and branches had withered. The heat hurt him very much and therefore the Holy One caused a large gourd to grow overnight. He was very happy about the gourd and the Holy One sent a worm to the gourd and caused the gourd to wither. The sun beat down on Jonah and he was very anguished. He cried and was faint. Jonah asked the Holy One to kill him. The Holy One said to the prophet. You are anguished over the gourd, that it was destroyed. You care for the gourd, since you were saved from the sun by the gourd. So too, I, even though the city of Nineveh was full of gentiles, yet I have created them and all of creation is My glory. Therefore, I desired that they should repent and remain alive. Jonah, you had compassion on the gourd that you did not exert yourself to make. You did not plow and did not sow it. It is customary that when a person exerts himself with something and it disappears, the he misses it. The gourd grew in one night and existed for one day. You are anguished about it, so how should I not be anguished over the great city of Nineveh with many thousands of people that I created. There are many thousands of children who committed no sins. Should they suffer because of the sins of their parents? However, now the parents have repented and the children have no sins over them.

Whoever knows—the sins he has committed, shall repent.

It is said broadly [in the verse]: "whoever knows should return," meaning to say that one who knows of something swindled or stolen in his hands should return it, or [that] one who knows the ways of repentance should return to God and he will have mercy on him, for with this is the anger of God returned [from upon people] and they will not go to destruction. And from this it can be seen that the people of Nineveh understood the Godly decree according to its [true] intention with regards to the overturning [of the city for good or for bad], for the king therefore commanded that Nineveh overturn its actions, for if it did this "spiritual overturning," then God would be overturned from [executing] his decree and there would be no physical overturning in the city afterward. [But] behold that neither the people of Nineveh nor their king were aroused to serve the honored Name [of God] and [they were] not [aroused] to remove their idols and false gods from the land, for they were continuously holding on to their deficient belief, and this is the [meaning of the verse's] statement: "and God saw their actions," meaning to say in the practical commandments between them and their fellows they had returned from their evil way, but they had not returned from their belief [in false gods] and [even] with all this [it still says in the verse]: "And God relented of all the bad he had said to do" for the decree was [based] on nothing but "the treachery in their hands."