Rabbi Steven Bob
TheTorah.com, September 2022
“The whole thing is about Nineveh, which is a non-Israelite nation, and there is no mention of Israel at all. There is nothing like this anywhere in the Prophets!”
The biblical prophets generally address Israel and speak to the concerns of Israelites.[1] Even the category of prophecy that scholars call “the oracles against the nations” relate indirectly to Israel by prophesying the punishment or demise of Israel’s enemies.[2] One exception is the book of Jonah,[3] which features an Israelite prophet sent to a foreign nation to prophecy to them, in the hope that they will repent and avoid punishment:
יונה א:א וַיְהִי דְּבַר יְ־הוָה אֶל יוֹנָה בֶן אֲמִתַּי לֵאמֹר. א:ב קוּם לֵךְ אֶל נִינְוֵה הָעִיר הַגְּדוֹלָה וּקְרָא עָלֶיהָ כִּי עָלְתָה רָעָתָם לְפָנָי.
Jonah 1:1 The word of YHWH came to Jonah son of Amittai: 1:2 Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim judgment upon it; for their wickedness has come before Me.
Jonah is not sent to just any non-Israelite city, but to Nineveh, which served as the capital of the Assyrian empire until it was sacked in 612 B.C.E. In the years following Jonah’s mission, the Assyrian Empire will first subdue and then destroy the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and cause great damage to the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
While the book is set in the period before the Assyrian conquest of Israel, it is written in Late Biblical Hebrew and dates to Second Temple times.[4] Thus, the author is aware of the havoc Assyria wreaked upon Israel and Judah. So why write a story about how Israel’s enemy, the Assyrians of Nineveh, merit YHWH’s interest and a visit from one of their own prophets?. … source