AP

Review of James E. McCarthy, The Two Prophets to Nineveh: Goodness and Severity in Jonah and Nahum, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2025.

In Jonah we see the grace of God revealed in His gracious mercy extended to Nineveh;  a century later, in Nahum we see the severe justice of God poured out on the same city. Studying the two books together is a timely reminder to us that God is both good and severe (see Rom.11:22). In a short work of a little over 100 pages James McCarthy deals very pastorally with these two biblical books and their respective revelations of God’s character and attributes.

McCarthy gives some very apt illustrations. Jonah’s going to the pagan Assyrians is compared to the ministry of a German-speaking American Army chaplain, Henry Gerecke, who in 1945 was sent to Nuremberg to minister to 21 Nazi officials on trial for their lives. The rebuke delivered to Jonah by the pagan sailors reminds McCarthy of the time when he was rebuked on the school bus by a non-Christian girl for wearing a cross outside a vulgar t-shirt.

McCarthy has an ear for balanced sentences and concepts. Jonah was unwilling to go to Nineveh to save the Gentiles, but the Gentile sailors tried to save him. He cites Spurgeon: ‘I have learned to kiss the wave that casts me upon the Rock of Ages.’ And Luther: ‘God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.’

The bare statement that Jonah hated the Ninevites may need some qualification. No doubt Jonah had not yet learnt to love his enemies, but Jerome considered that in calling the Gentiles there was a fear in Jonah that this meant that the Israelites would be discarded. There is an implication of this in that Jonah 4:2 echoes Ex.34:6-7. The God who is gracious and slow to anger in His dealings with Israel is the same in His dealings with Assyria. Where would that leave Israel?          

Rob Bell wrote that ‘The good news is that love wins.’ In the end, Bell’s news is neither loving nor holy, and the study of Jonah and Nahum together reveals how shallow it is. The blessings poured out on Nineveh in Jonah’s day turn to judgments in Nahum’s day. Nevertheless, as Maltbie Babcock put it:

This is my Father’s world;

O, let me ne’er forget,

That though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the Ruler yet.

The destruction of the Ninevites in 612 B.C. was as brutal as the Ninevites themselves had been in their heyday. Sin is serious. Bunyan called it ‘the dare of God’s justice, the rape of his mercy, the jeer of his patience, the slight of his power, and the contempt of his love.’ Working through Jonah and Nahum together will help the reader grasp more of the depths of human sin, and divine mercy and justice.

– Peter Barnes