Forty days

Front matter

MWwnmpoKryDAYs

I^CNIneVeh

AND ITS

Contents

Chapter Page

I. Nineveh 9

II. Nineveh Awakened - 19

Preface

In our childhood we loved to read the wonderfully dramatic narrative of the preaching of Jonah, and the repentance of Nineveh. At a later period, when we were allowed of God to be put in trust of the holy ministry, our impression of that weighty passage in prophetic life grew and widened ; until at last, as we stood and gazed at this giant picture of one of the great preachers of antiquity, dealing with the mind and conscience of a vicious people, we could not fail to consider that the object lessons before us were meant to serve as a manual of the great doctrine both of a legal and an evangelical repentance as well.

t PREFACE.

If by these pages we may shed a single ray of light upon the matter of a sinner's return to God, or remove one obstruction out of his path, or give one upward impulse to a soul hitherto grovelling in the dust, we shall thank God for that instrumental

service.

S. H. H.

Chapter I. Nineveh

1VTINEVEH was the capital of the an- ^ cient empire of Assyria. She is first mentioned in the Old Testament in connection with the primitive dispersement and migrations of the human race. About the time that Nimrod, " the mighty hunter/' settled on the plains of Shinar, Asshur went forth and laid the foundations of the future Nineveh on the east bank of the river Tigris, some three hundred miles north from Babel, the after-seat of the great Babylon of the kingdoms. Fifteen hundred years later, Nineveh was known as the wealthy and luxurious capital of the Assyrian empire; and in many respects not unworthy of comparison with Babylon itself.

According to the computation of Bonomi, Babylon contained two hundred and twentyfive square miles, Nineveh, two hundred and sixteen, while London, at the period of his comparison, claimed but one hundred and fourteen. Nineveh was indeed an "exceeding great city." The walls rose a hundred feet high, and broad enough for three chariots to drive abreast; while fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet in height, graced the walls that shut in a vast and mighty population.

But with all this material greatness, Nineveh was an idolater, and Assyrian idolatry was near of kin to the Babylonian. It was a gross polytheism, their gods being thousands in number, each village having its own particular deity, and each divinity rejoicing in many names ; and, as is shown from thousands of theological tablets now in the British Museum, some of them having as many as fifty titles besides.

Nor did the resemblance to her sister city stop here. Like Babylon, to idolatry she added licentiousness, and to licentiousness, every form of wickedness common to the Gentile nations. She made vast strides in sin. She went whole leagues in transgression. It is even stated that as Assyria was first in the rise of its power, she was the first to ripen in iniquity ; and this being so, by the inexorable law of moral gravitation, she was the first to go down under the just judgments of the great Ruler of the universe.

Nahum, who did not use flattering speech, described her as " the bloody city : full of lies and robbery : a seed of evil doers : a corrupter of cities and of kingdoms." And to such a depth of moral infamy did she sink, that the prophet at last, as if in despair of her reformation, cried out : " There is no healing of thy bruise : thy wound is grievous : all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap their hands over thee : for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually ? " And because of this, God declared by the mouth of his prophets, Nahum and Zephaniah, that he would "make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness."

Two agents especially are named for the purpose : " the fire shall devour thee," and "the sword shall cut thee off;" and in due time both came to pass. After a siege of several years by the united armies of the Medes under Cyaxeres, and the Babylonians under Nabopolassar, B. C. 606, the city was taken. "The sword cut off," but that was not all. She was carried away. She went into captivity. The conquerors "cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains." The people were scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathered them. "The gates of the land were set wide open unto her enemies," and all "her strongholds were like fig trees with the first ripe figs, which, when shaken, fall into the mouth of the eater." And then another element came into play, for " the fire devoured" what the sword spared, as the slabs and statues now found in the excavated ruins of this long - lost city most plainly declare.

And now a long, dark night of silence and oblivion settled on the deserted city of the Assyrian kingdom. The very name of Nineveh and Assyria alike faded out from the page of canonical history, and from all authentic history, sacred or profane. To the ancient world, she was as if she had not been. Herodotus, the father of history, passed that way B. C. 450, but only speaks of the Tigris as the river upon which the town of Nineveh formerly stood. Xenophen followed fifty years later, but with no better success. The very ruins were sunk below the surface of the earth. "I will," says Jehovah, "make thy grave, for thou art vile;" and so for long ages "she lay covered up in the earth, like a huge, misshapen heap or mound, which told nothing of what was below. Alexander himself must have marched over the site of the ancient city ; but not one of his historians, with the exception of Arrian, even alludes to the once famous capital, whose palaces and walls were at that moment slumbering in the dust of centuries, and which kept their secret well and truly for thousands of years after.

But this was to have an end. The time drew nigh when the long night of Nineveh's obscuration was to know a dawn. The day of revealing at last came. In the wonderworking providence of God, the venerable city of a half-forgotten empire was now to disclose its palaces, its temples, and its longlost records to the light of antiquarian research, and certainly with results as new as they are surprising.

The first traveller who carefully examined the supposed ruins of the city, was Mr. Rich, formerly political agent for the East India Company, at Bagdad ; but his investigations were almost entirely confined to Kouyunjik and the surrounding mounds, of which he made a survey in 1820. To him succeeded M. Botta, who was appointed French consul at Mosul, in 1 843 ; and the French government having now provided the necessary funds, the work of exploration went bravelyforward. But the discoveries of M. Botta at Khorsabad were again followed by those of Mr. Layard at Nimroud and Kouyunjik, between the years 1845 an d 1850.

But what we should regard as yet more wonderful, is the truly gratifying success which has attended the labors of Rawlinson, Hincks, Smith, and others, both French and German, in deciphering the cuneiform writings on the obelisks, marble slabs, and walls of the ancient palaces of Nineveh. Too much praise, we think, cannot be given to the indefatigable students of Assyrian lore, by reason of whose indomitable zeal and purpose the mysterious arrow-headed characters, so long shrouded in impenetrable mystery, have been made to disclose their meaning, and read out to the world the strangely preserved records of a people and a race that has long since perished from among men.

Among the more important discoveries, might be mentioned the annals of Sennacherib, together with his own account of his invasion of Palestine, and the amount of tribute which king Hezekiah was forced to pay him. The obelisk at Nimroud on which the famous writing was found, dates from the prophets Hosea, Joel, and Amos, and distinctly chronicles the names of Jehu, Jezebel, and Hazael. The Assyrian invasion and conquest was indeed one of those great events in Jewish history which stamped itself on the nation's memory, and so indelibly, that it can never be obliterated throughout the generations. Besides this, there is also an actual picture of the taking of Lachish by this greatest of Assyrian captains and monarchs. In short, the illustrations and confirmations, both of the prophetical and historical Scriptures, are clear and abundant, and afford a most striking proof from an unexpected quarter of the verity of holy writ.

The subjects of Assyrian painting and sculpture are, moreover, of the most suggestive character. The march, the onset, the pursuit, the siege, the passage of rivers, the submission and treatment of captives, secretaries noting the number of heads taken in battle, together with the amount of spoil, are all pictures of a great and warlike people.

Mr. Layard was also so fortunate as to find at Kouyunjik, the archives of the empire, the true and substantial records of the kingdom, " the house of rolls," to which repeated reference is had in the book of Ezra 4:15, and 6:1. We might also mention the very important discovery of the tables of dynasties, to which Col. Rawlinson has devoted much time and attention.

Nor is the end of these explorations of the remains of ancient Nineveh yet reached ; and for ourselves we would earnestly hope that they may continue to receive, for a considerable time to come, the large attention which their literary and theological importance demands. But for the present we can proceed no further with this brief sketch. Those who may wish for fuller and larger details, we respectfully refer to the deeply interesting works of Layard, Rawlinson, Bonomi,

George Smith, and others of like character.

In the pages that follow, we shall deal with the Nineveh of another day and generation.

Chapter II. Nineveh Awakened

And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying,

Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.

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.

So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

"TV" T EARLY two thousand seven hundred ^ and fifty years ago, a man dressed in dark raiment and girded with a leathern girdle, wearing the accompaniment of a flowing beard, and carrying a pilgrim's staff, might have been seen walking upon the east bank of the river Tigris, in the direction of the goodly city of Nineveh. The road, like all other highways leading to the metropolis of a great and mighty empire, was thronged with wayfarers ; but our traveller journeyed on alone, wrapt in his own solitary thoughts and musings — though what those musings were, no person knew save himself. He seemed possessed of a secret of fearful power, for at times a strange and even wild expression flitted athwart his visage, and then the dark eye would burn and glow like a furnace ; presently, all trace of emotion would vanish, leaving that Hebrew face as cold, and dark, and impenetrable as before.

At last the stranger stood before Nineveh, the magnificent capital of Assyria; and no man could stand where he now stood, especially for the first time, and, most of all, upon his errand, without pausing before going farther. It was evidently the first time with him ; and as his eye took in a portion of the great city of the East, as he glanced upward to its colossal gates, its lofty walls, its thousand towers, each running up hundreds of feet, as he saw tower and gate and wall alive with the hosts of Assyria, and bristling with the weapons of war, a sense of the greatness of his mission came over him, and we may well suppose that he silently, but fervently, implored the protection of the God of Israel.

Reassured, he now passed under the lofty portals of one of the gates, guarded by the colossal statues of Assyrian art, and his feet stood fairly within the city. It was an early hour of the morning, and the marts of business were fast filling up for the day. In every direction he saw the full tide of life pouring out into the wide, and seemingly, interminable streets ; and from every quarter the hum of a mighty population was borne upon his ear. The gay booths of the Assyrian merchants were glittering in the morning sun; and those caterers of metropolitan taste and pleasure were already disposing their rich tissues, their Tyrian dyes, their goodly Babylonish garments, their broidered work and fine linen, their coral, their agate, their emeralds, their chests of cedar, filled with rich apparel, and bound with cords;

everything, in short, to tempt the extravagance of a gay and sensuous people.

In fact, wherever his eye wandered, it fell on masses of men, dressed in every variety of showy and picturesque costume ; and while they thronged the avenues of trade and commerce, the horse, the camel, and the elephant might be seen passing through the crowded thoroughfares, laden with the produce of the city or the empire. Occasionally, there rang out the blast of martial music, and sternlooking men, with red shields, and wearing scarlet or purple clothing, rolled by in gorgeous chariots, with amazing rapidity, to the morning rendezvous.

Jonah — for it was he — looked upon all this busy scene, this moving panorama, this long and splendid vista of buildings, towers, palaces and walls, with a bewildered gaze. To him it was a moment of awful and sublime suspense. He was in Nineveh, and he could not conceal from himself that ; he was there upon a delicate and dangerous mission, He was in Nineveh; and he had come up from the depths of the sea to cry against her. He was in Nineveh ; and though a stranger to the thousands who now swept past him, before night-fall his name and message would be known in palace and in hovel, for miles and miles together. He was in Nineveh; and he saw around him the evidences of a people wholly given up to its idolatries. Yet he had only to utter a word, a cry, and though that cry should roll along in whispers, or steal upon the public ear through a thousand subterranean channels, it would mow down that mass of moving life as the reaper's sickle mows down the golden and bearded grain in harvest time. And now he resolved to speak that word.

Taking up his burden, and throwing himself into the midst of the population at the very entering of the gates, he began to cry, after the manner of a herald : " Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."

Now it will be seen, at the outset of my observations # upon the preaching of Jonah, that, beyond the point made, the prophet states no case, makes no argument, gives no reasons, submits no proposition, but drops his burden upon the guilty city, like a bolt from an overcharged sky, and then, moving on, leaves the coming flood to sweep them as with a besom.

In respect of length, it is indeed one of the shortest, being spoken in a breath, the fewest words possible, only a line, and that a line of prophecy, not of history ; of threatening, not of promise ; of law, not of gospel ; and yet, in respect of results, it is one of the mightiest that ever smote upon the ears of living men. It is a sermon, in fact, without exordium, without division, without peroration, without appeal ; but if the message is strong its sententiousness is terrific. As if Jonah would say, " People of Nineveh, I come to acquaint you with your doom. In forty days you will be overthrown. People of Nineveh, I have done." And if this is not what we moderns would call pleasant preaching, or logical preaching, or rhetorical preaching, or learned preaching, or exhaustive preaching, it is nevertheless true and faithful, and this is the point now set for us to consider.

At all events, it was the preaching that God bade, and therefore the preaching for Jonah to give ; and it must ever be told as one of the remarkable merits of this remarkable man, that on this great occasion he did not go beyond the word of the Lord, to speak either more or less than the thing commanded. He altered nothing, concealed nothing, evaded nothing, softened nothing. He certainly did not blunt his weapon. He did not overlay his doctrine with the pomp of a gaudy rhetoric. He did not corrupt the word of God through vain traditions. The manna did not spoil in his keeping. He has strong words -for a guilty people, and he speaks them ; live coals of juniper, and he lets them fall. Duty is his : results are God's. " Preach unto them the preaching that I bid thee : " and he does it, bravely, nobly, with heart and mind and soul. And for his unshrinking, unswerving fidelity to his instructions, God owned and blessed him, as we shall presently see, in a manner hitherto unexampled.

And I cannot but think that in his consenting to be simply the mouth-piece of heaven, in his consenting to turn aside and let God speak by him and through him, in his consenting to be nothing but the voice of One crying behind him, I see the sublime purpose of emptying before the filling. In short, by this very measure, Jonah is so completely stripped of all occasion of self-glorying, that God is left free to do a work, at the hearing of which every knee is made to bow, and every tongue is brought to confess that the thing is of God and not of man.

For hardly had he spoken before the fire of heaven fell. Hardly had he spoken before all Nineveh was on her knees. Hardly had he spoken before the proud city was brought down, and the lofty city was laid low, and the rebellious city was sitting in the dust of a profound humiliation. The word of the Lord out-ran him! The fire in the stubble consumed all before him ! It was fire in the

NINEVEH AWAKENED. 2J

bramble, fire in the wood, fire in the forest, the great fire of God burning conviction into the hearts of the people by the very breath which the mouth of the Lord of Hosts had kindled.

Marvellous ! marvellous ! but nevertheless true, that in all that vast population, among the thousands of Nineveh, the reprobate city of a reprobate empire, it would seem, so far as the history goes, that nobody challenged, nobody scorned, nobody mocked, nobody doubted, nobody neglected, but all, with one accord, gave instant heed to the word that was spoken ; and like so many alarm-bells, passed the piercing cry from street to street, from temple to temple, from park to park, from garden to garden, until the whole city rang with the fearful news, that Nineveh was on the verge of doom !

The effect was indescribable. If thunder peals had burst over Nineveh, if forked lightnings had burned and shattered down her temples, if a whirlwind had come rushing in from the desert, tearing up her streets and overturning towers, walls, and palaces in its way, the sensation could not have been greater.

And, strangest of all, nobody asked what Nineveh had done ; just as if Nineveh knew what Nineveh was. Instead of the preaching of one Jonah that day, there were a thousand, yea, tens of thousands and thousands upon thousands. On that memorable occasion, when the word of God was unbound, conscience, that vicegerant of God in the human soul, was unbound also ; and when conscience was brought out from under the yoke and set free, all Nineveh became engaged in crying out against Nineveh. And, compared to the violence of these self-accusers, Jonah's words are few and feeble. Their whisper is louder than the prophet's thunder.

But in all this, never was man more disappointed than Jonah. With his knowledge of Ninevite character, he was prepared for the scowl of the murderer, the leer of the drunkard, the jest of the mocker, the power of the noble, and the wrath of the king; for any-

NINEVEH AWAKENED. 2g

thing but rivers from the rock or water-floods from the desert. He was ready for defeat, not for victory. But God did not mean it so, for not in Samaria itself did the prophet ever bear such sway as he did that day in proud and wicked Nineveh. Lifting up his voice like a trumpet, he cried aloud, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."

And it will forever stand as one of the marvels of grace, that Nineveh herself was the first to proclaim, "Just and true are thy ways, thou king of saints." So far from rushing upon the messenger of God, he moved among them all as a superior being, and the awe-struck multitude made way for him as he passed. No bird of night ever sounded forth a more dismal note ; and yet, strange to say, no message from God or man was ever received with more general or unquestioning conviction of its truth. People stopped to gaze at the man in the dark mantle; and as they listened to that sharp, wild, bittern-like cry, stout-hearted men threw down shield and spear and helmet, and crouched before him, as if he had been a descending god.

But if they stopped he did not. On he went, slowly, gravely, and with the air of a man to whom was confided a high and important trust, but whose courage was every way equal to the occasion. On he went, up and down their streets, out into their highways and byways, back into their temples and market-places, for sixteen or twenty miles together ; and wherever he went, stamping with the foot, or smiting with the hand, or simply declaring with uplifted voice, that Nineveh was about to be brought down to hell !

Doubtless, in the course of that memorable day, explanations would be demanded as to the method of the judgment. Overthrown, indeed ; but how ? Will the earth open and swallow the city ? Or will the Lord rain down fire and brimstone, as upon Sodom and Gomorrah ? But of explanations he had none to give, as of encouragement he had none to offer. Whether the blow was to come out of earth or heaven he did not stop to discuss.

NINEVEH AWAKENED. 3 I

The how, indeed, was no affair of his. " Preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee;" and so on he rushed, with bold and rapid strides, as if in haste to complete his circuit, and finish the work given him to do.

When the sun went down upon that memorable day, Jonah's work was done, and well done. No man could have done it better. Whatever may have been his shortcomings before or after, this particular commission was well and faithfully executed. Raised completely above the fear of man, he had been as bold as a lion in threatening the vengeance of heaven against their multiplied crimes and abominations; and in this respect I do not think that Jonah falls a whit below the measure of Elijah upon Carmel. But from the sermon I now pass to its reception, for it is said that "the people of Nineveh believed God."

The alarm which began with the first delivery of the message, and which, like a thousand swollen streams, had gone on increasing during the day, reached its height by night-fall, so that when the evening lights'" were kindled in Nineveh, nothing was talked of in the gay saloons of fashion but the man in the dark mantle and that one boding, awful cry. And yet, as already remarked, fast and far as the tidings went, conviction of the truth went with it and beyond it, for "the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast."

And in this case, not the common people only, but the rulers also believed God, for word came unto the king of Nineveh ; and when the tidings crossed the royal threshold, it smote right and left. All around him hearts were quaking with fear. All around him, one wild cry of anguish, horror, despair, was coming up from the conscience-stricken multitude ; and now every throb of his Own heart beat responsive to the worst fears of a foreboding and excited people.

Possibly that night Nineveh retired to rest as at other times, but if she slept, she slept as on a volcano. In their very dreams, they saw the figure of the advancing and retreating prophet ; and far as the eye could scan him, Le was moving in the land of shadows with the tread of an Avenger, eye flashing, arm waving, voice roaring : " Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." And from such short and disturbed slumbers they would awake, glad to find that forty days stood between them and threatened overthrow.

But in the palace, no man slept. There, every man stood sentinel. Unlike the Pharaohs of Scripture, this king not only felt as a man, but as the father of a great and mighty people. And so we may suppose the night wore away in deep and anxious deliberation with his nobles ; and when morning dawned, their measures were taken, and those measures proved the safety of the empire.

But what I now seek to show is, that the foundation of all that was done on this great occasion, was laid in a simple, but implicit faith in God. " The people of Nineveh believed God" And it was a faith that bore fruit : a faith that proved itself by works : a faith that rested not till something was done, in some good degree adequate to the danger. "They proclaimed a fast," and engaged in other things which may be noticed hereafter. But, "they believed God," — that was the main thing ; and for the present I hold to that. And I hold there, because I plainly perceive that it is this very thing of belief or unbelief in the hearer, that runs the line at last between a saved man and a lost man. If God's testimony is credited, we shall leave the burning house ; but if not, we shall stay and perish in the flames. In Sodom, upon the last night of its life, and with two celestial beings upon the spot to fire the magazine that is to bring it down, there is not a movement. But here in Nineveh, at the distance of forty days, there is a mighty upheaval, for "the people of Nineveh believed God." Nineveh did not regard God's threatenings as an idle tale, which Sodom did ; and when the Assyrian capital grasped the whole terrific conception of what was in store for them, all Assyria could not keep down the crying.

Yea, doubtless they had heard of the rain of fire and brimstone on their sister Sodom ; and if so, they not only saw the impending catastrophe, but one of the possible modes of its accomplishment. With this great historic example before them, it was easy to see how in forty days, or in forty hours, Nineveh might be forever blotted out from the map of nations. In the light of the lurid flames of the God-forsaken cities of the plain, they saw their own haughty capital going down in another gulf of Siddim. They saw it all : the earth heaving, the lightnings flashing, the mountains trembling, the sands melting, the sea blazing. By faith they saw their forests on fire, their rocks on fire, their hills on fire, their valleys on fire, their whole land a cavern of fire, and a world of fire behind, driving on to a world of fire before. By faith they saw another molten tide, like to that of Gomorrah, rising and swelling, surging and roaring, before them and around them, and every face gathering blackness. By faith they saw heaven and earth, time and eternity, the living and the dead, rushing together; and alas, they were not ready for the rushing. In the light of these burning cities of the plain, they felt the suffocating fumes coming down, their sinews beginning to parch, their lungs to burn, and their substance to dry up ; and with the three thousand of a later day, who also "believed God," they began to ask of king and noble, " What shall we do ? " "So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them."

And so the question returns upon us, On what does the power of the Christian pulpit mainly depend ? And to excite your interest in this question to the utmost, let me add that in this divinely appointed ordinance is bound up at once the highest glory of God, and the greatest good of man. Confessedly, it is the bulwark of all sound doctrine and good morals ; confessedly, it is set for the defence of the truth as it is in Jesus ; confessedly, it is pledged for the conversion of the world to God ; and this being so, it will never cease to be a matter of fervent and anxious inquiry to the latest end of time, On what does the power of the Christian pulpit mainly depend ?