Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire, one of the most feared powers of the ancient world. It lay on the banks of the Tigris River, in northern Mesopotamia.
The Bible remembers Nineveh above all for the story of Jonah. God sent the prophet to preach against the city’s wickedness, but Jonah fled in the opposite direction and only arrived there after being swallowed by a great fish.
When he preached, Jonah announced that the city would be destroyed in forty days. To the prophet’s own surprise, the king and all the people repented, and God spared Nineveh.
Centuries earlier, according to Genesis, the city had been built by Nimrod. Centuries after Jonah, the prophets Nahum and Zephaniah announced that judgment would finally reach Nineveh, because of the violence and pride of the Assyrian empire.
The story of Nineveh shows two sides of God’s character: his patience with those who repent, revealed in the time of Jonah, and his justice in the face of oppression that returns, announced by Nahum and Zephaniah.
