When God described Nineveh as being the great city

[Mary Naeem]

Pope Shenouda III

Jonah

When God described Nineveh as being the great city, He was not considering its ignorance and sin but He was looking with great joy at its profound repentance.

Nineveh was quick in responding to God's word.

When Lot warned the Sodomites of the Lord's hot displeasure, they scorned him, and "to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking" (Gen. 19:14), whereas the Ninevites listened with utter seriousness to Jonah and responded quickly to his word, despite the respite of forty days which could have been taken for slackness and slothfulness. The word of the Lord was fast, bearing life, efficacious and sharper than a double-edged sword.

In their immediate response, the Ninevites were much greater than the Jews who were contemporary to Christ the Lord, the incomparably greater than Jonah. Those Jews saw the Lord's numerous miracles and beheld His infinite spirituality, yet they did not believe and repent. The Lord reproved them by the Ninevites (Matt. 12:14).

The word of the Lord was prolific. It yielded an abundance of amazing fruits