Many of us are familiar with Jonah, the prophet that God sent to call the great city of Nineveh to repentance. Annoyed, that God was willing to spare Israel’s hated enemy, Jonah fled to Tarshish instead.
But through a series of events, including being swallowed by a large fish or whale, Jonah was convinced to go to Nineveh.
Jonah is also mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25 as a prophet of God during the reigns of King Jeroboam of Israel and Amaziah of Judah and because of this, we can accurately date his ministry to around 785 BCE.
This corresponds to the rise of Assyria as the dominant nation in the region.
Though we tend to focus on the events surrounding Jonah’s arrival, things were also happening in Nineveh, preparing them for the prophet’s message.
In Genesis, we are told that God set the stars in the heavens to “be for signs and for seasons” (Genesis 1:14). Because of this, solar eclipses and blood moons were looked upon as ominous signs.
In a recent message, Amanda Grace provided information on how God had prepared the heart of the Ninevites by sending a solar eclipse in advance of Jonah’s arrival, Charisma News reports.
“Jonah’s ministry would have been in the first half of the eighth century BC from about 793 to 750 BC,” Grace says. “During this time the Assyrian eponym canon records an eclipse of the sun…modern astronomical calculations date this eclipse to June 15, 763 BC. It was a total eclipse as it passed near Nineveh.”
When Jonah showed up in the city a few years later, the people were ready and responded by turning to God with sackcloth and ashes (Jonah 3:6-10).
As Grace points out, parts of the US will be experiencing a total eclipse of the sun on April 8, 2024, and we are hearing similar calls for Americans to turn back to God.
The last time, the US experienced a total solar eclipse was on August 21, 2017, and two and a half years later, COVID hit.
