Jonah 3:3 reads as follows in the NASB:
“So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.”
On a few occasions in Jonah Nineveh is called a “great city,” but the difference here is that there may be an additional adjective. In the BHS v. 3b reads:
ונינוה היתה עיר גדולה לאלהים מהלך שלשת ימים
wĕnînĕwē hoytâ ʿîr-gĕdôlāh lēʾlōhîm mahălak šĕlōšet yāmîm
The additional adjective is where translators differ. Should it be “an exceedingly great city,” “a great city of God,” or “a great city of the gods”? How one translates this sentence depends on how one understands elohim. This is the fn. from the NET Bible explaining the matter (FWIW, the NET translates it “an enormous city”):
The greatness of Nineveh has been mentioned already in 1:2 and 3:2. What is being added now? Does the term לֵאלֹהִים (le’lohim, “to God/gods”) (1) refer to the Lord’s personal estimate of the city, (2) does it speak of the city as “belonging to” God, (3) does it refer to Nineveh as a city with many shrines and gods, or (4) is it simply an idiomatic reinforcement of the city’s size? Interpreters do not agree on the answer. To introduce the idea either of God’s ownership or of dedication to idolatry (though not impossible) is unexpected here, being without parallel or follow-up elsewhere in the book. The alternatives “great/large/important in God’s estimation” (consider Ps 89:41b) or the merely idiomatic “exceptionally great/large/important” could both be amplified by focus on physical size in the following phrase and are both consistent with emphases elsewhere in the book (Jonah 4:11 again puts attention on size—of population). If “great” is best understood as a reference primarily to size here, in view of the following phrase and v. 4a (Jonah went “one day’s walk”), rather than to importance, this might weigh slightly in favor of an idiomatic “very great/large,” though no example with “God” used idiomatically to indicate superlative (Gen 23:6; 30:8; Exod 9:28; 1 Sam 14:15; Pss 36:6; 80:10) has exactly the same construction as the wording in Jonah 3:3.
Greek Jonah translates v. 3b as follows:
ἡ δὲ Νινευη ἦν πόλις μεγάλη τῷ θεῷ ὡσεὶ πορείας ὁδοῦ ἡμερῶν τριῶν.
hē de Nineuē ēn polis megalē tō theō hōsei poreias hodou hēmerōn triōn
My translation: “Now Nineveh was a great city to God, approximately a journey of a path of three days.” * This text understands elohim to be “the God” since is in the dative singular.
What do you think the author of Jonah meant? Is Nineveh a “great city to God” or a “great city to the gods” or a “an exceedingly large city”? Does the Greek translator’s decision influence you one way or the other?
__________
* I am unaware of theos being used adjectively to indicate greatness or grandeur in the same way that elohim is used for this purpose. If there is an example please bring it to my attention!
the archives near Emmaus 
FWIW, v. 4 presents Jonah as needing a whole day to walk through the city, so that might reflect on why the author would say in v. 3 that it was an “exceedingly large city.”
Has anyone actually made the case ‘elohim’ is a Proper noun? If not, it should be treated as generic in the absence of evidence it is a specific reference.
an exceedingly large city
I haven’t had the opportunity to get as far as chapter three in my research, so I speak with little confidence here. I think that the author has left it intentionally ambiguous. Up until this point the adjective גדל has been used purely in terms of size: Nineveh was a great city, God appointed a great wind, God appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah. The fact that the following clauses describe the length of Jonah’s journey and the city, however one interprets the disparity between Jonah’s one-day journey and the city’s being a 3-day journey, leads us to believe that the adjective is certainly referring to the size of the city.
The addition of לאלהים, however, causes us to consider whether or not the city has more importance than its pure size. The end of chapter four tells us that the city and its inhabitants mean something to God. They are worth saving. For this reason, it seems as if we are on sound footing in saying that the city was significant to God or in his estimation, whereas it was not in Jonah’s.
Maybe the phrase is meant to be understood in this twofold manner: it was a large city, and it was great in God’s estimation (by “great in God’s estimation” I do not mean that the city deserved God’s attention because of its goodness etc., only that it was worth saving)
Sorry, I can’t help or speak meaningfully on either the Hebrew or Greek issues. But a side point raised a question in my mind… Does anyone know if there was a “standard” distance (or whatever) for a “day’s walk” in antiquity, whether in Jonah or time of the NT? (Probably didn’t change much unless sandal technology advanced a lot :)). I imagine they were much better walkers than we are, generally; and I think I may have heard something like 10 or 12 miles. But with an early start and few breaks, it could easily be more. (Or maybe, with little easy way to measure distance, they just didn’t think in those terms much and how far a “day’s walk” was varied with the terrain — how many hills, how rocky, etc.)
@Andrew:
So, how would you translate the passage?
@mitzpeh:
Why you say that?
@jacob:
Good observations. I tend to lean toward “to God” here as well, as it may help explain why God has mercy as well as the interaction between God and Jonath in ch. 4.
@Howard:
I’m not sure. It may have been a generic estimation passed along by travelers: “So, how long does it take to get to Nineveh?…Oh, we take about three days.”
Preface: I don’t know Hebrew or Greek, so I depend on what I consider to be reliable online authorities.
An online WLC interlinear translation reads “And he-is-rising Jonah and he-is-going to Nineveh as word-of Yahweh and Nineveh she-became city great to Elohim walking-of three-of days.” It looks like it depends on what “weninewe hoyta ir-gedola le’elohim mahalak seloset yamim” means. Hoyta is she-became (per online WLC interlinear), but ir, gedola, mahalak, and yamim are masculine (per Strongs at blueletterbible), so I don’t know how that works. Elohim is used as great before a gerund in two other cases that I’ve found, Gen 30.8 “great wrestlings” and 1 Sam 14.15 “great tremblings”. Yahweh is always definitely God, so, I think here le’elohim mahalak seloset yamim means “[a] {great walk(ing)} of three days”.
@Brian – keeping with idiomatic integrity rather than linguistic integrity, something like this:
So Jonah rose, and went to Nineveh according to the word of YHWH. Nineveh was an supremely great city — a sojourn of three days.
(I’d go with either ‘supreme’ or ‘divine’ because both carry a meaning associated with a description of God (i.e supreme being) or with grandeur which I believe is the sense conveyed in [Jon 3:3]. It would be like saying ‘Jerusalem, the eternal city, …’ to convey its greatness. Jerusalem isn’t actually eternal but the comparison makes the point.).
Noteworthy, others (Richard E. Young for example) observe that גָּדוֹל (translated ‘great’, H1419) also carries the nuance of ‘being important to’ so another plausible possibility might be:
And Jonah rose, and went to Nineveh according to the word of YHWH. Now Nineveh, a city important to God, required three days to visit it.
I thought about ir-gedola after I posted. I wonder if it plus the next phrase is simply Hebrew parallelism? Something to the effect of “Now Nineveh became {an exceedingly large city}, {a great walking of three days}.”
I would say so …
One thing I haven’t seen is elohim used adjectively when connected with a preposition, in this case le-. Does anyone know of an example?
Ya, this is indeed a tough case to make—for any interpretive take. All I know is that from a discourse angle “Nineveh” has been fronted (i.e. placed before the verb) and indicates a re-activation of “Nineveh” as the topic, probably to give the reader a heads up that some new information is coming they’ll want to pay attention to. The effect is something like:
“So Jonah got up and headed out, like God said to. NOW NINEVEH, was a X, Y, Z.”
From vs. 2, we already know it’s “great” (גדל) in size though, right. So vs. 3 could be a reiteration of its vastness, with a specifying mark that it’s 3 days-walk-big. But like you ask, “what do we do with לאלהים sandwiched in between?”
If it really is a remark about how this GREAT CITY means a GREAT DEAL to God, then it’s a clever use of גדל (“great”)—but the follow up statement about it being a 3 day’s journey seems jarring if this is the case. To go from size (vs. 2), to value (vs. 3b) and back to size (vs. 3c) is a hard line to follow.
But perhaps the storyteller is just trying to keep the attention of his audience in a clever fashion… (whatever the case, it is a strange use of the particle ל).
@KL:
All very helpful. I do wonder (since I know nothing about the textual history of Jonah) if it is possible that לאלהים may have been something like a scribal note that slipped into the text. It seems so out of place, even as if the text might read more naturally without it.
@Look at [Gen 23:6]. It seems to be used here adjectivally there, albeit not with the le-. Also there’s [Gen 30:8]. In both cases it seems to denote ‘supremely’, ‘mightily’ or ‘divinely’.
[Exo 7:1] also has an interesting usage, as does [Exo 9:28] which speaks of קֹלֹת אֱלֹהִים ‘elohim qowl’ (mighty thunderings).
There are others …
KL in [Gen 30:8] Rachel’s struggles were likely not a GREAT DEAL to God (even if they were to Rachel), yet elohim is used there to denote ‘greatness’. Similarly in [Exo 9:28] the thundering may have been a type of thundering we’d expect in the presence of God, but it’s doubtful they were a GREAT DEAL to Him.
We shouldn’t read more into the use of the elohim to denote ‘great’ or ‘mighty’. Of all the things the Hebrews could conceive ‘God’ was the greatest. A simple comparison doesn’t imply importance.
In [Exo 12:12] the word should have been translated ‘mighty’ as it was the mighty of Egypt (meaning officials) being judged, not their dead stone deities … and in [Exo 21:6] the slave testifies before an official (i.e. also the mighty) that they don’t wish to be free (making their servitude official) …
I’m sorry Andrew. Maybe I wasn’t clear (or maybe I don’t fully understand your comment… or both!). I’m not suggesting *elohim means “great deal” to God in Jonah 3.3; rather, that *gdl has a shift in meaning from specifying size to value, the latter of which is then specified as to in whose eyes Nineveh is esteemed (*le-elohim). But again, I’m just throwing out random thoughts trying to make sense of it with Brian.
Are you, on the other hand, saying we might be seeing an instance where *elohim is used to express some sort of “greatness” notion?