What Does Jonah 1:2 Mean?
Rise up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before my face.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.THE KEY
The city’s harm has already risen into God’s face before Jonah is sent to speak against it.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you in a world where communal harm is visible to God, even when those causing it do not name it. The call to rise, go, and cry against Nineveh turns that harm into something spoken openly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that widespread harm stays hidden until its perpetrators admit it or its victims prove it: here, the harm has already come before God.
THE ROOT
רָעָתָם
raʿatam
GROWS FROM
רעע
r-ʿ-ʿ
To be evil or harmful; to do harm.
English “wickedness” can sound like a label for character, but this root also names evil as harm and trouble. What rises before God is a damaging condition in the community, not just a verdict about bad people.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad, evil
רַע
This adjective shares the root’s language of evil, joining the community’s wickedness to what is bad or harmful.
rōaʿ: Evil, harm, distress
רֹעַ
This noun makes the root’s connection to actual harm visible: wickedness is not only a moral category but a condition that causes damage.
וְקָרָא
veqara
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
To call, proclaim, or read aloud.
“call out against it” in this verse is veqara. The command is to call out or proclaim against the city. The same root also gives Hebrew words for reading and public proclamation, so “cry” carries the sense of making the harm heard and recognized, not only expressing distress.
ALSO GROWS
qeriʾah: Calling, reading aloud
קְרִיאָה
Its connection to the command shows that the city’s harm is to be voiced, not left as an unspoken condition.
miqraʾ: Proclamation, public reading or assembly
מִקְרָא
This branch extends the root toward public declaration, illuminating the outward, audible nature of Jonah’s task.
לְפָנַי
lefanay
GROWS FROM
פנה
p-n-h
To turn or face.
The Hebrew phrase is literally “before my face.” English preserves the idea of presence, while the face-language makes the image direct: the city’s harm is in God’s view, not at a distance.
ALSO GROWS
panim: Face, presence
פָּנִים
The word family turns “before me” into a phrase of presence: the evil is before God’s face.
lifnei: In front of, before
לִפְנֵי
This related form shows how “before” grows from the image of facing or being in front of someone.
THE PATTERN
Harm among people rises into divine sight and becomes something that is named aloud.
I will go down now, and see whether they have done it wholly, according to the outcry which has come to me. And if not, I will perceive it.You see it, for you gaze at toil and grief, to place it in your hand. The weakened leaves himself to you; you have been the helper of the fatherless.I have seen, I have seen the harm done to my people in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and I have come down to bring them out. Come now, and I will send you into Egypt.THE THREAD
The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off their memory from the earth.The Hebrew word for Nineveh’s “wickedness” belongs to the same רעע (raʿa, evil or harm) root family as “evil” here. Psalm 34:16 brings the face-image into view too: Jonah’s announcement confronts harm that stands before God.
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