Jon 3:4 | NET2full | STEP | Jonah began to enter the city by going one day’s walk , announcing , “ At the end of 40 days , Nineveh will be overthrown !”

‏ Jonah 3:4

4 Jonah began to enter the city by going one day’s walk, announcing, “At the end of 40 days, ^{▼▼tn Heb “Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown!” The adverbial use of עוֹד (ʿod, “yet”) denotes limited temporal continuation (BDB 728 s.v. עוֹד 1.a; Gen 29:7; Isa 10:32). Tg. Jonah 3:4 rendered it as, “at the end of [forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown].”} Nineveh will be overthrown!” ^{▼▼tn Heb “be overturned.” The Niphal נֶהְפָּכֶת (nehpakhet, “be overturned”) refers to a city being overthrown and destroyed (BDB 246 s.v. הָפַךְ 2.d). The related Qal form refers to the destruction of a city by military conquest (Judg 7:3; 2 Sam 10:3; 2 Kgs 21:13; Amos 4:11) or divine intervention, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:21, 25, 29; Deut 29:22; Jer 20:16; Lam 4:6; BDB 245 s.v. 1.b). The participle form used here depicts an imminent future action (see IBHS 627-28 §37.6f) that is specified as only “forty days” away.}