The third verse of chapter 1 began by saying “Jonah arose,” and the remarks made there apply here also. This verse begins in the same way but continues by saying that he set out, not in the opposite direction (as in 1.3) but in the direction of Nineveh, in accordance with the Lord’s instructions. The journey there is not described, and Jonah obeys without reply or question.
It may seem illogical in some languages to employ the order obeyed … and went, since the going to Nineveh would seem to be the way in which Jonah obeyed. Therefore it may be necessary to restructure this sentence to read “Jonah obeyed the Lord by going to Nineveh” or, as in some instances, “Jonah went to Nineveh and in this way obeyed the Lord.”
The second half of the verse, which describes how large Nineveh was, is inserted in verse 4 in New English Bible. Good News Translation treats this description as appositional to the mention of Nineveh. The construction used in Hebrew inserts the description as a parenthetical explanation: “now Nineveh was an immensely great city, three days’ journey across.” The form of this explanatory note and its insertion here give every appearance of referring to a city that was once of importance, but at the time of writing was no more than a ruin. The timelessness of the expression a city so large corresponds to the form of the Hebrew verb used here, which does not indicate whether Nineveh was previously larger and was now reduced in size, or whether at the time of writing it was regarded as a large city. The construction is the same as in Gen 3.1, “the serpent was more crafty” (New English Bible), which does not tell us anything about the period during which the serpent was crafty.
New English Bible calls Nineveh “a vast city,” in this way translating an expression that is a form of the superlative, literally “great to God,” so perhaps, “of superhuman size” (compare Jerusalem Bible “great beyond compare,” Moffatt “great, great city”). There is no justification for the Living Bible rendering “a very large city, with extensive suburbs.”
The superlative used here (King James Version “an exceeding great city”) is similar to what is found in Gen 23.6; 30.8; Exo 9.28; 1 Sam 14.15; Psa 36.7; 80.11. In all of these passages King James Version uses an expression denoting the superlative, following in most cases medieval Jewish commentators. The Oxford Hebrew Lexicon compares the usage here in Jonah to Acts 7.20, “a very beautiful child.”
The last part of the verse, that it took three days to walk through it, has presented difficulty for some translators, in view of the contradiction between this statement and the size of Nineveh as revealed by archaeology. The circumference of the ruins is about eight miles, and even if this were the length from one end to the other, it would not require as much as one day to cross the city on foot. Even if the suburbs are included (compare Living Bible), the city would not extend for anything like a three days’ journey. Khorsabad, which may correspond to Rehoboth Ir of Gen 10.11 and has the best claim to be considered a “suburb” of Nineveh, is only a dozen miles away.
King James Version‘s “of three days’ journey” is too indefinite to be clear to the reader, and Revised Standard Version improves this with “three days’ journey in breadth.” Whereas most modern translations, though using different phraseology, agree with Good News Translation in the meaning of this phrase, there are some exceptions. New American Standard Bible uses the indefinite expression, “a three days’ walk,” in accordance with the pattern set by King James Version. Modern Language Bible is no more definite in its text: “requiring three days’ travel,” but the footnote (“that is, to go through the complex of turns that made up the city and its extensive suburbs”) reads like an attempt to evade the clear meaning of the text. Living Bible also avoids the clear meaning of the writer by saying “so large that it would take three days to walk around it.” As already noted, the city is described in Living Bible as having “extensive suburbs,” so these are doubtless thought of as included within the city’s circumference. But the Hebrew text speaks of walking across the breadth of the city, and not around it, as is clear from verse 4.
A city so large that it took three days to walk through presents certain difficulties in translation, since there is no indication as to precisely who was walking through it. This statement can be best rendered as a type of general indication of size by saying “a city so large that a person would have to walk three days in order to walk across it” or “… through it.” Sometimes such an expression could be rendered as a condition; for example, “a person could go through the city if he walked for three days.”
In some languages there may be difficulties because of no clear distinction between “hamlet,” “village,” “town,” and “city.” In some instances only a rather generic term is used for any center of population, and the varying degrees of size are indicated as “a small village,” “a large village,” and “a very large village.”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on the Book of Jonah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .