So should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well?”
Now as to the number, Jonah mentions here twelve times ten thousand men, and that is as we have said, one hundred and twenty thousand. God shows here how paternally he cares for mankind. Every one of us is cherished by him with singular care: but yet he records here a large number, that it might be more manifest that he so much regards mankind...
And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city?.... See Jon 1:2; what is such a gourd or plant to that? wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons; or twelve myriads; that is, twelve times ten thousand, or a hundred and twenty thousand; meaning not all the inhabitants of Nineveh; for then it would not have appeared to be so great a city; but infants...
that cannot discern between their right hand and their left--children under three of four years old (). Six score thousand of these, allowing them to be a fifth of the whole, would give a total population of six hundred thousand. much cattle--God cares even for the brute creatures, of which man takes little account.