What does Jonah 4:11 mean by people who cannot tell their right hand from their left?
Jonah 4:11
ESV - 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?
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Asked July 01 2013
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Anonymous (via GotQuestions)
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S. Michael Houdmann
Supporter
In Jonah 4:11 God speaks of "more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left." Who are these 120,000 people?First, it is obvious from the context that these people were r...
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Leslie Coutinho
Supporter
Jonah 4:11: "And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" The greatest were the “elders” more advanced in age and the “least” were younger to them than the elders of Nineveh, and they were the ones just like the cattle who could not discern their right hand from the left. (Jonah 3:5) The Word of the Lord came unto Jonah, for the wickedness that came up before the Lord to cry against it, and if they didn’t repent in forty days’ time Nineveh would be overthrown. The Lord knew the hearts of these people who would repent and come back to Him if Jonah preached to them what he proclaimed. The people believed in God when the Word was proclaimed; also the word came to the King, for then they proclaimed for neither man nor beast, herd nor flock to taste anything nor feed, nor drink anything and they put on sackcloth and cried out to the Lord. God saw the works that they turned from their evil ways. He then relented from the disasters that he planned to bring upon them. (Jonah 3:5-10) When the Israelites were brought out of Egypt, Moses sent men to spy on the land of Canaan. However, it only took them forty days to accomplish this task. (Numb 13:25) Despite this, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. The elders who murmured against the Lord in the wilderness, from twenty years and upwards, did not come into the promised land. (Num 14:29-33) They failed to discern and believe in God the Father who brought them out of Egypt, for they went out whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land and broke the covenant that He made with them. (Deut 31:16) Numbers 14:34: "After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise."
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