God's Universal Kingship Calls for Repentance from All

Even though Israel was almost constantly threatened by Assyria, and would fall to its armies barely thirty years after the end of Jeroboam's reign, the book of Jonah views Israel and Assyria through the largest possible lens, that of humanity under the threat of divine judgment but presented with the possibility of repentance. In doing so it pushes to the side the imperialist motives of Jeroboam II and Assyria alike and reasserts Yahweh's universal kingship and grace, paradoxically pointing to the only way of escape for both Israel and Nineveh.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 74-75.