Jonah’s Anger and the Lord’s Compassion. Jonah 4:1-11
Jonah was a native of Gath-hepher in Zebulun. Some think that he was a contemporary and disciple of Elijah, and that he therefore lived about 850 B.C. He is the oldest of the prophets whose writings have come down to us. That the book is historical may be gathered from the references of our Lord in Mat_12:39-41 and Mat_16:4.
The narrative presents a most striking contrast between the long-suffering mercy of God and the hard indifference of a good man to the fate of a great Gentile city. Probably it indicates the dawn of a better era, when the Chosen People shall enter upon that long education, the results of which Paul tells us in Eph_2:19-22; Eph_3:1-8.
An Unwilling Prophet of the Merciful God
JONAH’S DISPLEASURE; GOD’S MERCY, Jon_4:1-11
JONAH’S ANGER AND THE LORD’S COMPASSION
But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.
He prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still in my country? That is why I ran to Tarshish, because I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and great in lovingkindness, and [when sinners turn to You] You revoke the [sentence of] disaster [against them]. [Exo_34:6]
Therefore now, O LORD, just take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Then the LORD said, “Do you have a good reason to be angry?”
Then Jonah went out of the city and sat east of it. There he made himself a shelter and sat under its shade so that he could see what would happen in the city.
So the LORD God prepared a plant and it grew up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head to spare him from discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about [the protection of] the plant.
But God prepared a worm when morning dawned the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered.
When the sun came up God prepared a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he fainted and he wished to die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have a good reason to be angry about [the loss of] the plant?” And he said, “I have a [very] good reason to be angry, angry enough to die!”
Then the LORD said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.
Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 [innocent] persons, who do not know the difference between their right and left hand [and are not yet accountable for sin], as well as many [blameless] animals?”
THE PROPHET’S NARROWNESS REBUKED
This chapter marks an era in the development of the outlook of the Hebrew people. Here, upon its repentance, a heathen city was pardoned. Clearly Jehovah was the God, not of the Jews only but of the Gentiles also. Jonah, however, had no pleasure in the revelation. He clung to the bitter narrowness of national prejudice fearing that when his own people received tidings of Nineveh’s repentance and deliverance, they would be encouraged in their obstinate refusal of God’s law.
How often God puts gourds into our lives to refresh us with their exquisite greenery, and to remind us of His thoughtful love! Our fretfulness and petulance are no barriers to His tender mercy. The withering of the gourd extorted bitter reproaches from the prophet who would have beheld the destruction of Nineveh without a tear. He did not realize that to God Nineveh was all, and much more, than the gourd was to him. Notice the extreme beauty of the concluding verse: The permanence of the city contrasted with the frailty of the gourd! The responsibility of God for Nineveh, which He had made to grow! The preciousness to Him, not only of the mature, but of babes and cattle!
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