Jonah 4:11

And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city?.... See Jonah 1:2; what is such a gourd or plant to that?

Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: Thou hast had pity on the gourd,

And should not; may not by virtue of my sovereignty, pity, spare, or pardon if I will? or is there not good reason to incline me to do it, and to justify my doing it? I; God of infinite compassions and goodness. Spare Nineveh, a mighty city: Jonah, thou hast pity on a sorry shrub, and shall thy God be by thee confined that he should not have pity on a vast and mighty city? That great city; a stately structure, which cost immense treasures, was the labour of almost one million and half of labourers, through eight years, the great wonder of that world. Thy gourd, Jonah, may not be named in the day with this; only in a passion this must be ruined to please thee, and thy gourd must not lest it displease thee. Is this equal? wouldst thou have me less merciful to such a goodly city, than thou art to a weed? Wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand: it was a single gourd Jonah pitied, and is angry that it was smitten; here are many hundred thousands of men and women, which I have pitied and spared. Here are more than sixscore thousand innocents who are infants, who are my creatures made for eternity, who grow slowly under my care and charge, whom I value as my own; and, peevish Jonah, wilt thou not allow me (who can) to show pity to mine own invaluable creatures, when thou pitiest what is neither thine nor valuable? Had it been thine, this might have required thy affection; had it been of worth, this might have excused thy earnestness for it; but all this aggravates thy fierce and cruel passion against Nineveh. And also much cattle: beside men, women, and children who are in Nineveh, there are many others of my creatures that are not sinful, and my tender mercies are and shall be over all my works. If thou wouldst be their butcher, yet I will be their God. I know what becomes me, God of prophets; and though once I hearkened to Elijah to send fire from heaven on contemptuous sinners, yet it is not meet to send fire from heaven upon repenting Nineveh. I know how to impress their minds with a continued belief that Jonah came from God to preach repentance, and that it was their repentance prevented their overthrow; I can salve thy credit, Jonah, and yet not humour thy cruelty. Go, Jonah, rest thyself content, and be thankful: that goodness, mercy, and kindness which spared Nineveh, hath spared thee in this thy inexcusable frowardness. I will be to repenting Nineveh what I am to thee, God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and I will turn from the evil thou and they deserve.

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?Ver. 11. And should not I spare Nineveh] I, who am all bowels ( Ego emphaticum. Mercer); I, who am a sin pardoning God, Nehemiah 10:31, none like me for that, Micah 7:18; I, who am "the Father of mercies, and God of all comfort," 2 Corinthians 1:3, whose property and practice it is to comfort "those that are cast down," 2 Corinthians 7:6; I, who am so transcendently gracious, that thou hast even hit me in the teeth with it, Jonah 4:2; should not I be affected with the destruction of Nineveh? That great city] Yea, I will spare it, since it is ten thousand times more worth than that gourd of thine so much pitied. Wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons] More than twelve myriads of innocent infants that cannot discern, &c., but live a kind of sensitive life, as not yet come to the use of reason, and are therefore matched and mentioned with beasts. And also much cattle] A part of my care, which have had their share, as they could, in the common humiliation; and shall therefore share in the common preservation. And hast thou a heart to repine at this, and not to be set down with so good reason? Jonah is now sad and silenced; and although we hear no further of him, yet methinks I see him (Job-like) laying his hand upon his mouth in a humble yieldance; yea, putting his mouth in the dust, and saying, "Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further," Job 40:5. "Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: for thou hast caused me to understand wherein I have erred. How forcible are right words!" Job 6:24-25.

(11) More than . . .—This number of infants, 120,000, according to the usual reckoning, gives a population of 600,000. And also much cattle.—This, which at first reads like an anti-climax, is really, perhaps, the most striking thing in the whole of this marvellous book. Already the idea that a sympathy could exist between Jonah and the gourd has seemed to anticipate by thousands of years the feeling of modern poetry expressed in the lines, “To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears;” and now the final touch, laying especial emphasis on the thought that even the cattle are an interest and care to God, seems at once to leap to the truth which even our own age has been slow to learn. “He prayeth best who loveth best, All creatures great and small, For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.”

Verse 11. And should not I spare Nineveh] In Jonah 4:10 it is said, thou hast had pity on the gourd, אתה חסת attah CHASTA; and here the Lord uses the same word, ואני לא אחוס veani lo ACHUS, "And shall not I have pity upon Nineveh?" How much is the city better than the shrub? But besides this there are in it one hundred and twenty thousand persons! And shall I destroy them, rather than thy shade should be withered or thy word apparently fail? And besides, these persons are young, and have not offended, (for they knew not the difference between their right hand and their left,) and should not I feel more pity for those innocents than thou dost for the fine flowering plant which is withered in a night, being itself exceedingly short-lived? Add to all this, they have now turned from those sins which induced me to denounce judgment against them. And should I destroy them who are now fasting and afflicting their souls; and, covered with sackcloth, are lying in the dust before me, bewailing their offenses and supplicating for mercy? Learn, then, from this, that it is the incorrigibly wicked on whom my judgments must fall, and against whom they are threatened. And know, that to that man will I look who is of a broken and contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word. Even the dumb beasts are objects of my compassion; I will spare them for the sake of their penitent owners; and remember with the rest, That the Lord careth for oxen. The great number of cattle to which reference is here made were for the support of the inhabitants; and probably at this time the Ninevites gathered in their cattle from the champaign pasture, expecting that some foe coming to besiege them might seize upon them for their forage, while they within might suffer the lack of all things. No doubt that ancient Nineveh was like ancient Babylon, of which Quintus Curtius says the buildings were not close to the walls, there being the space of an acre left between them; and in several parts there were within the walls portions of cultivated land, that, if besieged, they might have provisions to sustain the inhabitants. And I suppose this to be true of all large ancient cities. They were rather cantons or districts than cities such as now are, only all the different inhabitants had joined together to wall in the districts for the sake of mutual defence. This last expostulation of God, it is to be hoped, produced its proper effect on the mind of this irritable prophet; and that he was fully convinced that in this, as in all other cases, God had done all things well. FROM this short prophecy many useful lessons may be derived. The Ninevites were on the verge of destruction, but on their repentance were respited. They did not, however, continue under the influence of good resolutions.

11. that cannot discern &c.] The idea that the whole population of Nineveh is thus described, the reference being to their moral condition of heathen ignorance and darkness, has nothing to recommend it. On the contrary, the moral susceptibility of the Ninevites, although they are heathen, is, as we have seen, a prominent feature in the history. The reference is no doubt to the children of tender age who were as yet incapable of moral discrimination, and could not therefore be regarded as responsible agents. The same thought is expressed, without a metaphor, by the phrases, “having no knowledge between good and evil,” Deuteronomy 1:39; “Knowing to refuse the evil, and choose the good,” Isaiah 7:15-16. Between these helpless and innocent children, together with the great multitude of unoffending animals which the vast area of Nineveh contained, and the plant over which Jonah mourned, regarded simply as objects of human compassion, all moral considerations apart, the comparison lies. Any attempt to compute the whole population of Nineveh from the data thus given must necessarily be precarious, from the difficulty of deciding at what age the line is to be drawn. But in any case the total would not be excessive, for the population of so large an area as we have seen that Nineveh enclosed.

Should I not spare? - literally “have pity” and so “spare.” God waives for the time the fact of the repentance of Nineveh, and speaks of those on whom man must have pity, those who never had any

JONAH’S AND REBUKE, Jonah 4:1-11.When Jonah found that his threat was not being fulfilled he became angry and prayed Jehovah to kill him, since life was no longer worth living (Jonah 4:1-3).