Jonah 4

4:1, 2 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hastened to flee unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and full of compassion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, and repentest thee of the evil. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die 4, 5 than to live. And the LORD said, Doest thou well to be angry? Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in 6 the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his evil case. So Jonah was exceeding glad because of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry even unto death. And the LORD said, 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: and should not I have pity on 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?

Chap. 4. This chapter is a mournful record of the moral frailties of a good man, and a glorious testimony to the pity, forbearance and love of the blessed God. Jonah is greatly displeased because the Lord reversed the predicted fall of Nineveh: he waits outside the city to see what the Lord would do to it; he put up a rude tent for shelter from the heat; and the Lord brought up a gourd over him for his further relief; but a worm destroys the gourd. Jonah is again fretful, impatient and angry, and the Lord very gently rebukes him, and gives reasons for sparing Nineveh. H. C.

1. Jonah shows himself in his behavior so extremely wayward, that it is perfectly conceivable that he was angry when he saw the city not destroyed. He might reflect that in the eyes of men he had been made a fool of; for how could the world know the actual circumstances of the case? He might also feel vexed by the reflection that he had in his own despite been forced to be the means of saving a city which Jehovah had been on the very point of destroying, and which the instincts of a narrow patriotism prompted him to wish destroyed. B. C.

2-5. He declares that it was his knowledge that the Lord was “very merciful,” and would probably forgive them if they repented, that lay at the root of his original reluctance to undertake this office that had been forced upon him; and he declares that he would far prefer to yield up his own life than see his character as a prophet thus compromised. So morbid had his state of feeling become, that he would not bring himself to believe that the city could be spared after he had, in the Lord’s name, pronounced its doom. He therefore posted himself on an advantageous station in the environs, and resolved to remain there till the time had elapsed within which he had declared the city should be destroyed. Kitto.

2. Many have been tempted to withdraw from their work because they have despaired of doing good by it, but Jonah declined preaching ing because he was afraid of doing good by it; and still he persists in the same corrupt notion. It was his saying when he was in his own country, but it was a bad saying; yet here he stands to it; and, very unlike the other prophets, desires the woful day which he had foretold, and grieves because it does not come. Even Christ’s disciples knew not what manner of spirit they were of; they did not who wished for fire from heaven upon the city that did not receive them, much less did Jonah, who wished for fire from heaven upon the city that did receive him. When it was intimated to Peter himself that he should make no difference between Jews and Gentiles, he startled at the thing and said, “Not so, Lord;” no marvel, then, that Jonah looked upon it with regret that Nineveh should become a favorite. Jonah herein had a zeal for God as the God of Israel in a particular manner, but not according to knowledge. H.

God meant His mission to be one of mercy and love; one that, through fear, should awaken repentance—that, through repentance, should bring salvation. That was not Jonah’s meaning. He could not comprehend it. He was the instrument of doing a work that he did not intend. Through him the people were saved, without its being his purpose. Stoughton.

In estimating Jonah’s character, it is very material to observe that he did then pray; this shows that his was no sullen revolt from God—for then he would not have prayed at all—but an inward conflict rather, in which, instead of abandoning himself to feelings which he knew to be wrong, though he knew not how to master, he frankly made his complaint to God, striving if he might to get at one with himself and with his God. If, while the discontent had still rankled within, he had made show outwardly of pious submission, his behavior would, it is true, have appeared to less disadvantage before men; but if man is now disposed to judge the prophet with severe and wondering disapprobation, Jehovah showed

His acceptance on the whole of His honest though wilful servant, both by His care for his present accommodation and by His whole moral treatment of him.

3. Take my life. Rather, my soul. In making this request, Jonah might plead the example of Moses in his hour of weary vexation (Num. 11 : 15), and the more recent example of Elijah (1 K. 19 : 4), whose history his own so much resembles. Here again we observe that there is no thought of self-murder; the prophet commits himself still to the disposal of God. —Than to live. To be pointed at as a false pretender; with my mission to my own people a failure; with my mission to Gentile Nineveh, already the shame of impenitent Israel, hereafter perhaps to prove its ruin. Let me not see my wretchedness (Num. 11 : 15). B. C.

4. Does thine anger burn justly, rightly?** Hast thou any good reason for such anger? A very gentle rebuke indeed, for sins so great and so provoking to God! H. C.—We are struck with the gentleness with which Jehovah merely suggests a reproof; a representation true to the facts of usual experience. It is thus He is wont, whether by inward or outward warning, to reprove His erring servants. B. C.—See how mildly the great God speaks to this foolish man—to teach us to restore those that are fallen with a spirit of meekness, and with soft answers to turn away wrath. God appeals to himself and to his own conscience, “Doest thou well? Thou knowest thou dost not.” We should often put this question to ourselves: “Is it well to say thus, to do thus? Can I justify it? Must I not unsay it and undo it again by repentance, or be undone forever?” When passion is up, let it meet with this check: “Do I well to be so soon angry, so often angry, so long angry, to put myself into such a heat, and to give others such ill language in my anger? Is this well, that I suffer these headstrong passions to get dominion over me?” H.

5. He went forth and took up his abode on** “the east side of the city;” on some rising ground, we may suppose, not far off, such as the Jebel Maklub or the more distant Kurdish hills, whence he could command a view of the city. There he remained till the forty days were expired, when he perceived that Jehovah had forborne to execute the sentence which he had certainly been commissioned to denounce. He had no difficulty in divining the cause of its remission, having, in fact, himself anticipated it (verse 2). B. C.

6. Still the Lord is mindful of the little comforts of His servant Jonah, and brings up over** him very suddenly the shade of a rapidly growing plant, to “relieve his sufferings”—for so, more accurately, I render the words translated “to deliver him from his grief.” This “gourd” is supposed to be the shrub known by the name of Palma Christi. H. C.

The plant called in Hebrew kikaion is really the Palma Christi, the Ricinus communis of botanists. Dr. Pusey, who has collected much valuable information both about the white shark and the Palma Christi, quotes also an interesting account of the manner in which it is sometimes as suddenly destroyed. “On warm days, when a small rain falls, black caterpillars are generated in great numbers on this plant, which in one night so often and so suddenly cut off its leaves that only their bare ribs remain” (Introd. to Jonah). He further notices that there is nothing in the text to imply that it was the stem that was gnawed asunder, and that the word “worm” might be used collectively for a multitude of caterpillars. As regards the minor point, that if Jonah had built him a booth, he would not have needed a Palma Christi to shade him, he further shows that the booth which Jonah put up was such as the Jews erected at the Feast of Tabernacles; and that these, composed of slight branches, did not exclude the sun. But we can very well imagine that, in so hot a climate, no erection of dead boughs, or even of planks, would give a shade so refreshing as green living foliage. R. P. S.

The supposition that the Ricinus was the kikaion of Jonah, suggested probably in the first instance, but also strongly countenanced by its Egyptian name, is greatly favored by several circumstances of its natural history: 1. According to universal testimony it is of extremely rapid growth, its cane-like stem and branches shooting up and spreading in a wonderfully short time. In Arabia, Niebuhr observed one which grew eight feet in five months. In America it has been even known to attain the height of thirteen feet in three months. 2. It furnishes a thick and grateful shade with its wide, dark green, six or seven-lobed leaves, which from their resemblance to a man’s hand have suggested its name of Palma Christi. 3. It is both extremely perishable and subject to sudden destruction by the caterpillar. Altogether there is no reason for questioning the identification of the kikaion with the palmerist, which is indeed accepted by modern critics with great unanimity. B. C.

Jonah goes to work under the wall of Nineveh; he makes him a booth, and sits under its shadow; but the sun still flames above him and strikes down on him; his labor is vain. That was Jonah’s work; now comes God and works. In an hour, perhaps in an instant, a plant strikes its root downward, and sends its branches upward, and Jonah is sitting at his ease in its cool and refreshing shade. And this without any labor, without a movement, on his part. He neither “labored for it, nor made it to grow.” The Lord, it is said, “made it to come up over him.” It covered him as he sat. And now comes out human nature. How unlike the nature of God! We are told that “Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd;” or, as it is rendered in the margin, “he rejoiced in it with great joy.” There sits a man, and a man of God too, looking down on a city containing well-nigh a million of souls, and expecting the judgments of heaven every moment to blast it; and yet, in this situation, he is studying his own comfort as though he had nothing else to think of, and rejoicing in a little case for his body. C. B.

He was “glad of the gourd,” which, springing up in a night, sheltered him from the burning rays of a fierce sun, but not thankful to God whose goodness had provided it; the feeling was purely selfish and sensual, destitute utterly of piety. Glad of the gift, but not a thought of the Giver; for, as soon as the gourd “withered away,” he was “angry,” and “wished for death,” and bitterly complained to God, and justified his folly and petulance. In all this, Jonah is a type of multitudes of nominal Christians—“glad” because of God’s great mercies, but never grateful; the temporal gift, but not the Divine Giver, is thought of. Anon.

7. Mark the instrument that God used wherewith to afflict Jonah. He might have sent a hurricane to uproot his gourd, a wild beast out of the forest to devour it, or lightning from heaven to blast it; but He prepares a worm, and but one worm, to execute the work, and the work is done, done effectually, done suddenly, as if with violence; “it smote the gourd that it withered.” All through the night, when its protection was but little wanted, it flourished; but now, just at the time when it is most needed, it dies. And so our comforts are often taken from us, when they appear to be the most needed. Our prop gives way when we are the weakest. Our friends die or fail us, our health sinks, our property goes, just at the very period when we seem as though we could not do without them. Such is the history of this miraculous plant—it sprang up, it gave delight, it brought into sight the baseness of the human heart, and then withered. And is not this the history of every comfort the earth yields? You need not be told again why it is so; why the same God that prepares the gourd, prepares also the worm; why He takes away the comforts that He gives. C. B.

Is it not a blessing when these gourds wither? Is it not mercy in God to sweep them utterly away, even though the heart should be half broken by the loss? There is one reposing, for example, on his goods laid up for many days, and regarding them just as Jonah did the goodly foliage of the sheltering plant. Is it not a mercy, in the high reckoning of eternity at least, to have these gifts of God withdrawn, that God Himself may be our trust? Another is reposing under the shadow of some protecting friend. To him, and not to God, the eye of hope, or the heart of expectation turns. Now, is it not a mercy, according to the standard of the sanctuary at least, that that earthly friend should be withdrawn, that we may learn to lean upon the Lord alone? A third may be seeking all the heaven which he knows, in something which perishes in the using. Is it not well that the delusion should be swept away, that God may be sought, and eternity provided for? Many will bless God forever because their gourds were withered—just as the saints in glory praise the King of saints, “because they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted and tormented.” Had the gourd not withered, the soul would not have been saved; and the withering of the gourd, therefore, makes the anthem of the saved the louder. W. K. Tweedie.

Don’t argue about your afflictions; for in that case it is likely to fasten and perpetuate the impression on your hearts that God is dealing hardly with you, and driving you beyond the reach of all consolation and all hope. Don’t rise up like Jonah, nor attempt to fix your undivided attention on the blasted gourd lying all withered around you. For in that case you may be ready to exclaim, as he did, “I do well to be angry.” Take your heaviest trials to the mercy-seat. Spread them out before God. Deal with Him, not as with a task-master, but a loving Father. Ask Him to solve your doubts, to cast light upon your darkness, to aid you amid your helplessness, and to reveal to you why it is that He has been afflicting you, what defective grace He is seeking to supply, what wayward tendency He is seeking to correct, what besetting sin He is seeking to subdue. Remember that there is a need-be for every affliction that He sends; and neither speak unadvisedly with your lips, nor charge God foolishly. It may be a bitter medicine that He pours into your cup; but He does not do it recklessly, nor without some good reason, or with the design of harming you. E. Hull.

Jonah had a gourd that was to him an arbor; he sat under it secure; but suddenly there was a worm that bit it, and it died. Compare, secretly in your hearts, your riches to that gourd; your pleasure to the greenness of it; your pomp, attendance, vanities, to the leaves of it; your sudden increase of wealth to the growing and shooting up of it. But, withal, forget not the worm and the wind. The worm that shall kill your root is death, and the wind that shall blow upon you is calamity. Adams, 1654.—God can send a worm to bite the gourd, while it flourishes over our heads; and while He “gives riches,” deny a “heart to enjoy them.” For whence is it else, that there are some who flourish with honors, flow with riches, swim with the greatest affluence of plenty, and all other the materials of delight; and yet they are as discontented, as dissatisfied as the poorest of men? Care rises up and lies down with them, sits upon their pillow, waits at their elbow, runs by their coaches; and the grim spirits of fear and jealousy haunt their stately houses and habitations. Whence is this, but from a secret displeasure of God, which takes out the vitals, the heart, and the spirit of the enjoyment, and leaves them only the caput mortuum of the possession. South.

8. This fresh outbreak of impatience on the part of Jonah is to be ascribed to his renewed sense of vexation at the sparing of Nineveh; this had for a while been somewhat allayed by the comfort, both bodily and spiritual, brought to him by the palmerist; but now it rose up afresh, heightened by the destruction of the goodly tree and by the distressing heat of the sun. The impulsive vehemence of his temper is betrayed, alike in the pleasure which he took in the palmerist’s beauty, and in his vexation at its loss. B. C.

The incident of the gourd, while plainly didactic, is yet very unlike a mere invention. It harmonizes with the natural circumstances in which the prophet was placed. And yet the manner in which the lesson is taught is very unusual. Who would have thought that such a man as Jonah could have shown any anger over the loss of the gourd? It was the petulance of the prophet which broke forth, and it was the contrast between the selfish smallness of the man and the large love and generous pity of God, which evidently was intended to be the main lesson of the incident. But who would have invented such facts? The form is too simple and natural for fiction. The character of Jonah is too extraordinary to be the product of mere genius. Its very improbability is the guarantee of its truthfulness. Redford.

9. The same question, in the same words as in verse 6, and with the same meaning, only that this respects his recent anger because of the withered gourd. Strange to say, Jonah justifies himself, and by implication complains of God for suffering the worm to kill his gourd! H. C.—The prophet here records his own impatience, as Moses and other holy writers have done, without concealing any circumstance of it. Bp. Hall.

10, 11. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity, etc. Then said the Lord, I have done this purposely to show thee thine own error and weakness; thou hadst pity on a sorry plant, which cost thee no labor, which received no life from thee, which suddenly came up and suddenly vanished. And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are sixscore thousand infants, that have not lived to offend, and much cattle, which are not capable of offence? How much are these better than the senseless plants of the earth! And these are the work of my hands, and have cost me much care and regard, and such as require time and leisure for their perfection; bethink thyself therefore how just reason I have to be angry at thy unmercifulness, which art angry at My forbearance of Nineveh. Bp. Hall.

The passage makes useful and rich revelations in respect to the feelings of the great God as to those fearful judgments which fall on the wicked, but which, as the world is, must involve some innocent beings—a part of them innocent as having not yet reached sufficient intelligence to make them morally accountable, and others as not having by nature any moral attributes. In the light of this passage it becomes altogether plain that God always takes into account the case of these sinless sufferers, and regards their presence as itself a plea for sparing the guilty. Of course he will give this plea all the consideration which the nature of the case will allow. He will punish, in forms that necessarily involve the unsinning in the general ruin, only when the ends of a moral system imperatively demand it. Who can estimate the amount of sparing mercy which the guilty of our world owe, in this life, to God’s pity for infants and for the sentient but unsinning animal races? H. C.

The purpose of the mention of these one hundred and twenty thousand children is at once to indicate how large the city was, as appears from its immediately following the words “that great city,” and also to present a plea for showing mercy to a population so many of whom had not themselves deserved to suffer. The argument of these last two verses comprises a number of very striking thoughts. Some of them are the following: Any vegetable growth is of small account compared with a human being, much more compared with a large city; the mushroom-like, frail existence of a palmerist shows as nothing by the side of the ancient city of Nineveh; God’s works are a dearly prized possession in His eyes, with which He is loath to part, especially when He has “labored” for them and brought them to great magnitude by a long process of care (compare the “lost sheep” and the “lost piece of silver” in Luke 15). While no reference is here made to the repentance of the Ninevites—a consideration of vast weight, and one which would have been of itself amply sufficient, which however at present stands in the background—stress is ex abundanti laid upon the one hundred and twenty thousand innocents which Nineveh contained, mighty though unconscious intercessors! nay, even upon the “much cattle” which was there, showing that God does “care for oxen.” Altogether, a glimpse is here afforded us into the heart of God, whose tender mercies are over all His works, which not only marks the passage as one of remarkable beauty, but also fits it to be through all ages a standing reproof of every form of bigotry. The narrative closes abruptly without stating the impression left upon the prophet’s own mind. But this the narrator deems unnecessary. It suffices him, Jonah (as we suppose) himself, that the prophet’s narrow-mindedness is exposed and rebuked, and that God’s mercy is justified. B. C.

Thus the book ends with the majestic thought that in God’s government of men, Gentile as well as Jew, penitence universally procures pardon, since human life is everywhere God’s loving workmanship, in which He has pleasure, and which He will not willingly pain, and only in the last extremity of impenitence destroy. Elmslie.

Suggested Truths and Lessons.

How Jonah received this unexpected issue of his preaching. Perhaps, full of Jewish prejudices like Peter, he could not fall in with the idea that God would extend that mercy to the Gentile Ninevites which He was now withdrawing from his own people, Israel. Or he might be averse to the increase of Nineveh’s power, lest that power should be employed (as it was) in the destruction of Israel. Or he might be selfishly mortified that his prediction was belied by the result. Perhaps all these causes were combined with his naturally self-willed, fretful, repining temper to produce that disagreeable and wrong frame of mind which required the further dealing of God. Yet, although with an irreverent spirit Jonah boldly justified his peevish anger, God forbears wondrously with His prophet. And we may infer that the Divine dealing was successful. Doubtless he went back a wiser, more humble and patient man, more willing that God should have His way. And his experience was not a vain or useless one in all this matter. He went back and told his own people how that great Gentile city had heard and heeded the one only call of Jehovah to repentance. And he wrote and handed down the same striking lesson to all succeeding generations. And he also faithfully impressed the personal lessons he had received, although the disclosure is so unflattering to himself. The honest simplicity with which throughout he contrasts God’s patience and pity with his own impatience and seeming hardness of heart has no equal parallel in the Scripture history.

As God bore with Jonah, so we are to bear with good people and others in their peevish and ill-tempered times. Recall the good and the truth that is in them, and reach them by the quiet force of a gentle spirit and a right example. Neither to Elijah nor to Jonah, in their bold repining, did God answer sharply back. In both cases He employed natural agencies to illustrate the needed lessons. And, as far as his wisdom and grace enables us, let us illustrate by our daily life, spirit, and deed, what lessons we may convey to others more infirm. B.

One great lesson in Jonah’s story is the duty and happiness of having our will coincident with the will of God. God is the world’s great Ruler. His will is law. His power is supreme: yet it is not arbitrary might, but wise and gracious omnipotence. To resist God’s will is as wicked as it is foolish—as ruinous as it is wicked. “Will ye set the thorns and briars against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.” First,

Jonah resisted, and fled from the presence of the Lord; and trouble followed, and overtook, and overwhelmed him. Then Jonah resisted again, and in the bitter workings of his own mind, in his petulance and anger, he paid the penalty of disquietude and anguish. For what peace could there be in a mind at war with the order, the government, the Sovereign of the universe? We are taught, then, that there is only trouble without and misery within for all those who fight against their Maker. “In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.” Not in earthly gourds shall ye long find comfort and peace, for God can blast them, and He will if you make them your portion. Whereas, in life’s hottest day and coldest night, amid the bleakest scenes and under the roughest blasts, if your will be one with His, you shall enjoy an invisible protection, and be cheered by spiritual comfort, which shall be unto you as “an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest—as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” J. Stoughton.

The evident intention of the whole chapter is to place man in contrast with God. Jonah’s idea of the Divine character was plainly an imperfect one. He thought that Divine repentance was Divine weakness, that the non-fulfilment of the word was a dishonor to Jehovah. What he did not understand was the supremacy of love in the dealings of God with His creatures. He was displeased; he was very angry. Yet it was not entirely for himself. It was for Jehovah and the honor of His spoken word. But afterward he came to see that the greatness of God is not that which man is prone to think it, the greatness of power alone, or even of justice alone, but the fatherly greatness, which smites only for the sake of saving life, and not for the sake of destroying it. Why did Jonah pity the gourd? because it served him. Was it not a much greater pity which God had for Nineveh? absolutely unselfish, perfectly pure, infinitely great. The thoughts and feelings of the prophet are those of a man of like passions and infirmities with all others; but when we set over against them the purposes and revelations of God, surely we shall bow down and worship Him, before whom all men and things lie open; who, while He has made Himself known to His servants the prophets, is yet unsearchable in His wisdom; but His love is a “height and length and depth and breadth which passeth knowledge.”

One of the most remarkable facts about the Book of Jonah is, that while he himself is so prominent in it, yet there is not one word from beginning to end of comment upon his character and conduct. He openly disobeys a Divine command; he is followed silently and swiftly by the Divine judgment. Yet there is no word of the writer’s own in condemnation of his flight. He passes through a wonderful discipline of Providence, and is miraculously saved. His hymn of thanksgiving is preserved. But no word is said of his state of mind, his sense of sin, his repentance, his return to the attitude of submission and prompt obedience to the Divine command. He receives his new commission, and at once rises up to fulfil it; goes to Nineveh and preaches with marvellous success; still there is a strange reserve in the narrative. One would have expected some description of Jonah’s feelings and experience in entering the heathen city, some account of the method which he followed in calling the Ninevites to repentance. But the facts are again set before us in the barest, most naked simplicity, without one single sentence of reflection. This is still more noticeable in the last chapter, where again the contrast is suggested between what was in Jonah’s mind and what was in the mind of Jehovah. We are looking on a very pitiable object: a prophet of God, under the influence of most unworthy and miserable feelings, betraying a rebellious anger against the appointments of the Divine will, which rouses a holy indignation against him; and still the close of the book is significantly abrupt. Nothing added to the picture; only the touching remonstrance against the selfish narrowness of the man, the tender pleading of Divine compassion against human prejudice and blindness. The only probable and consistent view of the work is that Jonah wrote it himself. He therefore said as little about himself as possible. He told the facts with all their weight of meaning against his own character, just as they were, without a line of exculpation or condemnation. He left his character to be a study for his successors, because he knew that through him God was speaking to the whole world. Redford.