Jonah 4

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. Jonah 4:1

To Jonah, the show of God’s compassion was wrong, and it seemed wrong enough to make the prophet very angry. As Boice says, “Jonah is angry. He had obeyed God, doing what God wanted, but God had not done what Jonah wanted.” [1] Apparently, Jonah would have been happy if Nineveh had been burned to cinders. No doubt he thought his Israel brethren would have considered him a false prophet for not bringing about the destruction of their enemy.

Normally, a preacher would be happy at the repentance of his people, but Jonah was truly sad.

“He prayed to the LORD, ‘Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (4:2).

While this is stated as a prayer, it is more of a complaint to God. It is really an “I told you so” offered up to the merciful God. Phillips says, “This truth about God, which should set joy bells ringing in every human heart, actually filled Jonah with rage.” [2] Jonah’s frame of mind could be expressed in these lines of Jonathan Swift:

We are God’s chosen few,

All others will be damned;

There is no place in heaven for you,

We can’t have heaven crammed. [3]

“Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live. But the LORD replied, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?’” (4:3-4). Jonah was angry and discouraged enough to come up with a death wish. Commentator Michael Griffiths compares his attitude to that of Elijah in 1 Kings 19:4. It seemed that both men had risked their lives for nothing, and that Israel’s enemies remained powerful. Griffiths feels that both men were close to a nervous breakdown. [4]

A Pouting Prophet

Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Jonah 4:5

Jonah went east from the city and built himself a shelter. The Hebrew word is sukkah, which means shelter, booth, or tabernacle. Perhaps it was like the tabernacles that Israel once built in the wilderness (cf. Lev. 23:40-42). Boice comments, “Since God had sent Jonah to Nineveh to preach to the people and since, as a result of Jonah’s preaching, they had repented and turned to Jehovah, Jonah should have stayed and taught them more perfectly, becoming a Calvin to Nineveh as the great Protestant reformer was blessed to the city of Geneva.” [5]

“Then the LORD God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant” (4:6). There has been quite a lot of discussion among commentators as to the nature of this plant. The Bible scholar Feinberg names it as the Ricinus plant, or the Palma Christi. He says it is native to India, Palestine, Arabia, Africa, and eastern Europe. It can grow eight to ten feet tall, but its stalk is easily injured. It has large leaves and can mature quickly. [6] We sense that the maturation was not entirely natural. The plant seems to have sprung up in a rather miraculous manner. Jonah was delighted that the plant shaded him from the blistering sun and hot east wind. Coffman feels that there are millions of Jonahs in our society today. These folks are glad for the comforts and luxuries they enjoy. However, they do not consider the great hope of the soul’s eternal redemption in Jesus Christ. [7]

“But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered” (4:7). We see the finger of God both in the creation and destruction of this plant. However, Faussett reports that black caterpillars can strip the leaves from the Palma Christi in one night and leave only the bare ribs. [8]

“When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, ‘It would be better for me to die than to live’” (4:8). This scorching east wind is probably related to the Hamsin ( Khamsin ) east wind that often strikes Israel in the spring and summer. The wind can last for days, and it greatly reduces visibility and comfort. It often leaves a coating of desert dust on the automobiles and everything else. I think we can say that God was putting the heat on Jonah.

Majoring On Minors

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.” Jonah 4:9

Frederick Brotherton Meyer, English pastor and evangelist, says, “The withering of the gourd extorted bitter reproaches from the prophet who would have beheld the destruction of Nineveh without a tear.” [9] It is clear that Jonah was majoring on minors. He was not seeing people and their needs, but only his own selfish needs. He had stopped serving God and others and had become only a spectator. God was patiently trying to help the prophet see that he is the God of all people.

“But the LORD said, ‘You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight’” (4:10). This conversation illustrates just how far the Creator will go and how low he will bend to deal with our pitifully small problems.

While Jonah is a rather sad story, it lends itself to some levity. Let us bring this account up to date just a bit. (Telephone rings… ringy…ding…ding)… “Hello, why hi Jonah, it has been so long since we talked, son!”… “So how are things with you?”… “You quit your job!”… “You say it was a dispute with the boss?”… “That’s sad. The Lord was really doing things through you there. It was like a big revival.”… “So where are you living now?”… “You are living at Gourdville? I never heard of that town.”… “You say there is a terribly hot east wind there?”… “Why not adjust the thermostat?”… “You mean you are homeless?”… “You are living under a shade tree?”… “I never heard of worms eating a shade tree in one night!”… “You say your Whale Hotel was a much worse place to live. Maybe you need to tell us all about that son…?”

On the serious side, Pfeiffer and Harrison call Jonah’s concern for the gourd selfish and that he was sorry for its destruction simply because it served his personal comfort. They note how God’s concern for people is always unselfish. God seeks to give the greatest comfort of all by delivering us from sin. [10]

“And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left – and also many animals?” (4:11). Phillips comments: “Jonah had problems. He did not know God well enough to grieve over sin the way God grieves. Neither did he know God well enough to rejoice over the repentance of sinners the way God rejoices. Jonah had great difficulty accepting the fact that God loved Gentiles just as much as he loved Jews and the fact that he loved the cruel and oppressive Assyrians just as much as he loved him.” [11] God even had a tender concern for the animals involved. We Gentiles should rejoice because Jonah is an early picture of how God would reach out and save millions and billions of Gentile people in the coming centuries. As the Scripture asks, “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too,” (Rom. 3:29).

Jonah also teaches us not to waste our time and prayers on piddling things. Phillips again mentions that a lot of Christians are a lot like Jonah. They get all upset over a shrub in their gardens because it has the blight, and they do not notice the doom of millions of people around them, even their own families and friends. These millions are headed for a long eternity. [12] They prefer a shrub to a city. We might ask ourselves, “Are we more content to remain with the ‘gourds,’ the comforts of home, than to see the message of Christ go out to the ends of the earth to both Jew and Gentile?” [13]

Well, Jonah is a very important book with its message about God’s love for Gentiles and with its sign of Jesus being resurrected from the tomb after three days and three nights. However, did Jonah learn anything? We have no evidence that Jonah was ever changed. When the book ends, he remains his peevish and selfish self. The fate of Nineveh’s 600,000 souls, as well as 120,000 little ones, was no concern for him. God was still patient with him, just like he is still patient and loving with all of us. “For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion’” (Rom. 9:15).

Footnotes

1. Boice, The Minor Prophets, Vol. 1, p. 303.

2. Phillips, Exploring The Minor Prophets, p. 153.

3. Guzik, Enduring Word Bible Commentary, Jonah, vs. 4:2-3.

4. Quoted in Coffman, Coffman’s Commentaries on the Bible, Commentary on Jonah, v. 4:3.

5. Boice, The Minor Prophets, Vol. 1, p. 308.

6. Feinberg, The Minor Prophets, p. 150.

7. Coffman, Coffman’s Commentaries on the Bible, Commentary on Jonah, v. 4:6.

8. Fausset, et. al. Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, Commentary on Jonah, v. 4:7.

9. Frederick Brotherton Meyer, Meyer’s Commentary, Jonah, vs. 4:1-11. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/fbm/jonah.html

10. Pfeiffer & Harrison, The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, p. 850.

11. Phillips, Exploring The Minor Prophets, p. 137.

12. Ibid., p. 154.

13. Feinberg, The Minor Prophets, p. 152.