But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. He prayed to Yahweh, and said, “Please, Yahweh, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm. Therefore now, Yahweh, take, I beg you, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Yahweh said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made himself a booth, and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would become of the city. Yahweh God prepared a vine, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the vine. But God prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine, so that it withered. When the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–8 Jerome commends this grief of Jonah, and compares it…
Jerome commends this grief of Jonah, and compares it to the holy zeal of Paul when he wished himself to be an anathema for his brethren, (Romans 9:3:) for he denies that he grieved because God had showed mercy to so illustrious a city; but because the conversion of the Gentiles was a certain presage of the destruction of the chosen people. As then Jonah perceived as in a mirror the near ruin of Israel, he on this account grieved, if we believe Jerome: but this notion is extremely frivolous; for, immediately after, God reproved Jonah. What then will the foolish and puerile apology of Jerome avail the Prophet, since God has declared that he acted perversely in grieving? Nay, the dullness of Jerome is thus become evident; (thus indeed do I speak of a man, who, though learned and laborious, has yet deprived himself of that praise, which otherwise he might have justly earned.) His wayward disposition everywhere betrayed itself; and he is evidently disproved in this very context, where Jonah shows clearly that the cause of his grief was another, even this, — that he was unwilling to be deemed a false or a lying prophet: hence was his great grief and his bitterness. And this we see, had God not expressed his mind, was unjust and inconsistent with every reason.
We may then conclude that Jonah was influenced by false zeal when he could not with resignation bear that the city of Nineveh should have been delivered from destruction: and he also himself amplifies the greatness of his sin. He might have said, in one word, that it displeased Jonah; but not satisfied with this simple form, he adds, that he felt great displeasure or grief; and he afterwards adds, that he was very angry. Though the beginning may not have been wrong, yet excess was sinful. But he confesses that there was excess, and want of moderation in his grief: since then he accuses himself in plain words what good is it, by false and invented pretenses, to cover what we clearly see cannot be excused? But that it may be more evident why the deliverance of the city of Nineveh displeased Jonah, let us go on with the context —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Because hereby he should be taken as a false…
Because hereby he should be taken as a false prophet, and so the Name of God, which he preached, should be blasphemed.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–8 Jon 4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he…
Jon 4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
Ver. 1. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly] Mirabilis homo profecto fuit Ionas, saith Winckelman here, as strange a man was Jonah of an honest man as you shall lightly hear of. Well might David caution, Psa 37:8, "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. A fretful man is easily drawn to evil. David was (once at least) displeased at God’s dealing, which was no whit for his credit or comfort, 2Sa 6:8. Discontented he was, not at God’s lenity, as Jonah, but at God’s severity against Uzziah, and that all the people’s joy should be dashed and damped with such a sad and sudden disaster. How much better minded was he when dumb, not once opening his mouth, because God did it, Psa 39:9. The Greeks give this rule, Either say nothing, or say that which is better than nothing, η σιγαν η κρεισσονα σιγης λεγειν. "O that you would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom," said Job to his friends, Job 13:5. Silence sometimes comes to be a virtue; and never more than when a man is causelessly displeased. Prima semper irarum tela maledicta sunt, saith Sallust. Angry people are apt to let fly, to mutter and mutiny against God and man, as here. Reason should say to choler that which the nurse saith to the child, Weep not, and you shall have it. But either it doth not, or if it do, yet the ear (which tasteth words, as the mouth doth meat) is oft so filled with gall (some creatures have fel in aure gall in gold) that nothing can relish with it. See Exo 6:9. If Moses’ anger was pure, free from guile and gall, Exo 32:19, yet Jonah’s was not so. It is surely very difficult to kindle and keep quick this fire without all smoke of sin. Be angry and sin not is, saith one, the easiest charge, under the hardest condition that can be. Men, for the most part, know not what they do in their anger; this raiseth such a smoke. Put fire to wet straw and filthy stuff, and it will smoke and smutch you quickly; yea, scorch you and scald you, when once it breaks out. Lev 13:5, we read of a leprosy breaking out of a burning: seldom do passions burn but there is a leprosy breaking out of that burning. It blistereth out at the lips: hence the Hebrews have but one and the same word for anger and foaming at the mouth, Ketseph, spuma, Hos 10:7 Est 1:18 Zec 1:2. They have also a proverb, that a man’s disposition is much discovered, bechos, bechis, becagnab, by his cup, by his purse, and by his passion, at which time, and in which cases, "A fool uttereth all his mind," Pro 29:11 (all his wrath, say the Seventy, θυμον), and that suddenly, rashly, as the Hebrew intimateth; but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards, Pro 29:11 ( פתר a fool, and פתאם suddenly, rashly, are from the same root. De sera numin, vindict.). Ahasuerus, when he felt himself enraged against Haman, walked into his garden, Est 7:7. And Plutarch tells of one Archytas, that, displeased with his servants for their sloth, he fled from them, saying, Valete quoniam vobis irascor, I will leave you, for that I am angry with you. The very first insurrections of inordinate passions are to be crushed, the first smoke of them to be smothered, which else will fume up into the head, and gather into so thick a cloud, as we shall lose the sight of ourselves and what is best to be done. Cease, therefore, from rash anger, and stint strife betime. "The beginning of it," saith Solomon, "is as when one letteth out water; therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with," Pro 17:14. Storms rise out of little gusts, and the highest winds are at first but a small vapour. Had Jonah stopped or stepped back when he felt himself first stirred, he had not so shamefully overshot himself, nor heaped up so many sins, as he did in the following intercourse with Almighty God. He was naturally hot and hasty, and so were those two brethren, the sons of thunder; they had quick and hot spirits, Luk 9:54-55. Now, where there is much untowardness of nature there grace is the more easily overborne: sour wines need much sweetening. God’s best children, though ingrafted into the true vine, yet carry they about them a relish of the old stock still. It is thought by very good divines, that Jonah, feeling his own weakness in giving place to anger, thought to strive against it, and so addressed himself to prayer, Jon 4:2; but transported by his passions of grief and rash anger, while by prayer he thought to have overcome them, they overcame him and his prayer too. So true is that of the apostle, "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God," Jas 1:20.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–8 But, Heb. And, it, the Divine forbearance sparing the…
But, Heb. And, it, the Divine forbearance sparing the great and sinful Nineveh,
displeased Jonah; was very disagreeable to Jonah’s hasty and fierce temper, to his love of his own credit, and it afflicted him to see Nineveh survive the forty days limited for their continuance.
Read full note →
Exceedingly; it was a great affliction to him, so highly distempered is Jonah at God’s goodness to a repenting city.
And he was very angry: this kindled a fire in his breast which was made up of envy, indignation, and grief, for that it was not done, and desire that yet it may be done. Jonah would yet have Nineveh a sacrifice to God’s justice, and an eternal monument of his truth who foretold its ruin.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–8 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very…
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. Jonah was "mirabilis homo", as one calls him, an "amazing man"; the strangest, oddest, and most out of the way man, for a good man and a prophet, as one shall ever hear or read of. Displeased he was at that, which one would have thought he would have exceedingly rejoiced at, the success of his ministry, as all good men, prophets, and ministers of the word, do; nothing grieves them more than the hardness of men's hearts, and the failure of their labours; and nothing more rejoices them than the conversion of sinners by them; but Jonah is displeased at the repentance of the Ninevites through his preaching, and at the mercy of God showed unto them: displeased at that, on account of which there is joy in heaven among the divine Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, and among the holy angels, even over one repenting sinner; and much more over many thousands, as in this case: displeased at that which is the grudge, the envy, and spite of devils, and which they do all they can to hinder: and the more strange it is that Jonah should act such a part at this time, when he himself had just received mercy of the Lord in so extraordinary a manner as to be delivered out of the fish's belly, even out of the belly of hell; which one would think would have warmed his heart with love, not only to God, but to the souls of men, and caused him to have rejoiced that others were sharers with him in the same grace and mercy, reasons of this strange conduct, if they may be called reasons, are supposed to be these: one reason was, his own honour, which he thought lay at stake, and that he should be reckoned a false prophet if Nineveh was not destroyed at the time he had fixed; but the proviso implied, though not expressed,
"except ye repent,''
Read full note →
secured his character; which was the sense of the divine Being, and so the Ninevites understood it, or at least hoped this was the case, and therefore repented, and which the mercy shown them confirmed: nor had Jonah any reason to fear they would have reproached him with such an imputation to his character; but, on the contrary, would have caressed him as the most welcome person that ever came to their city, and had been the instrument of showing them their sin and danger, and of bringing them to repentance, and so of saving them from threatened ruin; and they did him honour by believing at once what he said, and by repenting at his preaching; and which is testified by Christ, and stands recorded to his honour, and will be transmitted to the latest posterity: another reason was his prejudice to the Gentiles, which was unreasonable for, though this was the foible of the Jewish nation, begrudging that any favours should be bestowed upon the Gentiles, or prophesied of them; see Rom 10:19; yet a prophet should have divested himself of such prejudices, as Isaiah and others did; and, especially when he found his ministry was so blessed among them, he should have been silent, and glorified God for his mercy, and said, as the converted Jews did in Peter's time, "then God hath granted unto the Gentiles repentance unto life", Act 11:18; to do otherwise, and as Jonah did, was to act like the unbelieving Jews, who "forbid" the apostles to "preach to the Gentiles, that they might be saved", Th1 2:16. A third reason supposed is the honour of his own countrymen, which he thought would be reflected on, and might issue in their ruin, they not returning from their evil ways, when the Heathens did: a poor weak reason this! with what advantage might he have returned to his own country? with what force of argument might he have accosted them, and upbraided them with their impenitence and unbelief; that Gentiles at one sermon should repent in sackcloth and ashes, when they had the prophets one after another sent them, and without effect? and who knows what might have been the issue of this? lastly, the glory of God might be pretended; that he would be reckoned a liar, and his word a falsehood, and be derided as such by atheists and unbelievers; but here was no danger of this from these penitent ones; and, besides, the proviso before mentioned secured the truth and veracity of God; and who was honoured by these persons, by their immediate faith in him, and repentance towards him; and his grace and mercy were as much glorified in the salvation of them as his justice would have been in their destruction.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 Jonah repines at God's mercy, ver. 1-3. Is reproved,…
Jonah repines at God's mercy, ver. 1-3. Is reproved, ver. 4. His discontent at the withering of the gourd, ver. 5-9. God improves it for his conviction, ver. 10, 11.
It - The divine forbearance sparing Nineveh.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–8 Jonah, dreading to be thought a false prophet, repines…
CHAPTER IV
Jonah, dreading to be thought a false prophet, repines at God's
Read full note →
mercy in sparing the Ninevites, whose destruction he seems to
have expected, from his retiring to a place without the city
about the close of the forty days. But how does he glorify that
mercy which he intends to blame! And what an amiable posture
does he give of the compassion of God! 1-5. This attribute of the Deity is still farther illustrated by his
tenderness and condescension to the prophet himself, who, with
all his prophetic gifts, had much of human infirmity, 6-11.
NOTES ON CHAP. IV
Verse 1. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly] This hasty, and indeed inconsiderate prophet, was vexed because his prediction was not fulfiled. He had more respect to his high sense of his own honour than he had to the goodness and mercy of God. He appeared to care little whether six hundred and twenty thousand persons were destroyed or not, so he might not pass for a deceiver, or one that denounced a falsity.
And he was very angry.] Because the prediction was not literally fulfilled; for he totally lost sight of the condition.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 Jon 4:1-3. But it — The divine forbearance in…
Jon 4:1-3. But it — The divine forbearance in sparing Nineveh; displeased Jonah exceedingly — “Seeing that what he had foretold against the Ninevites did not happen, he was afraid lest he should pass for a false prophet and a deceiver, his ministry be despised, and his person exposed to the violence of the Ninevites. He was therefore very peevish and impatient, and he vents his complaints in the following verse.” And he prayed unto the Lord — He uttered expostulations and complaints in his prayer to God, wherein he pleaded an excuse for his former disobedience to God’s commands. O Lord, was not this my saying — Did I not think of this, and suppose that it would be the case, that thy pardon would contradict my preaching? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish — Namely, to avoid coming upon this message, for I knew that thou art a gracious God — I knew by the declarations thou madest to Moses, (Exo 34:6,) and by several instances of thy mercy, that thou dost not always execute the punishments thou threatenest against sinners; being moved by thy essential goodness and mercifulness to spare them. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me — “I cannot survive the confusion of seeing my prediction vain and to no effect; I cannot bear to live under the imputation of being a false prophet.” For it is better for me to die than to live — We may learn from this, that Jonah was naturally a man of a hasty, impatient temper; for he here shows himself to have been exceedingly vexed without any just cause. For it does not appear that the Ninevites would have despised him, or looked upon him as a false prophet, though the city was not destroyed; because their having recourse to fasting, humiliation, and turning from their evil ways, was in order to avert the wrath of God, that he might repent and turn from his fierce anger, and they perish not; see Jon 3:9; and therefore they would, in all probability, have attributed the city’s preservation to this their humiliation and repentance, and have still looked upon Jonah as one that was divinely commissioned. So that he was indeed moved to these passionate expressions and exclamations purely by his own hasty disposition, and not from any just cause given him.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–8 And Jonah was displeased exceedingly - It was an…
And Jonah was displeased exceedingly - It was an untempered zeal. The prophet himself records it as such, and how he was reproved for it. He would, like many of us, govern God’s world better than God Himself. Short-sighted and presumptuous! Yet not more short-sighted than those who, in fact, quarrel with God’s Providence, the existence of evil, the baffling of good, “the prison walls of obstacles and trials,” in what we would do for God’s glory. What is all discontent, but anger with God? The marvel is that the rebel was a prophet ! “What he desired was not unjust in itself, that the Ninevites should be punished for their past sins, and that the sentence of God pronounced against them should not be recalled, although they repented. For so the judge hangs the robber for theft, however he repent.” He sinned, in that he disputed with God. Let him cast the first stone, who never rejoiced at any overthrow of the enemies of his country, nor was glad, in a common warfare, that they lost as many soldiers as we. As if God had not instruments enough at His will! Or as if He needed the Assyrians to punish Israel, or the one nation, whose armies are the terror of Europe, to punish us, so that if they should perish, Israel should therefore have escaped, though it persevered in sin, or we!
And he was very angry - , or, may be, “very grieved.” The word expresses also the emotion of burning grief, as when Samuel was grieved at the rejection of Saul, or David at “the breach upon Uzzah” 2Sa 6:8; 1Ch 13:11. Either way, he was displeased with what God did. Yet so Samuel and David took God’s doings to heart; but Samuel and David were grieved at God’s judgments; Jonah, at what to the Ninevites was mercy, only in regard to his own people it seemed to involve judgment. Scripture says that he was displeased, because the Ninevites were spared; but not, why this displeased him. It has been thought, that it was jealousy for God’s glory among the pagan, as though the Ninevites would think that God in whose Name he spake had no certain knowledge of things to come; and so that his fault was mistrust in God’s wisdom or power to vindicate His own honor. But it seems more likely, that it was a mistaken patriotism, which idolized the well being of his own and God’s people, and desired that its enemy, the appointed instrument of its chastisement, should be itself destroyed. Scripture being silent about it, we cannot know certainly. Jonah, under God’s inspiration, relates that God pronounced him wrong. Having incurred God’s reproof, he was careless about men’s judgment, and left his own character open to the harsh judgments of people; teaching us a holy indifference to man’s opinion, and, in our ignorance, carefulness not to judge unkindly.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 6, 8 Troubled. His concern was lest he should pass for…
Troubled. His concern was lest he should pass for a false prophet; or rather lest God’s word, by this occasion might come to be slighted and disbelieved. (Challoner) --- He conjectured that God would spare the penitent Ninivites, and feared lest prophecies should be deemed uncertain. But this doubt is solved by observing that some are conditional, (chap. iii. 4., and Jeremias xviii. 8.) as it proved here. When the people relapsed, they were afterwards destroyed, Nahum i., &c. (Worthington) (Chap. iii. 10.) --- The conversion of Ninive was an earnest of that of the Gentiles. (Calmet) --- This being so intimately connected with the reprobation of the Jews, (Haydock) the prophet was grieved at the misery of the latter, (St. Jerome) which our Saviour and St. Paul bewailed. (Acts xi. 2.; Romans x. 19.; Luke xix.; &c.) Yet Jonas seems to have considered himself rather too much.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 [Jonah repines at God’s Mercy to the Ninevites. God…
CHAPTER 4
[Jonah repines at God’s Mercy to the Ninevites. God employs a Palmchrist as a means to reprove and instruct him.—C.E.]
Read full note →
1But [And] it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.1 2And he prayed unto [to] the Lord [Jehovah], and said: I pray thee [Ah! now], O Lord [Jehovah], was not this my saying, when [while] I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before [I anticipated it by fleeing] unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 3Therefore now, O Lord [And now, O Jehovah] take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live [my 4death is better than my life]. Then [And] said the Lord [Jehovah said], Doest 5thou well to be angry?2 So [And] Jonah went3 out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him [for himself] a booth, and sat under it in the shadow [shade], till he might [should] see what would become of the city. 6And the Lord [Jehovah] God prepared a gourd [palmchrist] and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be [to be] a shadow [shade] over his head, to deliver him from his grief [distress]. So [And] Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. 7But God prepared [appointed] a worm when the morning rose [at the rising of the dawn] the next day, and it smote the gourd [palmchrist] [so] that it withered. 8And it came to pass, when the sun did arise [at the rising of the sun], that God prepared [appointed] a vehement [sultry] east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that [and] he fainted, and wished in himself [asked his soul, i.e., asked for himself] to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live [my death is better than my life]. 9And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well [is it right] to be angry for the gourd [palmchrist]? And he said, I do well [It is right] to be angry, even 10unto death. Then [And] said the Lord [Jehovah], Thou hast had pity on [wast grieved for] the gourd [palmchrist], for the which [on which] thou hast not labored, neither madest it [and which thou hast not caused to] grow; which came4 up in a night [which was the son of a night], and perished in a night: 11And should not I spare [have pity upon] Nineveh, that great city, wherein [in which] are more than sixscore thousand persons, that cannot discern [distinguish] between their right hand and their left hand; and also [omit, also] much cattle.5
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Jonah’s Discontent and Correction. This chapter does not form, as Ch. B. Michaelis thinks, two dialogues between God and Jonah; but as is evident from the retrospective reference of Jon_4:8 to Jon_4:3, and as the translation shows, Jon_4:5 f. gives the scenery for the preceding verses, and these verses presuppose that Jonah must have already gone out of Nineveh, sat a long time in his observatory, and waited in vain for the destruction of the city. For he does not complain because the Ninevites repented, but because God had already shown Himself merciful toward them. (Comp. below at Jon_4:3; and the solution of the difficulty from the idiom and literary character of the book, Introduction, p. 8.
Jon_4:1. He was, therefore, already sitting in the glowing heat of the sun, when the discontent, Jon_4:1, came over him. The verb רַע is used here of the feeling, in a metaphorical sense, It seemed evil to him, which is usually accompanied in other places by the additional clause, in his eyes. [Same as here, Neh_2:10; Neh_13:8; only with ל instead of אֶל]. He was not angry because he had pondered in his mind the dangers, which were destined to come upon his country and people, in the future, through the Assyrians, who had just been delivered (Abarbanel); nor because he had seen the final doom of the Jews and heathen prefigured by the acceptance of the repentance of Nineveh contrasted with the impenitence of Israel (Hieron.); (this God would have corrected in another way); but his displeasure, as Calvin justly admitted, arose from a common littleness of mind incident to humanity, which, for the moment, thought only of his mortified honor as a prophet; and because the lie had apparently been given to his prediction, he entirely forgot that the life and death of hundreds of thousands were involved in its fulfillment. There is no intimation in the text that he envied the heathen the divine mercy and wished the destruction of Nineveh, either from ardent love to his people (Hengstenberg), or from a wrong notion of God (Keil following Luther), though such a feeling might have influenced him as a secondary motive. Rather his notion of God was in nowise perverted, for he must have known from the law [Torah] (Exo_34:6), and he did know (Jon_4:2), that God is merciful and gracious, long-suffering and rich in mercy; and the whole of the second verse is spoken out of ill humor that he had been sent, not with the object of delivering a prophecy that was to be fulfilled, but of delivering one that was revoked, which was intended as a means of repentance.
As above Jon_1:12, so also here, Jon_4:2. Jonah’s wrong disposition of heart does not prevent his mouth from speaking the whole truth of God. Office and word, apart from the person, his weaknesses, and sins, are, according to the Scripture conception, intimately connected with one another. (Compare the striking example, Joh_11:50 f.). Jonah, it is said, prayed to Jehovah. “Necesse est in hac Jonæ precatione aliquid agnoscere pietatis et simul multa vitia.” (Calvin.) It is true that when he fled to Tarshish he did not say that he would not prophesy because of the mercy of God (comp. at Jon_1:3); but it is quite human to palliate an originally unreasonably undertaken step by motives drawn from wisdom subsequently acquired, or from fortunate accident. Therefore I anticipated—προέφθασα, LXX.—the errand, whose fruitlessness I foresaw, and fled to Tarshish. These, of course, were not his words, when he fled to Tarshish, that he was unwilling to prophesy, because of the mercy of God (comp. Jon_1:3); but it is human nature to color an undertaking, for which originally no reasons can in truth be assigned, with the reasons derived from a more recently acquired wisdom, or from the event. The infinitive with לְ is gerundial. The phrase “in my country,” is an important element for the symbolical interpretation of the book. (See above, p. 5; comp. Jer_52:27).
As in chap. 3 the fifth verse gave a brief summary of the longer statement which follows; so here Jon_4:3-4, are in part the literal quintessence of the following detailed account. Jon_4:5-7, as a commentary to be added by way of supplement to Jon_4:1 ff. give the moving cause (Jonah, to wit, had, etc.); and the more exact psychological understanding of Jon_4:3 results from Jon_4:8.
The non-consideration of the forty days belongs to the symbolical character of the narrative, which cares more for the essential circumstances than for the chronology; and, in any case, it furnishes no reason to assume with Keil, that Jon_4:1 ff. should be placed within the forty days and during Jonah’s sojourn in the city, and that Jon_4:5 ff. should be placed after. Jonah was certain that the punishment was revoked, consequently the expiration of the time is presupposed in Jon_4:1 as in Jon_4:5; and it is neither probable that Jonah should wait in the city for the threatened destruction, nor that, after the completion of the time, within which the Spirit had instructed him to announce it, he should then go out of the city and wait for it. If Calvin remarks in favor of the latter supposition; “Etsi enim prœterierant quadraginta dies, Jonas tamen quasi constrictus stetit, quia nondum poterat statuere, quod prius ex mandato Dei protulerat carere suo effectu,” then, on the other hand, it may be observed that he was only too ready to maintain the latter, according to Jon_4:2, and that the עד Jon_4:5, “till he might see,” indicates a state, not of consternation, but of easy expectation. We accordingly abide by the rendering of Jon_4:4 in the pluperfect tense, the grammatical probability of which even Keil cannot deny, and the necessity of which is also acknowledged by Starke, Ch. B. Mich., Hitzig, and others; only that we should not restrict the same to Jon_4:4 exclusively, but extend it to the verses immediately following till Jon_4:8.
[Jon_4:5. “This verse regarded by many commentators as a supplementary remark, וָיֵּצֵא, with the verbs which follow, being rendered in the pluperfect: ‘Jonah had gone out of the city,’ etc. We grant that this is grammatically admissible, but it cannot be shown to be necessary, and is indeed highly improbable. If, for instance, Jonah went out of Nineveh before the expiration of the forty days, to wait for the fulfillment of his prophecy, in a hut to the east of the city, he could not have been angry at its non fulfillment: before the time arrived, nor could God have reproved him for his anger before that time. The divine correction of the dissatisfied prophet, which is related in Jon_4:6-11, cannot have taken place till the forty days had expired. But this correction is so closely connected with Jonah’s departure from the city and settlement to the east of it, to wait for the final decision as to its fate (Jon_4:5), that we cannot possibly separate it, so as to take the verbs in Jon_4:5 as pluperfects, or those in Jon_4:6-11 as historical imperfects. There is no valid ground for so forced an assumption as this. As the expression אֶל יוֹכָה וַיֵּרַע in Jon_4:1, which is appended to עָשָׂה וְלֹא in Jon_3:10, shows that Jonah did not become irritated and angry till after God had failed to carry out his threat concerning Nineveh, and that it was then he poured out his discontent in a reproachful prayer to God (Jon_4:2), there is nothing whatever to force us to the assumption that Jonah had left Nineveh before the fortieth day. Jonah had no reason to be afraid of perishing with the city. If he had faith, which we cannot deny, he could rely upon it that God would not order him, his own servant, to perish with the ungodly, but when the proper time was arrived, would direct him to leave the city. But when forty days elapsed, and nothing occurred to indicate the immediate or speedy fall of the city, and he was reproved by God for his anger on that account in these words, ‘Art thou rightly or justly angry?’ the answer from God determined him to leave the city and wait outside, in front of it, to see what fate would befall it. For since this answer still left it open, as a possible thing, that the judgment might burst upon the city, Jonah interpreted it in harmony with his own inclination, as signifying that the judgment was only postponed, not removed, and therefore resolved to wait in a hut outside the city, and watch for the issue of the whole affair.” (Keil and Delitzsch.)
Dr. Pusey is inclined to Keil’s opinion. Henderson; to that of our author. Newcome renders the verbs, וַיֵּצֵא, etc., Jon_4:5, had gone, had sat, etc.—C. E.]
But Jonah had gone out of the city and had sat down east of the city—on one of the mountains eastward, which border on the valley of the Tigris, from which the city spreads out over the valley to the river. [Here he made a hut, or a booth, and sat in its shade, “till he might see what would become of the city.”—C. E.]
Jon_4:6. As the fish, so also the ricinus plant obeyed the command of God: He appointed it. (Psa_104:30). The kikayon6 is, according to Hieronymus, the kiki of the Egyptians (Herod., ii. 94), the Kirk of the Rabbins, the el-keroa of the Arabs, the κρότων of the Greeks. Besides Hieronymus, Pliny, h. iv. 15, 7, mentions the Ricans plant, which grows wild in Arabia, Egypt, and Syria, and shoots up rapidly to the height of a tree. It has at first a herbaceous, then a woody stem, hollow within, full of knots and joints; large petiolate, peltate leaves, which, according to Niebuhr, when broken off, or injured, wither in a few minutes, and which are moreover liable to perish quickly, from the fact that, in a gentle rain, black caterpillars, or worms (תּוֹלַעת, Jon_4:7), of a middling size, are produced on them, which strip the plant of all its foliage in a single night. (Niebuhr, Description of Arabia, p. 148. Rumpf, Herb. Amboin, iv. 95.) Such a plant God caused to shoot up, about the time when Jonah was thoroughly convinced of the fruitlessness of his waiting, and when he had already given vent to his ill humor (רעה), in order to recover him from his discontent.7 (ל instead of the acc. Ew., sec. 292 e.).
This succeeds. To his great petulance, Jon_4:1, soon succeeds great joy.
Jon_4:7. A worm (the sing. used collectively, as in Deu_28:39), comes at the command of God, during the night—at the rising of the sun, next morning. (Comp. Gen_19:15; Gen_19:23.) And it smote, destroyed (Amo_4:9) the plant, so that it withered. And as if this were not enough, God, to attain his disciplinary purpose with Jonah, appointed, in the third place, Jon_4:8, the silent, that is, the deadly sultry east wind, whose scorching heat is proverbial throughout the Old Testament (Eze_17:10). The glowing heat of the sun beat upon Jonah, so that he fainted (Amo_8:13), was out of his mind. Then were suggested those petulant words, that we have already heard, Jon_4:3 : he wished in himself to die, literally, he asked as to his soul to die (acc. c. inf. 1Ki_19:4; Isa_53:10; Ew., sec. 336 b), and said, it is better for me to die than to live. Ch. B. Mich.: “Prœstat me mori, quam sic vivere.”
Jon_4:9. And God said to Jonah: Dost thou right to be angry for the gourd? namely, on account of its destruction. הַהֵיטֵב is not used adverbially (Keil), but as an auxiliary construed with the impersonal 3 sing. חרה (comp. Deu_5:25). The short question: Dost thou well to be angry? comprised within itself, by aposiopesis at Jon_4:3 above, the whole dialogue, Jon_4:9-11; here it is analyzed into its elements.
Jonah answers: I do right to be angry, even unto death, that is, to the bottom of my soul, even to weariness of life. (Comp. Mat_26:38.) God now convicted him from his own words (comp. Mat_12:37; Luk_19:22), how wrong was his whole anger, in which this momentary vexation only forms an element with a fresh stimulus, but which had its origin in the sparing of Nineveh, by a conclusion a minori ad majus.
Jon_4:10. Thou art grieved for the gourd, for which thou hast not labored … and perished. Bin-lailah, a son of the night, of a night’s duration. (Comp. Exo_12:5, and the Syriac translation of Deu_24:15.) It is evident from Jon_4:10, why a rapidly growing plant should shoot up over Jonah. If it had been of slow growth, he would have watered and nursed it; consequently the reproof would not have been so forcible. [בִן instead of בֶן on account of the following liquids, Num_14:38.]
Jon_4:11. And should not I …. who cannot distinguish between the right hand and the left (ידעsensu prægnanti, as in 2Sa_19:36 [35 A. V.]), who cannot consequently be very guilty; and besides much cattle, which are not guilty at all, and which are of much greater worth than a ricinus plant? By the 120,000 mentioned in the relative clause, must be understood young children (comp. Isa_7:15). The limit of this period of life, in the East (e.g., among the Persians), is usually the seventh year. If we assume the ratio, fixed by statistics, of those under seven years of age to the whole number of the population as Jon_1:5, we have for all Nineveh the not improbable number of 600,000 inhabitants. This would give, as in the province of Naples, 40,000 persons to the square [German] mile (comp. at Jon_1:2). The English Admiral Jones, from a survey of the extent of the ruins, without any reference to the statement in this verse, has estimated the population of the city, at about the same number. (Comp. Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. 15. p. 29. M. v. Niebuhr, Assyria and Babylon, p. 278 f.)
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL8
See Introduction, p. 6.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Jonah, a type of the misery and vanity of the human heart. (Homily).
1. The impatience of the human heart compared with the long-suffering of God. When God forgives, it is angry. When God is patient, it is impatient, Jon_4:1. And yet Jonah, too, was saved only by grace.
2. The idea of its own honor compared with the great heart of God, who readily foregoes his own honor, when the salvation of men is concerned (Jon_3:10). But Jonah would have preferred that all men should perish, that his office and vocation should be relinquished, to the mortification of the idea of his own honor, Jon_4:2 a.
3. Its bitterness compared with the kindness of God. God speaks comfort; but the human heart extracts from his consolatory words a sting, Jon_4:2 b.
4. And so inconsiderate is the human heart of the most precious gifts, even of life itself, that on account of the empty shadow of honor, it even thinks that it should despise its own life, Jon_4:3 But how seriously does God speak of death.
5. In short, how little can the heart, notwithstanding all instruction, dive into the deep thoughts of God! And yet, at the same time, it is always ready to maintain that it is right against God, Jon_4:1-3.
6. In such miserable selfishness, it is destitute of all love, and lurks for the ruin of others; it wishes that others should be judged and judges them itself; but it does not like to judge itself.
7. It always has only real pleasure in that which happens to its advantage; and should it be something of the most trifling importance, it is more highly prized by it than all the great mercy vouchsafed to others, Jon_4:6-7.
8. Therefore, is life full of misery. For these short pleasures, on account of which we neglect the eternal good, soon come to an end. And we do not afterward think that they were favors for which we ought to be thankful, however transient they may have been; but imagine that they were our own, that we had a right to them and therefore a right to complain, Jon_4:8. And what bitter complaints! 2Co_4:17.
9. And if God’s ways are ever so clear before our eyes, yet our eyes are closed that we cannot perceive them, and we will continually grope in darkness, unless God open our eyes by his spirit, Jon_4:9-11.
Jon_4:1. Here we see how it would be, if God would allow each one his own will. It is well that He alone sits at the helm. God’s messengers are in great danger of forgetting that they are messengers and that they act merely under authority. The sinful heart is ever ready to act the Lord, and it wonders when it is forsaken by God.
Jon_4:2. There are even wicked prayers. It is not a mark of piety, therefore, to disburden one’s heart before God, but to pray in the name of Jesus, according to the pattern of Luk_22:42. Man is always eloquent in exculpating himself. If the heart is in a wrong state, it distorts God’s Word, and applies it according to its own pleasure.
Jon_4:3. Suppose the Lord had taken Jonah at his word? How inconsiderately does a man speak, who does not bridle his tongue. The sorrow of the world works death.
Jon_4:5. Some say that God, out of respect to his justice, has delight in viewing the punishment of the lost; that Abraham also, when Lazarus lay in his bosom, reveled in God’s pleasure in the torment of the rich man. These look upon God and Abraham in the same light that they do upon the prophet Jonah. (Luk_9:55.) His heart even breaks for the souls of the condemned, and if they would be saved, He would save them. (Mat_12:31.)
Jon_4:6. The creature was made for men; and the death of the creature is, in every way, instructive to men. To a heart devoid of peace, the good gifts of God are only a source of vexation.
Jon_4:7. “When the morning rose”! Often, at the moment when every thing seems to smile, misfortune is on the way. With the rising star of fortune comes also always a misfortune, even though we do not see it at the moment. Hence the injunction to be always prepared, always humble.
Jon_4:11. At first sight, it appears as if common guilt and sin were denied in this verse, since God speaks of the children, as if they, like the cattle, did not deserve punishment. But He says only that the severe punishment, which Jonah expected, was not deserved by these relatively to many others, whose death Jonah himself would not desire. The fact that the Ninevites were spared on account of their repentance, would have been sufficient to reprove him for this (Eze_18:23); but God would bring before the eyes of Jonah his uncharitableness in that he did not consider the relatively innocent and harmless creatures in his blind zeal to see vile sinners perish. The Scriptures have regard for beasts also. (Deu_22:6; Rom_8:18 ff.) These have no part in the sin of man, but in his punishment. As they appear here by their participation in the repentance of the Ninevites, so at other times, in the Old Testament, they appear by their blood for the curse of sin. Yet this is only a shadow of things to come.
Luther: How can such a state of grace and such untoward conduct in Jonah be consistent with one another? We cannot deny that he was unreasonably angry, and did wrong, for God punished him for it. We must also acknowledge that he had faith and was acceptable to God, because God spoke so kindly with, him and gave him a sign. We should observe from these facts (1) how wonderfully God deals with his saints, so that no one may inconsiderately judge or condemn any one on account of works alone. (2.) We should learn, how God permits his dear children to act very foolishly and commit grave faults, as Christ did with the Apostles, in the Gospel, for the consolation of all believers who sometimes sin and fall. (3.) We should see how kindly, fatherly, and amiably God deals with and treats those, who confide in Him in trouble. It is a daily sinning on the part of his children, which the Father graciously suffers. With the ungodly He does not deal thus: they cannot reconcile themselves to his dealings, but are altogether insolent and intractable.
Starke: Jon_4:1. Even well-meaning minds can fall into an indiscreet zeal for God and criticise his wise government according to their weak and sordid ideas, although they do not break out into open murmurs against Him.
Jon_4:2. To excuse sin, which deserves punishment, is presumptuousness.
Jon_4:3. There is a great difference between a well-regulated desire for a happy departure from this world and one that is inordinate and self-willed, which arises from impatience, and, alas, often enters into well-disposed minds.
Jon_4:4. As often as thou art provoked to be angry, ask thyself at once, am I justly angry? Teachers should be moderate in their zeal and seek to restore the erring by friendly words: the example of God admonishes them to this.
Jon_4:6. God has always been accustomed to guide men by external things and visible signs to the consideration of heavenly things. Hieronymus hits upon the thought that the Jewish people, who have sat under the shadow of ordinances and ceremonies are hereby represented.
Jon_4:7. Even the very least animals must serve the powerful government of God.
Jon_4:8. We must not be too much delighted by our success nor too much distressed by our misfortune.
Jon_4:9. One must really be astonished at God’s love to men, manifested in his patience with his servants. Jonah is nothing else but a little, naughty, spoiled child.
Jon_4:10. God has pity upon little children. He loves them tenderly, numbers them exactly, and oftentimes spares old people on their account, whom He would otherwise destroy on account of their sins. Did God love the little children in Nineveh so well, and was He pleased to spare the city on their account, then how can he reject those, who are born in Christendom, but die without baptism?
Pfaff: Jon_4:1. Men are much more wrathful and vindictive than God; for God soon repents of the punishment, provided men comply with the condition of repentance.
Jon_4:4. Even prophets commit faults. Guard thyself against impatience, and learn composedness and self-denial. Nothing adorns the conduct more, than entire self-abnegation and submission to the will of the Lord, combined with efforts to accomplish it. What a dreadful thing ambition is! To wish rather to die than to be humbled! It must not be so, but thou must willingly bow and humble thyself, if God’s honor is thereby advanced.
Jon_4:8. Let no one wish for death from a desire to escape the cross.
Quandt: Jon_4:1. There is joy among the angels of God over one sinner that repents; among us there is joy at the success of the mission; with Jonah there is indignation. This did not arise from the circumstance that the repentance of Nineveh was not sincere and honest; but Jonah’s own repentance was not sincere. He had retained the principal part of his old man at his conversion.
Jon_4:3. Even other holy men have had such dark hours. (Num_11:15; Job_7:15 f.; 1 Kings 19.) Notwithstanding Jonah’s preaching had the proper effect. The faith of the preacher does not work faith in the hearers, but the preaching of faith.
Jon_4:5. The word of God, Jon_4:4, was de signed to convince the prophet of how little reason there was for his anger; but it had exactly the opposite effect. He explained it in his own favor; as if God meant to say: Wait yet a little; and he goes forth to wait. The piety of the heathen is a matter of total indifference to him, but curiosity and a mischievous delight in the miseries of others abide with him. This is instructive to Christians in their relation to the missionary cause.
Jon_4:8. Before, Jonah was angry at God’s mercy; now he is angry at his seeming unmercifulness. This is a movement in the right direction. There is instruction connected with this.
Jon_4:11. The old, obstinate Jonah has displayed himself enough in this book; now, at the close, he vanishes, and God, in the end, stands, with his word, alone and majestic: the new Jonah is lost in Him.
Marck: Jon_4:1. Although all the works of God are entirely irreprehensible, yet there is not one among them, which may not be censured by some one; and the degree of censure is in proportion to the want of understanding on the part of the fault-finder.
Rieger: Before we find fault with Jonah, we should consider well first what would be the result if we were to describe our thoughts and feelings concerning many events in the government of God as frankly as Jonah does here. The worst is that our wickedness remains hidden in us, and we conceal it from ourselves and others. We must also judge Jonah according to his times and temptations; for it could easily be that a man of God should have little regard for the heathen, since Peter, in New Testament times, had to be instructed concerning them. Moreover the solicitude that the Ninevites, inexperienced in the ways of God, might turn his long suffering into contempt and despise his threatenings, was not unfounded. In our estimate in general of the faults and offenses of others, it should be borne in mind, that God knows how our temper exposes us on the one hand to peculiar temptations, but also on the other makes us useful for some purpose; hence no one should cling to the defects of others, but should in advance turn to good account the good qualities with which they are endowed. The vehement disposition of Jonah had plunged him into these faults, but what useful purpose this very disposition served in his office, must not be forgotten. That is a wicked art of our hearts, of which Solomon says, The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit, than seven men that can render a reason: namely he who never undertakes anything, commits, after his way of thinking, fewer faults, and is well pleased with his own conceit.
Burck: Jon_4:2. Thou hast not to consider what God will accomplish by thee, or without thee, but what He requires of thee and what becomes thee. God bears with much murmuring and impatience on the part of his servants.
Jon_4:3. Jonah did not pray for the destruction of the Ninevites, but for his own death. They are the readiest to do this, who know least the severity of God in the sentence of death. But Jonah has already endured a tenfold death in the sea. And now zeal for his office and for the honor attached to it by God presses upon him to such a degree that he wishes rather to die than to live. But God can require an offering from us such as He pleases: He did not now require the surrender of Jonah’s life, but a patient waiting; and therefore Jonah found another kind of death and of a more salutary sort, than if God had taken his life away [in answer to his prayer].
Jon_4:6. The best way to refute a murmurer consists not in arguments, but in deeds.
Marck: God does not always lead sinners in the same manner to the right way; but at one time by severe chastisements, at another by kindness in word, or deed.
Cocceius: We always think that our affliction is something sacred, and yet it is often worldly; for how often are we obliged to see that it is mitigated by worldly consolation!
Rieger: Jon_4:7 ff. With others we often think that a word and a remonstrance should be enough; but in our case we experience, that we first became acquainted with ourselves under the actual dispensations of God, and thus too are made thoroughly healthy. Such is the vanity of our heart that it can be made glad and be troubled about trifling things. And yet God uses this experience in us as a means of discipline. If we are too much delighted with a gourd, He knows that nothing more than a worm hole is required to sober us again.
Burck: Jon_4:11. The book begins and closes with the words of God. Jonah is silent, and imitates, without doubt, the example of Job. (Job_40:3 f.)
[Matthew Henry: Jon_4:1. Jonah was mirabilis homo, as one calls him, an amazing man; the strangest, oddest, and most out-of-the-way man, for a good man and a prophet, as one shall ever hear or read of.
Pusey: Jon_4:2. Jonah, at least, did not murmur or complain of God. He complained to God of himself.
Jon_4:3. Impatient though he was, he still cast himself upon God. By asking of God to end his life, he, at least, committed himself to the sovereign disposal of God.
Keil: Children who cannot distinguish between right and left, cannot distinguish good from evil, and are not yet accountable.
Cowles: Jon_4:2. It is awful that a sinner, plucked himself as a brand from the burning, and living on mercy alone, should object to God’s showing the same mercy to his fellow sinners.
Jon_4:11. 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?—C. E.]
Footnotes:
[1][ Jon_4:1.—וַיִּחַר לֹו [anger] was kindled to him, i. e., he was angry. Sometimes this formula expresses the feeling of grief, sadness. In the Hithpa. the verb signifies to fret one’s self, Psa_37:1; Psa_37:7-8. The LXX. sometimes render it by λυπέομαι, Jon_4:4.
[2][ Jon_4:4.—הַהֵיטֵב תָרָה לָךְ, Keil and Delitzsch: “Is thine anger justly kindled?” Henderson: “Art thou much vexed”? הַהֵיטֵב is used adverbially. Compare Deu_9:21; Deu_13:15; and 2Ki_11:18. LXX.: Εἰ σφόδρα λελύπησαι σύ; Vulgate: Putasne, bene irasceris tu?
[3][ Jon_4:5.—The verbs in this verse may be rendered in the pluperfect: “Jonah had gone …. had sat …. had made …. and had sat under.” Newcome and Kleinert so render them. See the Exegetical and Critical notes on the verse.
[4]Jon_4:10.—שֶׁבִּן־לַיְלָה הָיָה וּבִן־לָיְלָה אָבָד, literally, which was the son of a night, and perished the son of a night. בֵּן, a son, is used idiomatically to express what is produced, or exists, during the time predicated of it
[5][Jon_4:11.—In Nineveh, and also in Babylon, there were probably large spaces where cattle fed.—C. E.]
[6][“Augustine, following the LXX. and Syr. versions, was in favor of the rendering gourd, which was adopted by Luther, the A. V., etc. In Jerome’s description of the plant called in Syr. karo, and Punic el-keroa, Celsius recognizes the Ricinus, Palma Christi, or castor-oil plant (Hierobot, ii. 273 ff.; Bochart, Hieroz., ii. 293, 623). The Ricinus was seen by Niebuhr (Descript. of Arab., p. 148) at Bosra, where it was distinguished by the name el-keroa; by Rauwulf (Trav., p. 52), it was noticed in great abundance near Tripoli, where the Arabs called it el-kerua; while both Hasselquist and Robinson observed very large specimens of it in the neighborhood of Jericho (“Ricinus in altitudinem arboris insignis,” Hasselq., p. 555; see also Robins., i. 553). Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. “Gourd.”—C. E.]
[7][That רָעָה has reference to the ill humor of the prophet Jon_4:1, is, considering the simple tenor of the narrative, which does not hinder that Jon_4:5 ff. must be considered as preceding Jon_4:1, most probable. We cannot well think of the physical illness produced by the glowing heat of the sun: the suffix points too definitely to an already known evil. It would rather be possible to view the matter, in such a way that the whole perverted condition of the prophet’s soul is meant by רעה, which God intended to cure by means of the ricinus, or rather by the lesson connected with its withering. By this the difficulty mentioned before would also be solved.
[8][Reichsgedanken. See note, p. 20.—C. E.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–8 my saying--my thought, or feeling.
my saying--my thought, or feeling.
fled before--I anticipated by fleeing, the disappointment of my design through Thy long-suffering mercy.
Read full note →
gracious . . . and merciful, &c.--Jonah here has before his mind ; as Joel () in his turn quotes from Jonah.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7 1, 2. Displeased Jonah exceedingly,… was very angry —…
1, 2. Displeased Jonah exceedingly,… was very angry — Since his message remained unfulfilled, he feared that his honor as a prophet was at stake; which would be of supreme moment to a selfish person.
He prayed — Many commentators have considered the prayer an expression of pious devotion, but its contents make this impossible. Keil comes nearer the truth when he says, “He tried to quarrel with God by praying.”
Read full note →
Was not this my saying — Not openly, perhaps, but in his heart he suspected that Jehovah would save the Ninevites, if they repented.
Therefore — Because of this suspicion.
I fled before — R.V., “I hasted to flee.” The Hebrew construction is peculiar (G.-K., 114n, note 3), and the exact meaning is doubtful. Either “I fled before,” that is, when thou didst call me the first time; or “I was beforehand in fleeing,” that is, I sought to avoid the commission because I knew the message would remain unfulfilled; or “I sought to prevent by fleeing,” the very thing that has now happened.
Tarshish — See on Jon_1:3.
For I knew — His conviction as to what God would do arose from his knowledge of the divine character. For the rest of the verse see on Joe_2:13.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–8 1. it displeased Jonah, &c.] Lit. It was evil…
1. it displeased Jonah, &c.] Lit. It was evil to Jonah, a great evil, and it (viz. anger) kindled to him. Comp. Neh_2:10. It is clear that the immediate cause of Jonah’s anger and vexation was the preservation of Nineveh and the non-fulfilment of the threat which he had been sent to pronounce. It was the anticipation of this result, founded on the revealed character of God, that made him decline the errand at first (Jon_4:2). It was the realisation of it that so greatly troubled him now. But why this result of his mission should have thus affected him it has not been found so easy to decide. Some have thought—but the view has nothing to commend it—that his annoyance was purely personal and selfish, and that he was stung by the disgrace of appearing as a false prophet in the sight of the heathen because his predictions had not been verified. Others with better show of reason have assigned to his displeasure the more worthy motive of jealousy for the honour of God, in whose name and with whose message he had come to Nineveh, and on whom he thought the reproach of fickleness and inconstancy would fall. “He connected,” writes Calvin, “his own ministry with the glory of God, and rightly, because it depended on His authority. Jonah, when he entered Nineveh, did not utter his cry as a private individual, but professed himself to be sent by God. Now, if the proclamation of Jonah is found to be false, the disgrace will fall upon the author of the call himself, namely on God. There is no doubt, therefore, that Jonah took it ill that the name of God was exposed to the revilings of the heathen, as though He terrified without cause.” It is far more satisfactory, however, to suppose that Jonah was displeased that the mercy of God should be extended to heathen, and especially to heathen who were the enemies and future oppressors of his own people, and that he himself should be the messenger of that mercy. This view falls in entirely with the exclusive spirit which marks the Old Testament dispensation, while it brings out into bold relief the liberal and Catholic spirit of the New Testament, which it is the object of this book to inculcate.
Ch. Jon_4:1-11. Jonah’s Displeasure, and its Rebuke
Read full note →
Greatly displeased at the clemency of God towards Nineveh, Jonah confesses that it was the expectation that that clemency would be exercised, which rendered him unwilling to undertake the divine mission at the first, and in his annoyance and chagrin requests that he may die, 1–3. Met by the calm appeal to reason, which however he is in no mood to entertain, Doest thou well to be angry? Jonah goes out of the city, and constructs in the immediate vicinity a booth or hut, under the shelter of which he may dwell and watch, till the forty days are expired, what the fate of Nineveh will be, 4, 5. Intending to correct and instruct him by an acted parable, in which he himself should bear the chief part, God causes a wide-spreading plant to spring up and cover his booth with its refreshing shade. But scarcely has Jonah begun to enjoy the welcome shelter from the burning rays of the sun thus afforded him, when God, in pursuit of His lesson, causes the plant to be attacked by insects, which rapidly strip it of its protecting leaves and cause it to wither away, 6, 7. Once again, the hand that governs all things sets in motion, like the blast of a furnace, the burning wind of the desert, and the sun’s unbroken rays pour down on the now defenceless head of Jonah, so that faint and weary, beneath the weight of bodily distress and mental disappointment, he urges anew his passionate complaint, Better for me to die than to live! 7, 8. And now the parable is complete, and only needs to be applied and interpreted. Thou couldst have pity upon a short-lived plant, which cost thee and which owed thee nothing; thou art angry and justifiest thine anger, even unto death, for its loss; and shall not I, the Maker and the Lord of all, have pity upon a great city, which, apart from its adult population who might seem to have deserved their doom, numbers its six-score thousand innocent children, and “very much cattle”—they too “much better than” a plant? 9–11.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (1) But it displeased Jonah.—The Hebrew (it was evil…
IV.
JONAH’S DISCONTENT AND CORRECTION.
Read full note →
(1) But it displeased Jonah.—The Hebrew (it was evil to) is stronger. The prophet was vexed and irritated.
He was very angry.—Literally, it (anger) burnt to him. David’s feeling at the death of Uzziah (2Sa_6:8; 1Ch_13:11) is described in the same terms. Selfish jealousy for his own reputation, jealousy for the honour of the prophetic office, a mistaken patriotism disappointed that the great enemy of his country should go unpunished, Jewish exclusiveness which could not endure to see the Divine clemency extended to the heathen, have each been adduced as the motive of Jonah’s anger. Possibly something of all these blended in his mind.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–8 Vers. 1-11. JONAH"S DISPLEASURE AND ITS CORRECTION.
Vers. 1-11. JONAH"S DISPLEASURE AND ITS CORRECTION.
Vers. 1-4. Jonah is grieved at the sparing of Nineveh, the expectation of which had led to his former flight, and complains of God"s clemency.
Read full note →
It displeased Jonah exceedingly; literally, it was evil to Jonah, a great evil. It was more than mere displeasure which he felt; he was vexed and irritated. The reference is to what is said in the last verse of the preceding chapter, viz. that the predicted destruction was not inflicted. How the knowledge of this reprieve was conveyed to the prophet we am not informed. It probably was made known to him before the expiration of the forty days by Divine communication, in accordance with the saying in Amo_3:7, "Surely the Lord will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets" (see ver. 5). Various reasons have been assigned for this displeasure.
(1) Personal pique, lest, his prediction having failed, he should be liable to the charge of being a false prophet.
(2) Zeal for the honour of God, whose knowledge of the future might be discredited among the heathen, when they saw his own servant"s words unfulfilled.
(3) Because he saw in this conversion of Gentiles a token of the ruin of his own people, who remained always hardened and impenitent.
(4) A mistaken patriotism, which could not endure to find mercy extended to a heathen nation which had already proved hostile to Israel and was destined to oppress it still further. This last seem to have been the real ground of his annoyance. So deep was this, that he would gladly have seen the sentence executed even after the city had repented (comp. ver. 11, "Should not I spare Nineveh," i.e. which thou wouldst have me even now destroy?) He was very angry; Septuagint, sunecuyh , "was confounded." His vexation increased unto anger.
Vers. 1-3. Repining at God"s mercy.
A more mixed character than Jonah"s it would not be easy to imagine. God"s treatment of him, God"s language to him, prove that he was regarded as a servant, as a prophet, of the Lord. His own prayers and thanksgivings indicated a nature in happy fellowship with the Eternal. Yet how lacking in human charity, in true submissiveness, in unselfishness! True to nature, the portrait is one very suggestive to the thoughtful reader, who is anxious to escape self and to serve God.
I THE CAUSE OF REPINING.
1. Jonah"s fear was realized.
2. Jonah"s plans were defeated.
3. Jonah"s self-importance was wounded.
His sin lay here he thought little or nothing of the Ninevites, much or altogether of himself. So devoted was he to his own dignity, so filled with a sense of the importance of men"s estimate of himself, that he had no pity, no thought, for those to whom he was commissioned. The real explanation is here hinted of much of the repining, murmuring, discontent, which prevail among those professedly religious. Men would complain less frequently and bitterly, did they think less of themselves and more of their fellow men, were they more ready to forget themselves in desiring and seeking the welfare of others.
II THE FRUIT OF REPINING.
1. Anger and displeasure.
2. Vexation and dejection.
Moses and Elijah, before Jonah, had asked that life might be taken away. Ardent souls, when disappointed, are prone to despondency. But it is one thing to despond because labour is unsuccessful; another thing to despond because men are saved. Because Nineveh was spared, Jonah fain would die. Had Nineveh perished, he would have been willing to live.
III THE SIN OF REPINING. This appears from the fact, so plainly stated by Jonah himself, that the Divine forbearance and mercy were made the ground of dissatisfaction and complaint. If men murmur at the exercise of God"s most gracious attributes, they can have no clearer proof of their want of sympathy with what is best, and no plainer indication of the urgent duty of repentance and humiliation.
HOMILIES BY J.E. HENRY Vers. 1-4. A misanthrope"s case against Divine benevolence.
It takes a good deal to make a man of God perfect. After a whole life"s discipline the old man of sin will sometimes show his baleful features at the window of the soul. Jonah has just been figuring to our mind as a changed character, returned to his allegiance, going God"s errand promptly, and doing his work with faithful zeal. But here he forfeits our good opinion, almost before it has had time to form. The patient"s cure has been only seeming, or else he has suffered a bad relapse. At any rate, the narrative leaves him on a spiritual level as low or lower than it found him. He began by quarrelling with a particular command of God, and he ends by quarrelling with his moral government as a whole. If there be a point of religious progress scored at all in connection with the matter, it is the exceedingly minute one that at first he tried to defeat the Divine purpose, and at last, and with an ill grace, he submits to its execution as inevitable. And it may be noted, as a qualifying consideration, that sanctification is the work of a lifetime; and therefore we can look for no very material change in the few days which the narrative of the book covers.
I A MAN WHO HAS FOUND MERCY HIMSELF MAY YET PRACTICALLY GRUDGE IT TO OTHERS. Misanthropy is Satanic. The devil hates men utterly and intensely. And the man, if there be such, who hates men instinctively, and would destroy them unprovoked, is less human than diabolical Jonah was not such a man. There were considerations, and paltry ones, for which he would have sacrificed all the souls in Nineveh, but, apart from these, he wished them no ill.
1. One of these considerations was supplied by egoism. As the prophet and mouthpiece of God, he had predicted the destruction of the city, even to the naming of the day, and his credit required that the event should now occur. If it did not, his prophecy failed, and his reputation as a prophet suffered, both with the Ninevites and with his own people. The prospect of this he could not stand. In his miserable and guilty self-seeking he preferred the destruction, soul and body, of a million people, to the possible discrediting of his prophetic claims. Such heartlessness in a believing man seems well nigh incredible. But it is far from unparalleled. Every Christian worker approaches it who works for his own credit or advantage, and not for the salvation of men. He may not be conscious of the fact, or he may fail to realize the significance of it, but he virtually and practically prefers that men should perish rather than that he should be deemed a failure. His reputation as a Christian worker, and his success in that character, is more to him than the salvation from sin of all to whom his words may come.
2. Another consideration sectarianism provides. To Israel in its wickedness a whole line of prophets had preached, with no result whatever, save their own extermination, (Act_7:52) and the announcement of inevitable doom on the obdurate race. (Amo_5:27 Amo_7:17) The Ninevites" deliverance, establishing as it would the genuineness of their turning from sin, would bring into unfavourable contrast the obstinate impenitence of Israel, would emphasize the needs be of her approaching ruin, and would amount to the preservation and encouragement of the very heathen power by which she was to fall. Then the overthrow of Nineveh by an angry God would have been a terrible example to quote to Israel, and a rod to conjure with when calling on them to fly the wrath of God; whilst its escape the prophet"s careless countrymen might wrest to their own destruction, and from it argue that the vengeance denounced would likely never fail. There is an attitude of indifference toward the perishing, into which an analogous spirit of sectarianism sometimes causes believers to fall The question of their salvation gets mixed up with some question of denominational loss or discredit. We desire their conversion, and desire to be the means of it. But we don"t desire it supremely or disinterestedly. We don"t desire it apart from all denominational considerations. The idea of their remaining a while longer in sin would be almost as tolerable to us as that some rival sect should win their gratitude and adherence by helping them into the kingdom. This is, at bottom, the spirit of Jonah exactly. It is putting an earthly and narrow interest. before the eternal life of souls. It is a spirit unworthy the Christian character, and a shameful stigma on the Christian name.
3. A further consideration may be found in the surviving misanthropy of a half-sanctified nature. God desires infinitely the highest well being of men. (Eze_33:11) And men, in proportion as they are God-like, desire it. (Rom_9:1-4) The sinful nature, which is largely selfish, is being taken away, and the gracious character, which is essentially benevolent, is being inwrought. But neither process is complete on earth, and the missionary spirit, which is their joint issue, is proportionally weak. It was so with Jonah. He shows the old nature strong still in pride and petulance and ingratitude, and why not in lovelessness, its characteristic vice? Such a man is incapable of understanding the tender and gracious heart of God, which loves men absolutely and infinitely, and acts in every respect in character. He is incapable of desiring supremely the highest good of men, for he has never climbed to the high spiritual level in which to apprehend his own. A half-sanctified man is considerably more than half-selfish, and a good deal less than half benevolent. If we would know what it is to travail for men"s salvation, we must rise to a love of God baptized into the likeness of the Divine love out of which it springs.
II GOD"S CHARACTER IS CONSTANT, WHATEVER ELSE MAY CHANGE. (Ver. 20) Jonah changed, and the Ninevites changed, and God"s treatment was changed accordingly; but the Divine character and rule of action remained the same throughout.
1. He acted strictly in character in this case. Jonah"s language seems to imply a charge of weakness against the Divine dealing with Nineveh. On no other assumption can we understand his quoting in such a connection, and with disapproval, God"s own revelation of the character in which he desired to be known. (Eze_34:6) And the supposition is strengthened by the fact that, whilst he gives literally the clauses that speak of God"s mercy, he leaves out the clause that speaks of his justice, (Exo_34:7) and substitutes for it a sentiment of his own. But justice and mercy met in the whole transaction. The Ninevites were mercifully spared, yet not unjustly. They might in justice have been destroyed, but not in mercy. (Isa_55:7 Jer_31:20) Therefore Jonah absurdly makes it a charge against God that he is what he had always gloried in declaring himself to be. So blind and stupid can a sulky servant be. God need not overact his merciful character in order to offend such people; it is his mercy itself with which they have a quarrel.
2. The prophet himself affirms the Divine consistency. "God," we are told, "repented of the evil," etc.; and Jonah says, "I knew that thou art a gracious God... and repentest thee of the evil." The thing that Jonah knew he would do he did. His action was normal and entirely consistent such action as he has always taken, and will take, in a like case. He repented, in fact, yet did not change. He did what it would be a change to cease from doing in the circumstances. He threatened Nineveh sinning, as he threatens all, and then he spared it turning, as he spares men in every age. His repentance, so called, is his method coordinating itself with the changing conditions of life, and is simply an aspect of his immutability.
III THE PRAYER OF THE SELF-SEEKER IS OF NECESSITY ILLADVISED. (Ver. 3) Jonah"s prayer was bona fides. It is as a believer he prays. His spiritual instinct brings him in his unhappiness to a throne of grace. "He does not seek a refuge from God. He makes God his Refuge" (Martin). He shows a surly sincerity in unreservedly stating what is working in his mind; and "so long as all can yet be declared unto the Lord, even though it be your infirmity, there integrity still reigns" (Martin). Yet, barring the quality of sincerity, this prayer lacks almost every other element of acceptable worship.
1. It is inappropriate in its matter. (Ver. 3) It is not absolutely and necessarily wrong to pray for death. Paul, persecuted and afflicted, had "a desire to depart and be with Christ." It is easily conceivable that a believer, broken down and prostrated with incurable disease, should pray for death as the sole available release. It would be nothing unbecoming if a ripe saint, whose life work is done, and who longs for rest, should make its early coming a matter of prayer. But Jonah was neither past living usefully nor, in his present temper, ready to die. His death, if allowed, would have advanced no interest either of his own or of others. His work was, humanly speaking, far from being done, and his life, if he put a noble interpretation on it, might be of great importance in the world. He was stupidly wanting to fling away from him, instead of prizing and using it, one of God"s most precious gifts, and his own most sacred trust. The desire to die, which some consider the cream of all piety, is as often mistaken as appropriate, and far less often a duty than a sin. In such cases men "ask and receive not, because they ask amiss.
2. It is improper in spirit. One can easily see that Jonah was in no praying mood. He was angry and insolent. His prayer was really a contentious manifesto the joint issue of arrogance and discontent. As such it was utterly offensive to God, and itself a new sin in his sight. The spirit of it, however, made it harmless, as it secured the refusal of its mischievous request. Our union with Christ is a condition of successful prayer. (Joh_15:7) The guarantee of its acceptability is our dwelling in Christ: the cause of its fitness is his Word dwelling in us. The Spirit helps the believer"s infirmities, and in these qualities we have the outcome of his work. (Rom_8:26) The very gist of prayer is a leaving of ourselves in the hands of God. Its inquiry is, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and its request is, "Lord, here am I; send me." Such a request is offered in terms of our Father"s will, and, being offered in Christ, is ideal prayer to God. But the prayer of wilfulness, of fretfulness, of carnal suggestion in any shape, is lacking in every element that God regards or can accept. "For let not such a one think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.
IV GOD ANSWERS A FAULT-FINDING PRAYER BY REBUKING THE SPIRIT OF IT. The rule is that believing prayer is answered. (Mat_21:22 Mar_2:24) It is a special qualification of the rule that the answer comes in the form of things agreeable to God"s will. Jonah"s prayer had enough of faith in it to secure an answer, and yet enough of folly to necessitate an answer very different from the one desired (ver. 4). There was wonderful condescension here. Jonah makes an insane request, and it is mercifully ignored. He makes it in a sinful way, and gets the thing he was most in need of an admonition. The words imply:
1. Are you angry on sufficient grounds? An enumeration of the antecedents of his anger would have covered Jonah with confusion. His contemptibly egotistic refusal to prophesy, as it was his business to do, had not so much been punished, as forcibly overcome, and then forgiven. His life, jeopardized, in the natural course of events, by his own infatuate conduct, had, by a miracle of mercy, been given back to him from the grave"s mouth. His recent ministry so tardily exercised had been blessed beyond a parallel, to the saving of a mighty city and the glorious illustration of the mercy and grace of God. These grounds of feeling are the only grounds which, as a servant of God, he could consistently regard. The others, which bore on possible results to his own official prestige, and Israel"s moral attitude and fate, were purely speculative, might prove unfounded altogether, and whether or not should have no place in a spiritual mind. A true prophet is a man who speaks for God unquestioningly, who acts for God undauntedly, who is in fullest sympathy with his gracious purposes, and who knows no personal considerations in his work. Well might God ask, "Art thou wiser than I?" "Is thine eye evil because I am good?" If a servant may have an interest antagonistic to his masters; if a man "may make his own narrow capacity the measure by which to judge of the Divine wilt and the Divine procedure" (Martin); if the salvation of a million strangers is nothing in the balance against a possible hurt to a few of our own friends; then Jonah was fitly angry, and we, in a like case, may fitly be angry also. The words also imply:
2. Is your anger itself a right thing? The will of God is the ultimate reason of things. The way of God is uuchallengeably right. The office of censor over him does not exist, There is no provision in his scheme of government for our being angry, and no place in the chain of cause and effect at which it could come in. We do it solely on our own responsibility, in violation of the Divine harmonies, and at our own risk and loss. It settles nothing outside ourselves, influences nothing, and has no right of way across the field of providence. God is supreme, and men are in his hands, and all duty in relation to his government is, "Thy will be done." The question of men"s salvation is God"s question in the last appeal. He sits at the helm. He settles who shall be saved, and whether any shall be saved. (Rom_9:11, Rom_9:16, Rom_9:22, Rom_9:23) The conversion of sinners is hut the evolution of his purpose; the glorification of saints the realization of his plan. Is not this good tidings for the lust? Seeking God as he thinks with all his heart, the anxious sinner fancies sometimes that the is willing and God is not, and that the question to be solved is the question of overcoming a certain Divine inertia, and getting God"s consent to his entrance into life. The idea is a delusion of Satan, and has ruined more lives than could be told. "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." That is Christ"s way of it. "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." That is God"s gospel, the glorious and precious truth. God"s willingness to save is infinite. He waits to be gracious. It is you that are not willing. You think you are, and you may be in some respects. But you are not willing perfectly and all round. There is a secret reservation lurking somewhere. Search well and see. If you had ever been wholly willing for a single instant, you would that instant have been across the threshold and in the kingdom. If you are wholly willing now, it is the golden hour of your life, for it is the beginning of the new life in Christ. J.E.H.
HOMILIES BY W.G. BLAIKIE Vers. 1-4. Jonah"s displeasure.
"But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry," etc. This is not a wholly unexpected manifestation of character in Jonah. His was evidently a strange character, full of contradictory elements. A prophet of the Lord, who can yet run away from his work influenced by high considerations in the main, yet yielding to a low desire for personal comfort can sleep in a storm while pagans are at prayer yet susceptible of profound contrition and repentance frankly owns himself the cause of the storm had ignominiously consulted for his comfort, but now generously sacrifices his life in depth of his humiliation becomes wonderfully penitent, trustful, and obedient. Notwithstanding these contradictions, we should, perhaps, hardly have expected another outbreak of his lower nature, after so striking a Divine discipline and subjugation, and so remarkable a display of honesty, courage, self-sacrifice: it is a surprise to find him again quarrelling with God"s appointment, discontented, hard, unmerciful, excited and grieved at the respite of Nineveh. There is a certain inconstancy in impulsive natures; there is a desperate activity of the lower propensities; hence our need of Divine guidance, a continual need alone is able to keep the very best from falling. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
I JONAH"S DISPLEASURE. (Ver. 10) Proposed change of translation, making words to express grief rather than resentment, is hardly called for. Evidently Jonah lost self-control, and gave way to violent excitement. Here is another proof of the honesty of Bible narrative. It gives a faithful picture of human infirmity law of sin in the members warring against the law of the mind." It would be a very untrue representation if faults corrected once, even by God, were represented as subdued forever. The most distressing experience of true Christians is the renewed activity of their infirmities and corruptions even after profound humiliation and true contrition. "Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me". (Psa_19:12, Psa_19:13)
II REASON ASSIGNED FOR IT. (Ver. 2) God too merciful his mercy on this occasion judged out of place. Jonah"s truthfulness as a prophet seemed to be compromised; he was made to appear foolish in the eyes of men the whole of the painful experience he had gone through shown to be unnecessary; he would have to return home without bringing word to his people of the great catastrophe by which they would have been compelled to regard God"s will. Jonah finds confirmation of the thought that had influenced him at first God too merciful to inflict great judgments; he seems to find a reason for his original rebellion, and, with irreverent honesty, vindicates himself before God. A very great aggravation of his sin, that what he disliked in God was his graciousness to sinners. The mood of mind which Jonah is represented as expressing openly often has a lurking existence, not less mischievous because half concealed. Mercy of God is sometimes thought to be excessive. So thought Jews when Gentiles were to be admitted to Christian Church. Possibly this transaction was designed to foreshadow that event Jonah"s strong feeling a foreshadow of narrow Jewish jealousy. On a wider theatre, man"s terrible selfishness is apt to prevail even over all considerations of mercy; for instance, a merchant interested in fall of price of grain is apt to be grieved for good weather and plentiful harvest the heir of a rich man (possibly of his father) disappointed when he recovers from serious illness the heart is apt to grieve at the good of a neighbour, especially of a rival some one has said, "There is something even in the troubles of our friends which is not altogether displeasing to us a state of war is sometimes desired because of impulse to be given to certain branches of trade: in all such cases, the aspect of selfishness is simply hideous men may well shrink from looking at such pictures of themselves yet such feelings are by no means uncommon. What surprises in case of Jonah is that, after showing himself a very paragon of self-sacrifice, the selfish feeling should have been so strong, and that he should have given such open expression to it.
III JONAH"S PRAYER. (Ver. 3) He asked to be relieved of his life, which had become too burdensome to him. See here the sad prevalence of carnal spirit no acknowledgment of higher wisdom of God, of the way in which good might be brought by him out of what seemed to Jonah to be evil. See, too, the sinfulness of a despairing spirit in servant of God not unnatural in men of world complications and miseries may arise which overwhelm misery may be too absolute to bear, and every succeeding step may only aggravate it dreadful condition of human spirit when absolute misery closes upon it, Such should never be the condition of a servant of God while in possession of his reason sense of Divine providence, and assurance of protection and guidance should repel it it is unbelieving men that ask, "Is life worth living?" Unbelief and suicide go together. Observe, in Jonah"s case, effect of tolerated sin on his spiritual condition he loses trust in God does not see how God can save him even from himself makes no such request, but only asks him to take away his life. Sometimes it seems so impossible to do right, that we are willing to give up all in despair. "If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
IV GOD"S REMONSTRANCE. (Ver. 4) Doest thou well to be angry? Oh the gentleness of the Divine method! Jonah"s thoughts are thrown in upon himself no Divine denunciation, but Jonah made, as it were, judge in his own case, asked to sit over himself and say if his feeling was right. Resemblance of this to the method of our Lord his way of putting questions, compelling thought, and constraining a just decision. See his method of dealing with Simon the Pharisee. (Luk_7:42) Facility with which God may judge us, by making us judges of ourselves. Difference of our actions as regarded by us, and as seen from God"s point of view. It is from God"s point of view their criminality is most clearly shown. Hence the sense of unworthiness we feel when we bend the knee, and pour out our spirit before God at night. The actions that at the time seemed right enough assume aspect of sin when looked at, as it were, with God"s eyes. In the present case no such effect was made on Jonah; he himself comes before God in sullen, selfish spirit. Even God"s question does not subdue him. Summing up the sins of Jonah"s spirit in this transaction, we notice:
1. His limiting God. There was but one way, in his view, in which the right thing could be done. Nineveh must be destroyed. To that he had made up his mind, and his whole moral nature was shaken when it appeared that God had another way.
2. His refusing to believe in the efficacy of Divine forbearance. Rough methods of dealing alone are believed in by many slaves treated with fearful violence the terrors of the Inquisition brought down on heretics offence of many at the clemency of Lord Canning after Indian Mutiny Ireland must be scourged with fire and sword scoundrels, said Carlyle, must suffer the unmitigated doom of scoundrels. God"s methods more merciful he seeks to win, to humble, to reclaim, to convert.
3. His readiness to sacrifice a vast community to carry out his own idea. His want of regard for human life a common feeling of the time in Jonah"s view all that vast mass of life was not to be considered, provided a blow was struck that would vindicate his authority, and impress his people.
4. Impatience of spirit, giving birth to rash desires and prayers. Loss of self-control is a very humiliating experience in one who desires to be a servant of God. "He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city". (Pro_16:32) But "he that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls". (Pro_25:28) How unlike Jonah was now to what he had been before! W.G.B.
HOMILIES BY G.T. COSTER Vers. 1-5. Jonah"s grief.
There "sat" Jonah, watching, displeased with the Ninevites" preservation, grieved at the gentle dealings of their Preserver. And God"s only rebuke of him was the gentle question, "Doest thou well to be angry?" In his mood and conduct let us read our own.
I OUR DISPLEASURE. Have we never been displeased with God"s ways? It may have been as patriots. It is easy to be resigned to judgments that come upon our country"s enemies. We must beware beware lest we encourage in ourselves the belief that the great work of God among nations today is to do all for the glory of England. Jonah was displeased that his country"s enemies should be spared. Yet God spared them. In our own personal history have we never been displeased with God? displeased that prosperity has been denied us, who could so wisely have used it? displeased that losses and afflictions have impoverished us, when they seemed so much more needed by others who have been free from them? displeased to lose our one child, when in other homes the many are spared? displeased, it may be, that even the one has been denied us? Have we never charged God foolishly?
II OUR GRIEF. Jonah was "very grieved" that the Ninevites should be spared. Better, he deemed, that. they should perish. Better for Israel thus to be quit of an enemy. Better for God, as thus vindicating his righteousness. Better for Jonah himself thus accredited as a prophet of truth. Grieved; but what is he doing with his memory? He, such a sinner against the light, had been spared; then why not these repentant heathen? Ungrateful Jonah! But why wonder at him? Have we not forgotten the Divine goodness? Have we not been grieved at God"s dealings? Even in his work how thwarted! How little credit do we get to what we expected! And the work does not prosper in our way. Have we never been grieved, angry, with God? that that great and good man should be taken away in the midst of his days? that that youth of high promise should be cut down when the bright bud was just showing the brilliant flower? that God"s work, where most successful, should be threatened with hindrance and be hindered? that our work for him should be obstructed, and we get so little commendation for it when we had deemed we deserved it so much? Grieved and therein the evil by regarding God as at fault.
III OUR WAYWARD PRAYER. Jonah longed to die. His work seemed to fail because Nineveh was spared. Fail? No; it was a transcendently glorious success. A sublime and ever memorable proof of the Divine mercy. An abiding encouragement to all coming workers for God. So our work, when we count it a failure, may in God"s eyes be "not in vain." How we bear ourselves in severe trials of faith will show what spirit and character we are of. Let no wayward prayer be ours. In our peevishness and distrust and vexation God says, "Doest thou well to be angry?" He is ever right, His way is perfect. "Consider Jesus, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." What is our grief to his? "O brothers, let us leave the shame and sin Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, The holy name of grief! holy herein, That, by the grief of One, came all our good.
As with him so with us the way of the cross is the way to the crown. G.T.C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–8 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very…
Jon_4:1-2
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
Read full note →
The shortness of human charity
Why is Jonah so much offended and so very angry? Surely there is here some great dishonour to God; or some great enormity or departure from the immutable and unchanging law of everlasting righteousness, goodness, and truth. If neither of these two, at least there is some dreadful denunciation of judgment, or some terrible threatening, at which the very nature of man doth tremble. But here is the wonder, there is nothing that is any just cause; no cause at all of any true offence, or real provocation. It is a shame to say what is the cause. This good man is displeased with God Himself, and he is offended at the Divine goodness and compassion, and that God hath respect to the repentance of sinners. It is strange that he should be angry at this, because it is a thing contrary to the sense of the lower and of the upper world. We have found the man of whom it is spoken in the Gospel, that his eye was evil because Gods was good (Mat_20:15). He prefers his own conceited credit and esteem before the lives and beings of six score thousand persons. All Gods denunciations against sinners are to be understood with a clause of reservation. He always excepts this ease--if the sinner repent. If he forsake his iniquity he shall surely live. That which makes the wonder the greater is that Jonah, whom we find in this distemper, is of all the prophets the type of Christ. In his temper and disposition he is no type of Christ. That temper admits of no apology.
1. Nothing is more unreasonable in itself.
2. Nothing is worse for Jonah himself, and the whole world besides him. For what would become of us all if there were no place for repentance? And how should Jonah himself be pardonable for his present distemper if God should not allow place for repentance?
3. Nothing is more unnatural in respect of his office as a prophet. Was it not his very work to promote repentance and reformation among sinners?
4. Nothing worse can be put upon God than to be represented as implacable and irreconcilable.
5. And this would render men hopeless and desperate in the world. This is not the first distemper that we find Jonah in. At first we find him in great refractoriness and disobedience. Then we find him stupid and senseless, and more blockish than the idolatrous mariners. Then we find him in a case of desperate insolency. For we have no reason to think his wish to be cast into the sea came from the greatness of his faith. Then we find him in a state that is unnatural, barbarous, and inhumane; for he desired the destruction of others just to save his own reputation. All these distempers are aggravated by his late deliverance in the belly of the whale. Moreover, he is not overcome by the declaration of the reason of things, when it comes out of the mouth of God Himself. The story leaves Jonah without any account of his returning to himself, and to a due temper.
1. Learn to consider in how sad and forlorn a condition we are, if God be not for us and with us.
2. How sin multiplies and grows upon us if once we fall into a distemper.
3. Notice the great danger of selfishness.
4. Let this be for caution and admonition. Persons acquainted with religion, if once out of the way of reason and conscience, prove more exorbitant than others. What great care a man should take to preserve his innocence and integrity! For our better security let us consider--
(1) That it is much easier to prevent than to restrain sin.
(2) Let us be very wary and cautious of approaching evil.
Avoid self-confidence, and ever keep this confidence--our sufficiency is of God. It seems that Jonah did know before hand that, if Nineveh did repent, God was so gracious and merciful that He would revoke the sentence. Observe, then, how passion transforms a man. How selfishness narrows and contracts a mans spirit. Sin is the cause of judgment. There is not stay at all in the way of sin. But repentance alters the case. Notice how God deals with man to bring him to a right mind when He finds him in his distemper. God deals with Jonah by reason and argument. What a strange kind of prayer Jonahs was! Indeed, he rather quarrels with God than prays to Him. In prayer let us take care of two things.
1. That our mind be in a praying temper.
2. That we offer to God in sacrifice prayer-matter.
Consider the person with whom Jonah is displeased. None other than God Himself. Consider the cause of his offence. He is offended with Gods goodness, and with sinners repentance. He is offended that repentance takes effect. See, then, that you keep out of passion, if you would not shamefully miscarry. Remember your own weakness and infirmity, and be modest and humble. Let us preserve our innocence, and beware of running into such heat of temper and mind. Take care of selfishness and narrowness of spirit. (B. Whichcote.)
Contrast between the response to God of Jonah, and of the Ninevites
1. Beware of a spirit of selfishness.
2. Beware of the peril of approaching your Creator in a peevish and discontented mood.
3. Rejoice that under the Gospel the true efficacy of repentance has been explained to you. You know how and why it can be effective. (W. H. Marriott.)
Jonahs anger
There is one thing most wonderful, and that is, that God should be so good as He is.
I. Jonahs selfishness. Selfishness is one of the last evils that is rooted out of the nature of man, and it is hardly possible to limit the extent of the evil that selfishness works in us; it is the great hinderer of good. Selfishness is at the root of that exceeding anxiety lest our fellow-men should undervalue us. The great fear on the part of Jonah was lest his dignity should suffer by the repentance of the Ninevites, and lest, therefore, he should lose his character as prophet, and should be spoken of as an utterer of falsehoods. We see connected with it a slight estimation of the life and comfort of others. Thus the selfish man is continually violating the spirit of the second table of the law. We find selfishness existing in a very prominent way whenever men are found to be murmuring at Gods will, if that will is opposed to their own.
II. The Lords lesson to him. Now Jonah was disposed to show the same rebellious spirit as before, in objecting to the manner in which God was dealing with Nineveh. In dealing with him, God gave him comfort to prevent his suffering, and then removed the comfort. God thus deals with us constantly. We all need to be taught that creature comforts are but vanities, and that our only real comfort and consolation is in the Lord Himself.
III. Gods unchangeable love. We might have expected that such a man as Jonah God would have chastised and banished from His presence. What condescension we can see in His dealings with him! What a contrast between Jonahs selfishness and Gods love. (Montagu Villiers, M. A.)
Bible phases of indignation
Anger is not necessarily a proof of corruption of the heart, but is often an inseparable part of life. The Divine Creator has planted in our beings this self-defensive attribute for noble and serviceable purposes. See the two sides of this passion, as exemplified in the difference between the anger of Jonah and that of Jesus. One only shows the spirit of selfishness, which is fretful and unruly, while the other shows the grandeur of a self-sacrificing spirit united with piety and love.
I. The order of Jonah is the type of unrighteous passion. Its sin consisted in--
1. Its selfish nature. It was his own honour he feared for, not the glory of God.
2. Its unjust character. He would have had God repudiate His justice and mercy and love to gratify a sinful prophet.
3. Its uncharitable folly. It was vindictive. It was not against the evil, but the good.
II. The anger of Christ as a type of righteous indignation. He looked round about on them in anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts. Contrasting it with Jonahs, observe the following points.
1. It was sinless.
2. It was just.
3. It was merciful.
Severity is no token of hatred. Kingsley says: The highest reason should tell us that there must be indignation in God so long as there is evil in the universe. Hazlett says: Good-natured people there are amongst the worst people in the world. They leave others to bear the burden of indignation and correction. (Alfred Buckley.)
The anger of Jonah
Servant of God as he was, Jonah here displayed the infirmity of many a good man in his irritability and ill-disposition. While, on the other hand, a bad temper has been described as the vice of the virtuous, a good one has been characterised as nine-tenths of Christianity. Professor Drummond has forcibly pointed out, that for embittering life, for breaking up communities, for taking the bloom off childhood, in short, for sheer gratuitous misery-producing power, this influence of an ill-temper stands alone. It was this irritable, testy, uncontrollable disposition which cast such a reflection upon the prophet Jonah as he ran down to the port at Tarshish, and fled from the Lord, a disposition which appears to have cooled off after having passed through a period of trial and become repentant, but which, when God acted contrary to his expectations, flamed out again, as if he were composed of combustible material.
I. Jonahs bad temper was shown by the way in which he disputed with God. Jonah was neither willing to leave to God the results of his mission to Nineveh, nor ready even to go to that city. When God asks for that implicit obedience to which He has a right, He does not make an unreasonable demand. Some seem to think they display a human and rightful prerogative when they question Gods ways and authority, forgetting that by a thousand ties we are bound to accede to the Divine wishes, and that our wills are never in a more normal condition than when they are subjected to the One who never errs. Our wills are ours to make them Thine, said Tennyson, and when they will not be subservient to God a curse is pronounced upon them such as that uttered by Isaiah when he exclaimed, Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker--the woe of a conscience ill at ease, of a soul insensitive to the Divine love, and a heart shut out from that blessed communion which is accorded to those in harmony with God. And this penalty fell upon Jonah when he argued and disputed with God, who had an absolute claim to an unquestioned obedience.
II. This bad temper narrowed Jonahs vision and outlook, Intensely national, patriotic, and partisan, he could not see why Jehovah should display His saving mercy to another nation, and that so wicked as Nineveh, when He had made Israel His chosen, and the sole depositary of His will. Why take the childrens bread and give it to dogs? Was not salvation of the Jews? He was against a missionary Gospel, just as the Pharisees objected to the Gospel being proclaimed to the publicans and sinners; and as Peter was opposed to opening the door to the Gentiles, but about which his eyes were opened when he saw the sheet let down from heaven, and was sent to the house of the devout Cornelius. Believing that God is a gracious God, slow to anger, and repents of the evil when He sees a heart contrite and penitent, Jonah, like the elder son of the parable, was angry when he saw there was a possibility of the Ninevites being saved from destruction. Oh, how passion will narrow ones vision! Scarcely anything will as surely exclude a wide, impartial, and generous view of things. Just as it is said that a frightened horse can see little and becomes almost blind, so an irritable temper will narrow the creed and sour the life. Just notice the way which God took to enlarge Jonahs vision and soften and mollify his disposition. Sorry for the gourd? Yes, though it was but a plant, but not sorry for the souls against whom he had cried, that they should be overthrown and destroyed, nor was he glad when they repented. What a lesson! Men grieve over the loss of property, but not over the loss of souls. They repent over the loss of a cargo, the burning of a house, or destruction of a church, but, how pitiable! there is so little anxiety for the eternal loss of that which is beyond the price of rubies, so that to-day many a man can say truly, No man careth for my soul.
III. Moreover, Jonahs ill-temper diminished his affection and love for his fellow-men. We draw artificial distinctions of soul values, by esteeming the soul of an educated, wealthy, and refined person of more value than that of the downtrodden and humanly forsaken one. But to such a man as Jonah, the prophet of God, or to any Christian worker, no such distinction should be made. And no such discrimination will be made if the right temper possesses the Christian. We must learn to love men, love them broadly, largely, comprehensively. But you say there is nothing lovable in the vast majority of men. Even so; yet, Christian workers, you must love men, for there is no other force that will carry you through, and inspire you to the accomplishment of your mission.
IV. Through this ill-temper Jonah failed to keep due and necessary control of himself. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city. Our trouble is not in having strong, impetuous, fiery, passionate natures, Who can measure the fire and passion in such natures as Luther, Whitefield, Spurgeon, or Moody? They were volcanoes, Niagaras of passion, but made serviceable to God and humanity. What a waste of power, said Edison, as he looked at the most magnificent falls in the world; and when I see deep, strong, fiery natures spending their vitality in petulant anger as did Jonah, I feel like saying, What a waste of power. Bring the stream and electricity of your nature, and harness it in the service of God. It is little that the manufacturer cares for a small trickling stream running through the meadows, but he does value a torrent that leaps from rock to rock, and crag to crag, and rushes with furious energy through the valley. Smother your passion, crush your anger, quell your wrath? No; pour them out upon sin. Let them come down upon evil in high and low places, and switch them on to the waggons on the Kings highway. He was very angry. Is it unusual for the soul to be angry with God? Here is a man to whom God gave a child which was deformed in body, defective in mind, and an object of care day and night, which was freely given by a loving mother. Some years, after another child was given, handsome, plump, and the pink of perfection; but, strange to say, in a short time it was taken, and folded in the bosom of a safe keeping God. Far from saying Thy will be done, a spirit of petulance arose in the fathers bosom, in which he denied the existence of God, and turned his back upon love and hope, running a swift course to business ruin and moral failure. He was very angry. Shame! Pity! Keep the fiery steed in hand; or, better still, give God the reins.
V. This bad temper unfitted him to pass into the presence of his maker. Jonah was not backward in talking about dying. O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live, and when the suns rays beat upon his head he wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. Angry people are apt to wish they were dead, for when the fog of passion and disappointment weighs upon the spirit the ill-tempered man speaks unadvisedly with his lips. Is a man fit to die in such a temper as this? (T. M. Fothergill.)
Jonahs displeasure
I. The nature of Jonahs displeasure may easily be misunderstood. There are two kinds of displeasure. One is wrath, the other is grief. The word used of Jonah may mean either angry or distressed. Perhaps grieved is the proper idea here. Notice the impotence of mere external experience in relation to a persons inward disposition. Jonah had passed through trying experiences, yet he was the same man.
II. The intensity of Jonahs displeasure. Exceedingly, and he was very grieved. It was deep distress in the prospect of calamity to his own country. Sparing Nineveh involved the future destruction of Israel. The prophet may have foreseen this. No doubt the destruction of an impenitent heathen community would not have appeared to Jonah so terrible as such a thing must appear to ourselves. And if Jonah was grieved at the escape of the Ninevites from death, he was himself anxious to die. He did not desire a worse fate for them than for himself. Of some men it is said, their bark is worse than their bite, and Jonah might have been one of these men.
III. The extreme distress of Jonah found expression in prayer.
1. The prayer contains a reference to a former saying of the prophet himself.
2. The prayer contains an account of his flight.
3. It contains an account of Jonahs conviction concerning the Divine character. He knew that the Lord is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness.
4. It contains a petition on the prophets part for death. An unbecoming, as well as unusual, prayer; but the petition of a noble-minded man. He knew the sanctity of his own life too well to commit suicide. The prayer was caused by his despondency in relation to the cause of God. (Samuel Clift Burn.)
Jonahs temper
Jonahs spirit at this time was not worthy of the character in which he came to Nineveh. Courage, indeed, he had shown, in raising his single voice in the name of the Lord in the midst of an idolatrous and wicked people. But he had not yet learned compassion for perishing sinners; or, if he had any such feeling, it was quite overborne, for the present, by a selfish regard to his own reputation; he was chagrined at the discredit brought upon his own predictions by the forbearance of God exercised towards the Ninevites. Foolish man! He had put himself in the place of God. He had forgotten, it should seem, that he was sent to preach the preaching that God should bid him, and had imagined that he was denouncing Jonahs threatenings, and not those of the Most High, when he said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed. Having put himself in the place of God, he vainly concluded that his own credit was concerned in the execution of the threatened judgment. But whosoever exalteth himself, though it be in the exercise of even a Divine commission, shall be humbled;--and the sooner he is effectually humbled, the better for himself. With respect to the Divine veracity, the vindication of that may safely be left in His hands whose word is truth. As for the credit of His ministers, it is, indeed, a very light matter; but that, too, may be committed to Him who has the hearts of all men in His hands, and who has said, Them that honour Me, I will honour. (Matthew M. Preston, M. A.)
The selfish man
We turn again to the dark side of Jonahs character; and very dark it is. Poor man! Whom is he angry with, and what is the ground of his displeasure? Some of the most prominent evil tempers that break out in the prophet on the occasion are the following--
1. Extreme selfishness. There is no principle in fallen man that does so much mischief in the world as that of selfishness; none dishonours God more; none produces so much injury to mankind; it prevents more good, and produces more evil, than any other temper of mind. Indeed, every sin and every suffering seem to have their origin in selfishness, and to proceed from it in one way or another. Selfishness is sin essentially. Self is the fountain of evil, and all sorts of sins are but as so many streams that issue from it. What is self-will? It is a contest between man and his God who is to have his way. What is the real cause of so much discontent and restlessness in the minds of men? It is striving with God whose will is to be done.
2. Jonah was a very peevish, quarrelsome, and fretful man. He retains his unhappy temper of mind wherever he goes, and however he is treated. Whether you strike or stroke him, he snarls. Guard against this miserable temper of mind which must be painful to ones self, disagreeable to others, and offensive to God. Learn that this peevish, fretful, and discontented temper is a stubborn sin, difficult to subdue, and a disease which is seldom cured.
3. Jonah betrays the greatest ingratitude to his kind, indulgent God. Not one expression of thankfulness do we hear from him. He is sullen and silent, full of anger and displeasure. The ungrateful man has a bad soul, unhappy in himself, and disagreeable to others; he enjoys nothing of what he possesses, let him possess ever so much. Possession and enjoyment are distinct things. True and lively gratitude is one of the most amiable and pleasing of all dispositions. May our wills be swallowed up in the will of God; may our spirits be satisfied with all that God does; and may our hearts be thankful for all His gifts, which are numerous, free, precious, constant, and eternal! (Thomas Jones.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Jonah 4
ISRAELS JEALOUSY OF JEHOVAH
Jonah 4
Read full note →
HAVING illustrated the truth, that the Gentiles are capable of repentance unto life, the Book now describes the effect of their escape upon Jonah, and closes by revealing Gods full heart upon the matter.
Jonah is very angry that Nineveh has been spared. Is this (as some say) because his own word has not been fulfilled? In Israel there was an accepted rule that a prophet should be judged by the issue of his predictions: "If thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which Jehovah hath not spoken?-when a prophet speaketh in the name of Jehovah, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken presumptuously, thou shalt have no reverence for him." {Deu_18:21-22} Was it this that stung Jonah? Did he ask for death because men would say of him that when he predicted Ninevehs overthrow he was false and had not Gods word? Of such fears there is no trace in the story. Jonah never doubts that his word came from Jehovah, nor dreads that other men will doubt. There is absolutely no hint of anxiety as to his professional reputation. But, on the contrary, Jonah says that from the first he had the foreboding, grounded upon his knowledge of Gods character, that Nineveh would be spared, and that it was from this issue he shrank and fled to go to Tarshish. In short he could not, either then or now, master his conviction that the heathen should be destroyed. His grief, though foolish, is not selfish. He is angry, not at the baffling of his word, but at Gods forbearance with the foes and tyrants of Israel.
Now, as in all else, so in this, Jonah is the type of his people. If we can judge from their literature after the Exile, they were not troubled by the non-fulfillment of prophecy, except as one item of what was the problem of their faith-the continued prosperity of the Gentiles. And this was not, what it appears to be in some Psalms, only an intellectual problem or an offence to their sense of justice. Nor could they meet it always, as some of their prophets did, with a supreme intellectual scorn of the heathen, and in the proud confidence that they themselves were the favorites of God. For the knowledge that God was infinitely gracious haunted their pride; and from the very heart of their faith arose a jealous fear that He would show His grace to others than themselves. To us it may be difficult to understand this temper. We have not been trained to believe ourselves an elect people; nor have we suffered at the hands of the heathen. Yet, at least, we have contemporaries and fellow-Christians among whom we may find still alive many of the feelings against which the Book of Jonah was written. Take the Oriental Churches of today. Centuries of oppression have created in them an awful hatred of the infidel, beneath whose power they are hardly suffered to live. The barest justice calls for the overthrow of their oppressors. That these share a common humanity with themselves is a sense they have nearly lost. For centuries they have had no spiritual intercourse with them; to try to convert a Mohammedan has been for twelve hundred years a capital crime. It is not wonderful that Eastern Christians should have long lost power to believe in the conversion of infidels, and to feel that anything is due but their destruction. The present writer once asked a cultured and devout layman of the Greek Church, Why then did God create so many Mohammedans? The answer came hot and fast: To fill up Hell! Analogous to this were the feelings of the Jews towards the peoples who had conquered and oppressed them. But the jealousy already alluded to aggravated these feelings to a rigor no Christian can ever share. What right had God to extend to their oppressors His love for a people who alone had witnessed and suffered for Him, to whom He had bound Himself by so many exclusive promises, whom He had called His Bride, His Darling, His Only One? And yet the more Israel dwelt upon that love the more they were afraid of it. God had been so gracious and so long-suffering to themselves that they could not trust Him not to show these mercies to others. In which case, what was the use of their uniqueness and privilege? What worth was their living any more? Israel might as well perish.
It is this subtle story of Israels jealousy of Jehovah, and Jehovahs gentle treatment of it, which we follow in the last chapter of the book. The chapter starts from Jonahs confession of fear of the results of Gods lovingkindness and from his persuasion that, as this spread of the heathen, the life of His servant spent in opposition to the heathen was a worthless life; and the chapter closes with Gods own vindication of His Love to His jealous prophet.
"It was a great grief to Jonah, and he was angered; and he prayed to Jehovah and said: Ah now, Jehovah, while I was still upon mine own ground, at the time that I prepared to flee to Tarshish, was not this my word, that I knew Thee to be a God gracious and tender, long-suffering and plenteous in love, relenting of evil? And now, Jehovah, take, I pray Thee, my life from me, for me death is better than life."
In this impatience of life as well as in some subsequent traits, the story of Jonah reflects that of Elijah. But the difference between the two prophets was this, that while Elijah was very jealous for Jehovah, Jonah was very jealous of Him. Jonah could not bear to see the love promised to Israel alone, and cherished by her, bestowed equally upon her heathen oppressors. And he behaved after the manner of jealousy and of the heart that thinks itself insulted. He withdrew, and sulked in solitude, and would take no responsibility nor further interest in his work. Such men are best treated by a caustic gentleness, a little humor, a little rallying, a leaving to nature, and a taking unawares in their own confessed prejudices. All these-I dare to think even the humor-are present in Gods treatment of Jonah. This is very natural and very beautiful. Twice the Divine Voice speaks with a soft sarcasm: "Art thou very angry?" Then Jonahs affections, turned from man to God, are allowed their course with a bit of nature, the fresh and green companion of his solitude; and then when all his pity for this has been roused by its destruction, that very pity is employed to awaken his sympathy with Gods compassion for the great city, and he is shown how he has denied to God the same natural affection which he confesses to be so strong in himself But why try further to expound so clear and obvious an argument?
"But Jehovah said, Art thou so very angry?" Jonah would not answer-how lifelike is his silence at this point!-"but went out from the city and sat down before it, and made him there a booth and dwelt beneath it in the shade, till he should see what happened in the city. And Jehovah God prepared a gourd, and it grew up above Jonah to be a shadow over his head And Jonah rejoiced in the gourd with a great joy. But as dawn came up the next day God prepared a worm, and this wounded the gourd, that it perished. And it came to pass, when the sun rose, that God prepared a dry east-wind, and the sun smote on Jonahs head, so that he was faint, and begged for himself that he might die, saying, Better my dying than my living! And God said unto Jonah, Art thou so very angry about the gourd? And he said, I am very angry-even unto death! And Jehovah said: Thou carest for a gourd for which thou hast not travailed, nor hast thou brought it up, a thing that came in a night and in a night has perished. And shall I not care for Nineveh, the Great City, in which there are more than twelve times ten thousand human beings who know not their right hand from their left, besides much cattle?"
God had vindicated His love to the jealousy of those who thought that it was theirs alone. And we are left with this grand vague vision of the immeasurable city, with its multitude of innocent children and cattle, and Gods compassion brooding over all.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL NOTES.] Angry] Lit. hot with anger; to burn…
CRITICAL NOTES.] Angry] Lit. hot with anger; to burn inwardly: the verb usually restricted to anger, but (Jon_4:4; Jon_4:9) rendered to grieve. Jonah’s vexation grew to anger. Nineveh’s destruction would have been a warning to Israel, but God had preserved it, and he appeared to have no hope for the reformation of his country.
Jon_4:2. Word] Saying or cogitation. i.e. Did I not say to myself? Land] Palestine. Fled] I prevented to flee, i.e. I endeavoured by flight to prevent. Gracious] (cf. Exo_34:6; Exo_32:14; Joe_2:13).
Read full note →
Jon_4:3. Take] cf. Elijah’s prayer (1Ki_19:4). Better] than live under the imputation of being a false prophet.
Jon_4:4. Well] The Heb. adverbial, “Is thine anger justly kindled?” Art thou greatly or much angry? [LXX. and Fairbairn].
Jon_4:5. Went out] Some time before the forty days expire. East side] Definiteness in the picture. See] Watch what would happen, expecting Nineveh to fall by earthquake, or be burned like Sodom [Pusey].
Jon_4:6. Gourd] The “ricinus” or “palma Christi;” the word sig. an artificial covert, as a tent or booth; sometimes a shelter, in the preparation of which no art is used (Jer_25:38; Job_38:40). Exceeding] Lit. glad with great gladness.
Jon_4:7. Worm] Taken collectively for worms in Deu_28:39; Isa_14:11 : may be here. The palma Christi in a short time produces caterpillars, and where these abound they strip the tree of its leaves in one night, and take away the shade.
Jon_4:8. This not sufficient discipline. Vehement] Silent, i.e. deadly sultry east wind. Wished] Lit. he asked, as to his soul, to die.
Jon_4:9. Doest thou?] This question comprises the meaning of Jon_4:9-11. I do] To the bottom of my soul, to weariness of life (cf. Mat_26:38). “I am very much grieved even to death” [Fairbairn].
Jon_4:10. Jonah’s attention is directed to the contradiction in which he has fallen, by feeling compassion for the withering of the miraculous tree, and at the same time murmuring because God has had compassion upon Nineveh with its many thousands of living beings [Keil]. The shrub was the son of a night, and perished in a night: if he pitied this which he neither planted nor cultured, has God not greater right to pity creatures whom he has made? &c. Pity] Spared the gourd.
HOMILETICS
THE STRANGE DISPLEASURE.—Jon_4:1-4
God’s servants should rejoice in the increase of his people and the success of their labours. Nineveh had repented, was saved and filled with rejoicing, but one individual was differently affected by the display of Divine mercy towards a guilty city. Sin lurks in those that have suffered most, that have undergone the severest discipline to wean them from it. A fretful man is—
1. At discord with the joy of his fellow-creatures.
2. Opposed to the benevolent designs of God. Notice Jonah’s strange displeasure. “It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.”
I. He sets the welfare of his own country above the interests of humanity. “He is an Israelite and a patriot. He loved his own people better than the Ninevites, and had no idea of God chosing more than one nation. He thought Nineveh the chief enemy which threatened his country. Behold it is spared, and likely to prosper! What will become of his brethren now? His Jewish pride rebelled, and he was angry.” Professing Christians often cherish the same spirit, idolize their sect and creed. The sin of Jonah is a common sin. It is seen in the world’s patriotism and the Church’s bigotry; in all sectarianism and narrow-mindedness; in reluctance to missionary effort, and envy at the success of others. We cry, “Charity begins at home;” refuse to do God’s work ourselves, and do not like it done by others. The disciples glorified God on Peter’s report. “Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”
II. He frets at the mercy of God to others. He would rather have his own will. God’s dealings with Nineveh did not please him. When self is exalted, and God’s Providence thwarts our wishes, we are displeased. God does not gratify our whims, hence we fret and complain; we get peevish and angry with everything about us. “The times are out of joint.” This temper darkens sunshine, corrodes enjoyment, scorns gratitude, and banishes happiness from every place. Is God’s will not right, and are his ways not perfect? “Should it be according to thy mind?”
III. He attempts to justify his past conduct. “Was not this my saying?” &c. We have here the reason for his flight to Tarshish which he is ready to excuse. He hastened, tried to be beforehand with God, to circumvent and defeat his designs. What folly and impiety to justify this! Why should we be ashamed to acknowledge error, and forsake a wrong when detected in it? The true penitent will sink self, think more of God’s truth than his credit; be ready to confess all and excuse nothing. But for the belief that he would have mercy upon Nineveh, Jonah tells God that he would have obeyed the first commission. When men insist that they have done right, and call up sins which should have been forgotten, and for which they have been chastised, they display ignorance, pride, and self-conceit.
1. They make themselves disagreeable. Everybody dislikes a man that always claims to be right, that can never be taught nor corrected.
2. They are a curse to society. Their example and influence are pernicious. They are never satisfied with the ways of Providence. God’s plans are always wrong, and his mercy upon others thrown away. How abominable is self-assertion, self-justification, and self-will. “I knew beforehand what would happen, therefore I shall please myself now!”
IV. He becomes impatient of life itself. “Take, I pray thee, my life from me,” &c. This is the impatient wish of petulance and discontent, not the pious desire of Paul and God’s people (Luk_2:29; 1Co_5:1-3; Php_1:18-23). But in this rash petition the Prophet stands not alone. Failure in business, disappointment in love, treachery of friends, and perplexing providences, cover the sky with clouds, and oppress the spirit with gloom. Moses and Elijah, Job and Jeremiah, prove that temptations to such desires are powerful in the best of men. Men pray for death when not prepared to die. If life is not appreciated, death is not desirable. This desire chills our best affections, and cherishes our meanest interests. It indicated—
1. Lack of faith in God. God’s plans were better than Jonah’s. He should have believed in the wisdom of God.
2. Ingratitude for his own forgiveness. God’s mercy towards himself should have made him tender-hearted to others, and glad to see their repentance.
“Anger is a short fit of madness” [Tillotson].
A GRACIOUS GOD.—Jon_4:2
Jonah seems to think that God was more merciful than just. But the justice of God is a proof and an exhibition of his love. Mercy and truth blend together like rays from the sun, to give life and light to men. This character of God is described in law, prophets, and psalms. It is a memorial and manifestation of God to all generations.
I. God is gracious in essence. “Thou art a gracious God.” God has the disposition to goodness. He is gratuitously benevolent. This sheds lustre upon his nature and light upon a fallen world. He seeks to subdue the enmity of man, and allure wanderers back. He needs nothing to excite his love. His very nature is gracious. “God is love.” Moses wondered how God could show mercy and do justly; desired some greater insight into the Eternal Mind, and longed to do his duty to a disobedient people (Exo_33:17-19). But Jonah made the revealed character of God a ground for upbraiding men and neglecting duty. How sublime the contrast between God’s mercy and man’s ways. “My ways are not as your ways,” &c.
II. God is gracious in acts. As the fountain, so the streams. The acts of God partake of the character of God. Benevolent in nature, he is benevolent in act and design. He wills not that any should perish. We are apt to measure him by our own feelings, and picture him as malevolent and vindictive.
1. He is merciful. Merciful to the miserable and undeserving. Ever disposed to relieve the suffering, pardon the guilty, and dispense happiness.
2. He is slow to anger. He is not passionate and easily provoked. He restrains his wrath, and many a time turns away his anger. He deals not with men according to their iniquity, nor rewards them according to their sins. He is reluctant to execute sentence, and spares offenders.
3. He is of great kindness. Having long patience and forbearance; allows time for repentance, and seeks to pardon and save. Great kindness is seen in great patience in provocation; in great gifts upon the unworthy, and innumerable blessings upon the just and unjust. “His mercy endureth for ever.”
4. He repents of the evil. Though he threatens, he does not often strike. When the evil has been wholly or partially inflicted, he will repent of it and replace it with good if the sinner returns to him. Thus all patience and long-suffering, all mercy and forgiveness, are traced up to God. He finds reason in himself alone for sparing the guilty and saving the penitent. “Not for your sakes do I this, be it known unto you, O house of Israel, but for mine own name’s sake.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Jon_4:1. Displeased. Displeasure indicates—
1. Lack of self-government. It was a proverbial saying of the pious Mede that “he who cannot hold his tongue, can hold nothing.”
2. Lack of reverence towards God. We should consider what God requires from us, and not what he wants to do with us. Do we honour God in feeling and action? We have known him, but not practised what we have known.
3. Lack of love to men. Jonah might not be grieved to see that mercy displayed to others, of which he shared so greatly himself—might not with the ungodly pine away because God was honoured in the repentance of Nineveh; but he was not in harmony with the interests of his fellow-creatures. God pardoned the city, “but it displeased Jonah.”
Jonah’s sin—
1. Sin against the brightest illumination. He “knew,” but sinned against the light of nature, the voice of conscience, and the revealed will of God.
2. Sin against the greatest mercies. His life was crowned with loving-kindness and tender mercies. The pre-eminent mercies of God fail to persuade men to forsake sin and serve God.
3. Sin against the greatest judgments. Judgments had blended with mercy, but corrections had not conquered his corruptions. How hard to overcome pride and petulance within us! But to this day men, like Pharaoh, harden themselves against God. “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?”
Jon_4:2. Jonah’s prayer. I. Its spirit. Petulant and unsubmissive; most ungrateful and selfish. It is a miserable temper, painful to one’s self, and disagreeable to others. The greatest debtors should be the most thankful men. II. Its purpose. “Take away my life.” What for? Is it of no more service? Let God judge of that. He bestows it; give it to him in return. There is grace enough for us and others. When we work in a good cause, and save great cities, life is noble, and should be dignified and preserved. Those who wish to leave life because they cannot have their own way are not fit to meet God. Here is Jonah’s integrity and Jonah’s safety.
1. Integrity. He is no enemy, but a friend and child of God, notwithstanding his perplexity. He cannot rest in distance from God. Sick at heart, he pours out complaint to him. In every prayer of God’s children there is a mixture of sin. The mixture here is conspicuous and alarming. There is, however, an element of grace, a secret seed of faith and submission in making God the counsellor and referee.
2. Safety. But for this he would mentally and spiritually have fled again from God as before. Now he flees to God. He does not seek a refuge; he makes God his refuge; tells him the grounds of alarm; expostulates and seeks to make his case clear before God. Though there is excess, violence, and inexcusable haste and passion, yet God condescends to his prayer, stained as it is by grievous infirmity [H. Martin]. He prayed in a tumult, as if reproving God. We must necessarily recognise a certain amount of piety in this prayer of Jonah, and at the same time many faults. There was so far piety in it, that he directed his complaints to God; for hypocrites, even when they address God, are nevertheless hostile to him. But Jonah, when he complains, although he does not keep within proper bounds, but is carried away by a blind and vicious impulse, is nevertheless prepared to submit himself to God [Calvin].
Jon_4:3. It is better to die, &c. Death as a remedy for the ills of life, in weariness, impatience, disappointments, and perplexing providences.
1. It is only an imaginary remedy.
2. It would only increase the evil. It would not relieve distress, nor bring extinction. The grave cannot calm the soul, and hush its sorrows. “Hence death,” says one, “would only have led Jonah from the shadow of his trouble to its very centre, where its sad meaning would have been known to him.” Paul had “great heaviness and continual sorrow,” desired to be with Christ, which was better than remaining here; but he did not pray for death in all his labours and persecutions, for his life seemed needful to the Church on earth.
“He sins against this life who slights the next.” [Young.]
Here is at least no craven love of life! no clinging to meat and drink, and mere foothold on the ground. This wounded spirit, realising its mortality amid change and adversity, rises disdainfully above the mortal pathway, and asks to be liberated for the last flight to immortality and heaven. Hezekiah “wept sore” when the message came to him, “Thou shalt die and not live.” Jonah here prays, “Let me die—of life I have had enough. Life is nothing to me without its uses.” The Prophet’s attitude is nobler than the king’s [Raleigh].
“What is’t to die?
To leave all disappointment, cares, and sorrow,
To leave all falsehood, treachery, and unkindness,
All ignominy, suffering, and despair,
And be at rest for ever” [Longfellow].
HOMILETICS
DIVINE REPROOF.—Jon_4:4
Jonah had ground for joy and not for grief. God expostulates with him and leads him to reflection. The interrogative form proves the condescension and wisdom of God.
I. The condescension of God. God did not upbraid the prophet for ingratitude and self-will. But he sought to relieve an overburdened spirit, rouse a dormant conscience, and melt an impenitent heart. When we retire from duty in fretfulness, God reasons with us. “What doest thou here, Elijah?” When we indulge in envious thoughts of Providence, and hatch imaginary ills, a voice speaks, “Doest thou well to be angry?” God cares for his servants, and seeks to relieve them. “The Lord thinketh on me.”
II. The wisdom of God. Jehovah did not give the verdict, but called upon Jonah to assign a cause for anger, or by silence condemn himself. On earth men are left to judge themselves, to pass sentence on their own conduct. They are completely in the power of God, and he need not condemn now. He requires voluntary obedience. To secure this, and prepare us for the day of account, he enlightens the mind, quickens the conscience, and continually appeals to each—“Doest thou well?”
THE FOLLY OF A FRETFUL MIND.—Jon_4:4; Jon_4:9
There is here no condemnation of lawful anger. As a natural emotion, anger is legitimate and useful. “Be ye angry and sin not.” The blame is against the cause of it. It was the zeal of false patriotism; passionate grief excited by an act of Divine mercy.
I. Doest thou well to be angry without any real cause for thine anger? The ground is imaginary. Thy grief is unnecessary and unreasonable, unjust and wicked. One half of trouble rises from groundless causes. We picture the worst, and our jealousy is needless. Our reason for displeasure is future, of our own portending, such as events may negative and disappoint Think seriously whether you do right in being angry. Control indignation in principle, purpose, and degree. “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”
II. Doest thou well to be angry when the dealings of God with thee teach thee to be thankful? Jonah’s temper was at variance with his mercies and position as God’s servant. We might have expected gratitude from one so highly favoured. But thankfulness seldom keeps pace with mercies. Those who receive most do not always make the best return. God’s grace should dilute or remove the acid in our temper, teach us to bear with those who are reformed, and make us conscious how rough and sinful we ourselves are in the sight of God.
III. Doest thou well to be angry when the consequences before God and man are most serious?
1. It excites the anger of God. It is presumption and self-assertion, disobedience to his will, and impatience under his rule. The ungrateful can have no enjoyment of God’s favours. They provoke him to take away what they have, and to give less in the future. Their fretfulness cannot improve their circumstances. God’s will is supreme, and must be done. “Is thine eye evil because I am good?”
2. It is never beneficial to man. If anger is not good and just toward God, what can it profit man? It proves a man to be of narrow views and weak morals. (a) Never beneficial to one who indulges in it. An ill-temper is an affliction to its possessor, spoils his peace, prayers, and business. It distracts from his strength and beauty, and disqualifies for Christian blessing and work. (b) Never beneficial to others. It seems to be owing to temper that Ed. Burke quarrelled with Wilberforce and Fox, and gained the title of “the inconsistent and incomprehensible Burke.’ Exhibitions of passion delight the enemy and wound the friends, dishonour Christ and give false impressions of his religion. It leads us to imitate, repeat, and perpetuate wrong. It should be checked, for it is both mischievous to oneself and to others. “Doest thou well to be angry?”
“When anger rushes unrestrained to action
Like a hot steed, it stumbles in its way” [Savage].
JONAH’S RETIREMENT.—Jon_4:5
As soon as Jonah had delivered his message he left the city, remained outside on the east side, and built himself a temporary shelter. The report of the city’s repentance reached him; dissatisfied with himself, and displeased with God’s dealings, he had neither comfort in duty nor retirement.
I. The place of retirement. “The east side of the city, and there made him a booth.” He was not unmindful of personal ease, takes time and bestows trouble to build a hut. We are often more concerned for our own comfort than for the interests of men. Selfishness is graven in the heart, drives men to grasp at shadows and not substance. It leads them to resign duty, quit the field of labour, and expect more than they get. Adam parted with his holy robe, lost the presence of his God, and tried to make up for the loss with his own device. Selfish ends and worldly devices are nothing more than booths in which men can never rest and find shelter. The path of obedience alone is the path of happiness.
II. The spirit of retirement. Here we have a noble man, a servant of God, blind to the interests of men and the claims of duty through pride and personal feeling! Disappointed in labour, he wished to resign it; tired of life, he prayed to leave it. There he sat, in silence and disgust. Heaven smiles on the city, joy and gladness fills its streets, but Jonah walks into solitude with a sullen temper. He is at variance with God, regardless of man, and shut up in selfish aims. “Oh what a blessed thing it is to lose one’s will,” said Dr. Payson; “since I have lost my will I have found happiness. There can be no such thing as disappointment to me, for I have no desire but that God’s will may be accomplished.”
III. The purpose of retirement. “Till he might see what would become of their city.” Perhaps he did not wish its entire destruction, but he watched to see what would be done—if its repentance would last, and if after all God would fulfil the threat. Abraham interceded for Sodom, Christ wept over Jerusalem, and we should resemble these eminent patterns of compassion. But if our views of sin and God are clouded, if we value not the soul, and limit the mercy of God, we shall be indifferent to the moral condition of men. If, Nero-like, we do not play while the city burns, thousands may perish without a sigh or a prayer for their escape. We should have pity upon offenders, and haste to reclaim them. “Pulling them out of the fire.”
THE DIVINE CORRECTION OF A FRETFUL MAN.—Jon_4:6-10
God teaches not as man teaches. In God’s school the lessons are mercifully given, and wonderfully adapted to our mind and circumstances. Here we have the Divine rebuke of Jonah’s petulant temper.
I. God corrects by refreshing the physical nature. The gourd was prepared “to be a shadow over his head.” The first lesson and cure of despondency is to remove fatigue and bodily weariness from over-work. Elijah’s despondency was pardy physical, and the angel brought him refreshment. Food and rest are required, and God seeks to quiet the mind by cooling the body. There is an intimate connection between both, and we often get at one through the other. Regard for the body is urged from the lofty nature and the important use of the soul. They are helpmates in God’s service now, and will be in his kingdom above. Fretfulness, petulance, and irritability oftener spring from physical weakness than moral unloveliness. If God in providence deals mercifully we should not be harsh with such feelings.
II. God corrects by influencing the moral nature. The method taken is worthy of special attention. Sensible signs teach spiritual truths. A parable worked into the form of facts is given and interpreted by God himself.
1. God speaks by symbol. “The Lord prepared a gourd,” for all the steps in the discipline of a good man are divinely ordered. Words merely might not have been sufficient. The lesson is brought home by means of symbol. Man has sympathy with nature, and God often touches this sympathy. Spring and autumn, summer and winter, beget kindred feelings in our hearts. When flowers bloom and trees shelter us, we rejoice; when beauty decays and plants perish, we grieve. God prepared a worm which devoured the gourd, exposed Jonah to the burning sun and the vehement wind, then there was a change of feeling. He fainted, complained to God, defended excessive grief, and enforced his preference of death to life. “I do well to be angry, even unto death.” Jonah is now prepared, his moral nature is truly touched and displayed, and if he cannot rejoice in Nineveh’s joy he must understand that God does.
2. God speaks by verbal communications. God now speaks to the Prophet, argues with him, and reasons from the less to the greater. Anything to break sullen silence is a blessing. The song of a bird, the voice of a child, and the ripple of a stream are often music to the soul; raise our thoughts from self to God. God holds up Jonah’s feeling, makes his pity, not the life of the plant, the symbol of his love. Pity on a gourd for which he did not labour, the son of a night, and the existence of a day! because it pleased his fancy and served his wish! Did he want to spare this short-lived little shrub? shall not God, then, spare immortal souls, the work of his hands, and rejoice over the humbled, penitent city? Our sympathies with the beautiful and good may be right, while our moral nature is wrong. God trains this instinctive feeling of the mind, sanctions its validity, and exercises and makes it the type of his own procedure. “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him?”
WITHERED JOYS.—Jon_4:7
Man is capable of joy. True joys are only found in God. The worm of destruction gnaws the root of our best and most loved earthly joy. Every creature has its enemy, and death smites every gourd of life. Joys which specially decay may be noticed.
I. Joys which are sinful in their basis. If we regard our own ease and comfort, disregard the interests of men, and disapprove of God’s ways, our joy is selfish and will soon decay. If we depend for happiness on anything beneath the soul we shall come to grief.
II. Joys which are gained without labour. Jonah neither planted nor watered the tree which gave him shelter. Men often seize that which is cheap, and trust to that which costs them nothing. God is constantly teaching that nothing valuable is obtained without labour. The acquisition of lasting joy is not easy. It results, not from sulky labour and melancholy feeling, but from earnest duty and a peaceful heart.
“Heaven sells pleasure; effort is the price;
The joys of conquest are the joys of man” [Young].
III. Joys which are deceitful in their results. Jonah’s joy sprang from bodily ease and sensual feeling. The comforts which removed his troubles were carnal and dying comforts. Our joys are often shadows of our sorrows. Whatever be their effect upon us, if they exclude God, and submission to him, all creation is ready to destroy them. It is not chance, but God in justice and love, who smites the gourd to free the heart. Wealth, friendships, and honours seem to quicken our joy and cause it to bloom in beauty and vigour; but they bring decay and vexation. When we expect shelter and rest, lo, a worm at the root I
“Of joys departed
Not to return, how painful the remembrance” [Robt. Blair].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Jon_4:6. “Exceedingly glad,” and “exceedingly grieved.” Extremes in human feelings—their causes and consequences. It is a law of the mind, verified in ourselves and others, to be susceptible of sudden transitions, elevated to-day and depressed to-morrow.
Jon_4:7. Destruction is “prepared” by God as well as life; trouble as well as joy. And both are Divinely ruled with a view to the education and purification of human souls. Here are emblems of the closely-linked, joy and sorrow of this mortal life. The fine plant, leafy green, types so well our comforts, successes, joys. The single day of shade it furnished to the heated Prophet speaks touchingly of the transciency of our pleasures. The worm reminds us that a small and mean creature may be a formidable enemy. The place of its operation, probably under the soil, shows us how powers and agents, invisible and unknown to us, can touch and smite in secret the springs of outward prosperity. The time when decay began—at the rising of the morning—makes us think mournfully how human helps and comforts often wither at the very season when they are most needed. How often when “the morning” of family life is “rising” are comforts swept away! Ah! how often is there removal of sheltering fatherhood, or nourishing motherhood, or both! The utter loss of what had given such intense enjoyment warns us not to set our affections passionately upon anything which can be utterly lost, but to lift our supreme affections to things above the sphere of the “worm” and the “moth,” beyond the reach of the “rust” and the “thief” [Raleigh].
The worm teaches—
1. That things which destroy our gourds are often little things.
2. That things which destroy our gourds are often invisible things.
3. That things which destroy our gourds are always prepared by God. Under his control the meanest and most invisible creatures can accomplish the most wonderful purposes. They destroy the largest armies, and demolish the strongest fortresses; they overturn thrones, and lay waste empires.
Earthly joys. It is kind in God to remove them, when he sees that his gifts are occupying our affections to the exclusion of the Giver. It is lawful for him to take them at any time. It will be just to do so, if we abuse and pervert them. Let us receive them with thankful acknowledgments of their Author, hold them with a readiness to relinquish them any moment, use them with carefulness and moderation to his glory, and seek that, whatever they are in kind and number, our affections may be set on things above [Sibthorp].
Jon_4:8. In this verse we have exemplified the conduct of some good people under affliction. We find that the afflictions which come upon men are Divinely commissioned—that they are often very severe. “A vehement east wind.” They are often complicated. Not only the “wind,” but “the sun,” beating upon Jonah’s head. They often happen at the most inopportune time, and have often a most exhaustive effect upon those to whom they come. “He fainted.” These afflictions often occasion a complaining spirit. It is better for me to die than to live [Exell].
Jon_4:9. Doest thou well? I. The question put.
1. To reprove Jonah
2. To convince him of his error; and 3 To bring him to a humble and obedient spirit. II. The answer given. Jonah had not dared to speak before Jon_4:4, now he answers and defends his wicked spirit and conduct. We see the old spirit and pride with more actual sin and provocation. “I do well,” &c. A fearful outburst! Resist passion at the first rising, else who knows whither it may transport us? “Passions,” saith Fuller, “like heavy bodies down steep hills, once in motion, move themselves, and know no ground but the bottom.”
“We oft by lightning read in darkest nights;
And by your passions I read all your natures,
Tho’ you at other times can keep them dark.” [John Crowne.]
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
Jon_4:1. Displeased. Anger begins with folly and ends with repentance [Maunder]. Anger and haste hinder good counsel [Fielding]. Be on your guard against your temper. It will frustrate all your designs if you listen to it. It will make you lose the most important opportunities, and will inspire you with the inclinations and aversions of a child, to the prejudice of your greatest interests [Fenelon].
Jon_4:2-3. Life. Live virtuously, my lord, and you cannot die too soon, nor live too long [Lady Rachel Russel].
“So weak is man,
So ignorant and blind, that did not God
Sometimes withhold in mercy what we ask
We should be ruined at our own request.” [H. More.]
Jon_4:4-5. Dost thou well? It would check our angry complainings under the afflictive hand of God, and turn them into praises for the very moderate measure of trial with which he visits us, to review our own vileness and desert of wrath, and the great grace shown towards us (Ezr_9:13; Psa_103:10; Job_11:6) [Sibthorp]. The Divine Being does not always like to use extreme penalties, but the more gentle, that men may not only be disciplined by pain, but also by moral conviction. Hence God frequently comes to the human soul in the language of this verse, and says, “Dost thou well to be angry?” And this quiet method of correction is frequently effective, awaking in the soul thoughts that end in a return to reason and purity [Exell].
Jon_4:7-9. The Lord’s servants are under a continual course of instruction. Every circumstance of every day and hour has its proper lesson for them, which it is their duty, wisdom, and privilege to learn. The end of their instruction is entire sanctification and meetness for glory through conformity to the image of God. When they are refractory, as Jonah now was, God takes commonly some special method to recall them to duty, and pursue his object of their growth in grace [Sibthorp].
Jon_4:9-11. The teachings of Nature, which unbelievers vaunt as all-sufficient, have never led mankind to a correct knowledge of God, nor produced holy feeling; and they never can. But they may prepare for the Word, and be used to convey it, illustrate it, and fix it in the memory. God schooling Jonah in patient, tender love, and through him preparing instruction for Israel and for us, uses Nature to prepare the way for the lessons of the Word. As when he sent Nathan to David with a parable, to make David condemn himself out of his own mouth, so to Jonah he sends the gourd and the worm, the wind and the sunshine, to prepare the way for making his better feelings condemn his worse. He will make his pity for the plant explain God’s pity for Nineveh, and condemn Jonah’s want of pity for that multitude of souls [Mitchel].
This wonderful book of Jonah has given us a picture of the human heart, not in its lowest degradation, but taught by revelation, restrained by conscience, influenced more or less by piety, but stripped of its disguises and company dress. God takes us behind the scenes to show us how in Nature his hand and purpose are working by storm and sunshine, fish and worm, and so puts a window for us in the heart of man. Jonah speaks out to God, and acts out before us, and writes down for us to read, without suppression, palliation, or extenuation, the sinful thoughts which other men have, but do not make known. We have at once a picture of God’s character, and a mirror in which to behold our own [Ibid]. In the book of Jonah we have thus a panorama of historical facts, pregnant with the most important instruction. Its lessons constitute the staple of the teaching of the later prophets, and contain the leading thoughts which were developed in their writings, imbedded in the mind of Israel, and expounded by Christ and his apostles.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 (with Eph 4:20)
Jon 4:4
(with Eph 4:20)
Read full note →
The former text implies that there is an anger which is sinful; and the latter text implies that there is an anger which is not sinful. The difference lies not so much in the character, or even in the degree, of the emotion; but rather in the motive which rouses it and the object towards which it is directed.
I. There is a feeling to which we give the name of moral indignation; by way of distinguishing it from other kinds of anger, more or less selfish and self-asserting; moral indignation is characterized chiefly by this—that it is quite unselfish. It is the feeling which rises in the breast of a man when he reads of or looks upon the ill-treatment of an animal, or the deception of a child, or the insulting of a woman. To stand by and see these things without remonstrance or without interference, is not forbearance; it is a cowardice, it is an unmanliness, it is a sin.
II. There is place, again, and room for anger, not only in the contemplation of wrong, but in the personal experience of temptation. There is an indignation, there is even a resentment, there is even a rage and fury, which may be employed, without offence to the Gospel, in repelling such an assault. Nor is that anger necessarily misplaced, because the lips of friendship or love are those which play the seducer. The tempter, like the bully, is a coward; the very eye undimmed by sinning will scare him off, like the rising sun of the Psalmist, to lay him down in his den.
III. Be angry with yourself, and sin not; let the time of this ignorance and folly and fatuity go at last and bury itself; awake to righteousness, and sin not; see if a moral indignation, powerful against others, may not beneficially be tried against yourself.
C. J. Vaughan, Temple Sermons, 463.
Jon 4:5
I. Jonah sat in his booth, dark and moody—plunged into deep distress by the very things which brought relief and hope to the great city. The reasons for his displeasure were manifold. He was jealous, with a needless jealousy, for the honour of God. His own reputation as a prophet was touched. His country was in danger from the Assyrian power, which he had hoped was now to be utterly humbled and smitten. The course of Providence had seemed right to him, although dark, while justice had held the awful scales and looked at the glittering sword. But now when mercy—fairer form than justice—had sheathed the sword, and thrown vast forgiveness into the scale to outweigh all terrors and penalties, he sees, with jaundiced eye, the whole course of Providence running in a wrong direction. "The times are out of joint." Sorrows wait for him and his. Surely the Lord is not taking the best plan.
II. Then came the prayer. This verse shows us that his "displeasure" and "grief" were just such as come to men amid the reverses and thwartings of life. It was the sighing and fretting of a wounded spirit amid "things," but not the personal and conscious revolt of the soul against the living God. He prays that he may die. (i) There is a certain wild majesty in this desire from which we can hardly withhold the tribute of our admiration. He wanted to die there and then. This wounded spirit, realizing its immortality the more amid change and adversity, rises disdainfully above the mortal pathway, above the whole round of earthly toil and care,—ambition and its reverses, honour and its shadows, joy and its close attendant grief,—beats its wings in the higher air, and asks to be liberated for the last flight, up into immortality and heaven. (ii) This prayer shows weakness as well as strength. There is in it, after all, something of a child’s waywardness. "Things have gone all awry, and nothing can ever be right again. Let me get away from such a disjointed world."
III. We can hardly doubt that Jonah thought of Elijah in offering the selfsame prayer, and that, in his own mind, he justified the presentation of it by the force of so great an example. Thus "the evil that men do," even in their prayers, "lives after them." Great men, when they err, are great tempters. A prophet can beguile a prophet.
A. Raleigh, The Story of Jonah, p. 252.
Reference: Jon 4:5-11.—W. G. Blaikie, Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 358.
Jon 4:6-11
I. Jonah’s gourd was all but certainly the palm-Christ, so-called because it is a five-leaved plant, one leaf of which outspread resembles a man’s hand. It was thought to represent the hand of Christ. This plant is indigenous in nearly all the Eastern countries. It grows to the height of eight, ten, twelve feet. It has but one leaf for a branch, but the branches are numerous, and the leaves are broad. Branch rising above branch, nothing could be better adapted for making a screen and casting a relieving shadow. It was a quickly growing plant, which sprang up during the forty days, and was ready with its shade for the prophet’s time of need. By a poetic figure it is called, in the tenth verse, "the son of the night."
II. Why was Jonah so exceeding glad of the gourd? (i) Partly, no doubt, for the simplest and most obvious reason—because it was an immense physical relief and protection. (ii) The gourd was a gift from God to the prophet, and accepted by him as such. He sat there under its shadow with great delight. (iii) He would probably take it as a Divine indication that he had done right in waiting to see what would become of the city.
III. It is impossible to help "moralizing," as some would call it, on the worm and the gourd. They are felt universally to be emblems too faithful of the swift-coursing, closely-linked joy and sorrow of this mortal life. (i) The fine plant, leafy green, types so well our comforts, successes, joys. (ii) The single day of shade it furnished the heated prophet speaks touchingly of the transiency of our pleasures. (iii) The worm reminds us that a small and mean creature may be a very formidable enemy. (iv) The place of. its operation, under the soil, shows us how powers and agents, invisible and unknown to us, can touch and smite in secret the springs of outward prosperity. (v) The time when decay began—at the rising of the morning—makes us think mournfully how human helps and comforts often wither at the very season when they are most needed. (vi) The utter loss of what had given such intense enjoyment warns us not to set our affections passionately upon anything which can be utterly lost, but to lift our supreme affection to things above the sphere of the "worm," and the "moth," beyond the reach of the "rust," and the "thief." (vii) The Divine "preparation" of the destroying insect to feed upon the plant which had been as divinely prepared, sheds some light amid the darkest mysteries of life, and brings a strong relief and assuagement to us amid the natural fears and doubts of our experience. Destruction is prepared by God as well as life; trouble as well as joy. And both are divinely ruled, with a view to the education and purification of human souls.
A. Raleigh, The Story of Jonah, p. 271.
Jon 4:9
I. The first thing which strikes us in this portion of sacred history is Jonah’s selfishness.
II. Another thing which strikes us unpleasantly in the history of Jonah is his ingratitude.
III. The withering of Jonah’s gourd should remind us how shortlived our earthly comforts are.
IV. Very trifling causes blast our happiness, and rob us of our peace.
V. We are reminded, in Jonah’s history, of God’s abounding mercy.
J. N. Norton, Golden Truths, p. 158.
Reference: Jon 4:9.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 195.
Jon 4:9-11
Notice:—
I. The sinfulness of absorbing passion. Its sinfulness is illustrated: (1) By Jonah’s contempt of life. Nineveh was not to be destroyed as he had prophesied, and his pride was wounded, and he says: "Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live." A man’s worth may be measured by the reverence he has for his life. It is well for Christians to be aware of the real impiety that lurks under a longing for death, and weariness of the life which, day by day, God is bestowing on us here. (2) The sinfulness of absorbing passion is seen again in that it works insincerity. Even after Jonah has recognised that God is sparing the city, he still affects to believe that it will be overthrown. (3) The selfishness of an absorbing passion is illustrated in Jonah’s contempt of the men of Nineveh. He will not share in their repentance; he will not encourage their hope that God may yet turn away His fierce anger, nor join them in their gratitude that God has spared them. He shuts himself up alone to brood over his anger. All passion tends to arrogance. Self-absorption means scorn of our fellows. A single passion may arrogate to itself the whole sphere of life, constitute itself the be-all and end-all of existence.
II. God’s cure for absorbing passion. God seeks to restore the prophet by awakening love in his heart; awakening his interest, and making him tender over the gourd. There is something wonderful in life, even though it be the life of a common weed. Such things speak to us, however faintly we may understand them, of an awful power that forms and an ever-watchful care that tends them; they are "fearfully and wonderfully made." The tenderness that was in Jonah, poor as it was, mingled with selfishness as it was, was yet, in its dim and partial way, an emblem of the tenderness of God for every creature He has made.
A. Mackennal, Christ’s Healing Touch, p. 89.
Jon 4:10-11
The Divine argument for mercy in these last verses is, if we may say so without irreverence, a masterpiece of Divine skill and simplicity. There are many single texts of the New Testament which express quite as strongly the unfailing readiness of the mercy of God to sinful men. But the beautiful peculiarity of this passage is, that it is an actual instance of the exercise of that mercy.
I. See how simply the argument begins. As a lily was text enough for our Lord for a sermon on providence, so a gourd serves this occasion for a proclamation to all the world of mercy. "Thou hast had pity on the gourd."
II. It is not the life of the plant, but the feeling of the man about it, that constitutes the true symbol of the Divine love. "Thou hast had pity on the gourd." May not I have pity, too? It is much to have, thus, direct sanction given to the validity, Tightness, of our instinctive feelings. Our natural pity, our sensibility, our sympathy with all life,—these are right and good. We are wrong as to our moral condition, but these are right.
III. It is an argument from the less to the greater. "How much more" seems to sound in these two last verses, and all through them. In every point there is contrast, clear and strong. (1) You had pity on a gourd. What is a plant to a human being? (2) The gourd was but one. Would you spare the one, and must I slay the many? (3) The contrast touches the quality of relative performance. (4) Jonah had not laboured for the, gourd. God had waited for the coming of each soul, and laboured with all the energies and harmonies of His providence, that each might come in his own "fulness of time." (5) Another touch of God’s thoughtful tenderness is the mention of the children. Many great and fruitful truths lie couchant here. It is manifest: (a) that infants are regarded by God as personally innocent; (b) that unconscious beings may have—really have—a great moral power and place in the universe; (c) that life is good. Better to live even in such a place as Nineveh, where alas! the wickedness is only arrested for a little, and not extinguished, than not to live at all. (6) And also much cattle. The condescending God, stooping down to the children, sees, reaches far below them. But the cattle are far above the gourd. They, too, in their dumb, dull way, are suppliants. He who makes them feeds them, recognizes their right to be fed. He who owns "the cattle upon a thousand hills," has the thousand hills for the cattle as well as for the service of man.
A. Raleigh, The Story of Jonah, p. 297.
References: Jon 4:10, Jon 4:11.—E. W. Shalders, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 168. Jon 4:11.—J. Baldwin Brown, Ibid., vol. xv., pp. 369, 394.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Jonah's Jealousy contrasted with Jehovah's Compassion
Jonah's Jealousy contrasted with Jehovah's Compassion
1. Jonah's anger has a double cause, wounded pride that his words are proved false, and indignation that the God of Israel should pity heathen, only fit to be fuel for fire. 3. A striking parallel to the dejection and disappointment of Elijah (1 Kings 19).
Read full note →
4. Doest thou well to be angry?] RM 'Art thou greatly angry?' A kindly remonstrance to awake better feelings. Jonah makes no reply yet, but goes and sits in his booth to watch whether, after all, God will not change His mind again.
5. The booth, like those used at the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, would be a rough structure made of poles and leaves.
6. Gourd] most likely the bottle-gourd, often planted to grow over trellis-work, whose broad leaves would form a good protection against the sun.
8. Vehement] RV 'sultry' = the sirocco.
9. See on Jon_4:4. Jonah transfers his pity for himself, as an ill-used prophet, to the gourd which likewise has been hardly treated. A wonderfully true touch of human nature.
10. The argument is very fine. Jonah's feeling of pity for the gourd is just enough, a withered tree is always a sad sight. Yet on this gourd,' child of a night' (so the Heb.), he had spent neither labour nor strength. How much more should God, of whose goodness man's highest virtue is but the faintest shadow, pity and spare the helpless and ignorant works of His own hands, who now fill the streets of Nineveh with pathetic appeals for forgiveness!
11. That cannot discern] i.e. little children. There is no finer close in literature than this ending. The divine question, 'Shall not I have pity?' remains unanswered. Its echoes are heard still in every crowded haunt of men. Above the stir and din and wickedness the Infinite Compassion is still brooding.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 8 (See Scofield "Zec 8:14")
repented
(See Scofield "Zec 8:14")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Jonah’s Discontent and Correction
CHAPTER 4
Jonah’s Discontent and Correction
Read full note →
1. Jonah’s discontent (Jon 4:1-3)
2. The correction (Jon 4:4-11)
Jon 4:1-3. All that had happened displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry. Did he feel that he had lost his prestige as a prophet, having announced the overthrow of Nineveh, when it did not happen? What he feared had come true; God had been merciful to this great city and they were now enjoying what he considered Israel’s exclusive inheritance. Instead of rejoicing in the great exhibition of God’s mercy towards such a wicked city, he was angry. Like Elijah, in the hour of despondency he requests to die. “Therefore, now, O LORD, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.” The trouble with Jonah was that he thought only of himself, and, as another has said, “the horrid selfishness of his heart hides from him the God of grace, faithful in His love for His helpless creatures.”
Jon 4:4-11. The Lord God who had been so merciful to Nineveh is now merciful to His angry servant the Prophet. “Doest thou well to be angry?” How great is the patience and kindness of the Lord, even towards them who fail! Jonah leaves the saved city evidently in disgust, and finds on the east side a place where he constructed a booth and sat there waiting to see what would become of the city. He evidently expected still an act of judgment. Then comes the lesson. The Lord God who had prepared a fish to swallow the disobedient prophet now prepared a gourd to provide a shade for him. This gourd, a quipayon, is a very common plant in Palestine. The Creator whose creation is so wonderful, manifested the Creator’s power in raising up this plant, for the relief of His servant, in a sudden manner. And Jonah was exceedingly glad. Then God prepared a worm which destroyed the gourd. When the morning came and the sun beat upon the head of the prophet he fainted, and once more wished in himself to die. Alas! if the prophet had been in the right place before the Lord he would have accepted the gourd as evidence of His loving care, and when the worm destroyed the plant so that it withered he would have equally acknowledged his Creator-God and not have murmured. He might have said with Job, “The LORD gave, the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” Jonah in his selfish impatience found fault with God. It is still the common thing amongst professing Christians.
And when God asked him, “Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?” the poor finite creature of the dust answered the Creator, “I do well to be angry, even unto death.” Then comes the lesson. Not God, Elohim, the name of Him as Creator, speaks, but it is Jehovah, 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: and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left; and also much cattle?” If Jonah felt pity and was angry because of a small vine he had not planted nor made to grow, should not God with greater right have mercy upon His creatures, whom He created and sustained? Jonah is silenced; he could not reply. The last word belongs to Jehovah, who thus demonstrated that in His infinite compassion He embraces not Israel alone, but all His creation, the Gentile world and even animal creation.
“Most touching and beautiful is the last verse of the book, in which God displays the force and supreme necessity of His love; which (although the threatenings of His justice are heard, and must needs be heard and even executed if man continues in rebellion) abides in the repose of that perfect goodness which nothing can alter, and which seizes the opportunity of displaying itself, whenever man allows Him, so to speak, to bless him--the repose of an affection that nothing can escape, that observes everything, in order to act according to its own undisturbed nature--the repose of God Himself, essential to His perfection, on which depends all our blessing and all our peace” .
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Jonah’s Displeasure and the Lord’s Reproof.
Jonah’s Displeasure and the Lord’s Reproof.
That Jonah was easily swayed by his emotions is evident from the entire story of his book, but appears particularly from the last Chapter. At the same time, the Lord’s patience in dealing with His erring children is brought out in a most remarkable manner.
Read full note →
v. 1. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, namely, that the Lord did not carry out His threat of punishment upon the people of Nineveh, and he was very angry, provoked, filled with grief and vexation.
v. 2. And he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray Thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, the argument which he had used within himself, when I was yet in my country? when lie first received the commission to go to Nineveh. Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, that is, he anticipated the fruitlessness of his errand, the fact that his prediction against Nineveh was not fulfilled; for I knew that Thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil. Cf Exo 34:6. The words were spoken out of a very decided ill humor, because Jonah, as he thought, had been sent to deliver a message which the Lord intended to revoke, and which so readily produced repentance. It was a sad contradiction between a peevish mood and the better knowledge of his head and heart.
v. 3. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. "Jonah’s impatience of life under disappointed hopes of Israel’s reformation through the destruction of Nineveh is like that of Elijah at his plan for reforming Israel, 1 Kings 18, failing through Jezebel. Cf 1Ki 19:4. "
v. 4. Then said the Lord, in a preliminary, gentle reproof, Doest thou well to be angry? Was there any justification for Jonah’s attitude?
v. 5. So Jonah, still smarting under the displeasure which he felt, went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, choosing a place in its immediate neighborhood, and there made him a booth, a temporary hut of branches and leaves, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city, whether the original judgment would not, after all, be carried out upon it; for the forty days named in his message had not yet elapsed.
v. 6. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, the castor-oil plant, commonly called palm-crist, and made it to come up over Jonah, the plant growing up very rapidly, with its large leaves quickly casting a pleasant coolness, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief, to cause his peevishness to disappear and thus to afford him some relief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd, he enjoyed the shadow offered by the green plant.
v. 7. But God, intending to teach Jonah a further lesson, prepared a worm, appointing it to that end, when the morning rose the next day, at the breaking of the dawn, and it smote the gourd that it withered, for it is a peculiarity of the castor-oil plant that it fades readily when injured.
v. 8. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind, blowing with a sultry heat; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted, overcome with the heat, and wished in himself to die, the reaction once more being rapid and furious, and said, It is better for me to die than to live, namely, in such circumstances, with everything combining to make life unpleasant.
v. 9. And God, taking this opportunity to drive home His lesson, said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, with a sudden flare of bitterness, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
v. 10. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, which had cost him no toil to rear, neither madest it grow, Jonah not being obliged so much as to water it; which came up in a night and perished in a night, being, as the Hebrew has it, the son of a night, of only a night’s duration;
v. 11. and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein there are more than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, that is, 120,000 infants, who could not be accused of any particular wrong-doing, and also much cattle? This argument of Jehovah, in exposing the selfishness of the prophet, was at the same time sufficient to silence him, as he stood rebuked before this exhibit of God’s mercy. Moreover, the tidings which Jonah was able to bring back to his countrymen was a most emphatic call to repentance, as Jesus brings out in His reference to the repentance of the Ninevites. Israel failed to learn the lesson and therefore was cast out of its land. All the more is it necessary for us to consider the sign of the prophet Jonah and to cling to the confession of Him who could say of Himself, "Behold, here is more than Jonah!"
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 8 Ah, Yahweh
Ah, Yahweh
The word "Ah" expresses Jonah's feeling of frustration.
Read full note →
is this not just what I said when I was back in my own country?
Jonah used this rhetorical question to show God how angry he was. Also, what Jonah said when he was back in his own country can be stated explicitly. AT: "When I was still in my own country I knew that if I warned the people of Nineveh, they would repent, and you would not destroy them" (See: Rhetorical Question and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
I acted first and tried to flee to Tarshish
Possible meanings are 1) "I tried to prevent this by fleeing to Tarshish" or 2) "I acted quickly and tried to flee to Tarshish" or 3) "I did all I could to flee to Tarshish."
abounding in covenant faithfulness
"very faithful" or "you love people very much"
you hold back from sending disaster
This means "you say that you will send disaster on sinners, but then you decide not to." AT: "you decide not to punish people who sin"
take my life from me
Jonah's reason for wanting to die can be stated explicitly. AT: "since you will not destroy Nineveh as you said you would, please allow me to die" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
for it is better for me to die than to live
"I would prefer to die than live" or "because I want to die. I do not want to live"
translationWords
Jonah
pray
Yahweh
Tarshish
grace
compassion
faithful
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6 4:1-7 The account takes an unexpected turn. Jonah, himself…
4:1-7 The account takes an unexpected turn. Jonah, himself a recipient of God’s mercy, complains about the mercy that the Lord has dispensed to the Assyrians. The prophet’s insolence only magnifies God’s grace (see 4:8-11 for God’s response).
4:1 This change of plans (literally It): See study note on 3:10.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.