And it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.
Chapter three ends with a whole city spared. Chapter four opens with the preacher furious about it. The spotlight turns from Nineveh to the man who preached there. Why would God's own messenger resent God's mercy?
Jonah's anger is not just a bad mood. It puts him on the opposite side from God.
At the end of chapter 3 the grace of God is on display: He spares the people of Nineveh when they repent. That is a revelation of God's heart. The first verse of this chapter unfolds the heart of Jonah, and it stands in sharp contrast… He was not merely out of fellowship with the mind of God; he was actively set against it. Like the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son, he was angry because those who had no claim upon God had found mercy.
Anger always has an object. Jonah's was not the Ninevites, who had done what the preaching called for. The phrase "very angry" below comes from an older translation.
"Displeased exceedingly, and very angry" — what a condition for a prophet of Jehovah! He had just been the instrument in Jehovah's hand for such a mighty work. With whom was he so exceedingly displeased? With whom was he very angry? Sad, sad to say, it was with Jehovah Himself. Why was he so displeased and so angry? It was because Jehovah had not destroyed the city of Nineveh. It was because Jehovah had shown grace and mercy to these repenting sinners.
Nineveh had humbled itself before God. Jonah's mind was somewhere else.
The God of grace has compassion on what His own hands have made, when they humble themselves before Him and tremble at His righteous judgments. But Jonah does not care about them. He thinks only of his own reputation as a prophet… If Jonah had been nearer to God, he would have known that this was truly the God he preached — the God he had learnt to love by knowing Him. He could have said: now the Ninevites really know the God I was proud to bear witness to, and they will be happy.
Another writer weighs the price Jonah was willing to pay to protect that reputation.
Look how narrow and selfish the human heart is — even in a man whom Jehovah Himself chose and favoured above others! He would rather have seen the whole population of a vast city perish than have his own reputation as a prophet suffer! Why did God give forty days' notice at all, unless He wanted to give time for repentance?… Had Jehovah dealt with Jonah's own nation as he would have liked Him to deal with Nineveh, not an Israelite of any tribe would be found on earth today.
Jonah had been a drowning man three chapters earlier. That memory should have settled the question of whether God may spare people.
If ever a man needed the grace and mercy of Jehovah it was Jonah himself, down in the belly of the great fish. He had been shown that grace and mercy. Now he did not want others to receive what he himself had needed so badly and had been given so freely.
Jonah's problem was not that he lacked feeling for people. He had plenty — for one nation only.
One of Jonah's faults was his intense nationalism. He could rejoice when God was patient with his own people, guilty as they were. He found he could not rejoice when God was patient with others. We are reminded of the Apostle's question in Romans 3:29: "Is He the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also?" Note the answer: "Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one."
In the next verse Jonah prays. But the direction of his gaze had changed since the fish.
Displeasure and anger are not a good way to begin praying. So perhaps we need not wonder when we hear what he prayed… Remember, this is not the first prayer of Jonah we have listened to. How different this prayer was from the one sent up to God from the belly of the great fish! At that time his eyes were toward God's holy mountain. He was looking away from self to God, but now he was looking away from God to self.
- Received. The mercy Jonah now resents is the mercy that saved him in the fish.
- Resented. Grace given to Nineveh is what makes him angry. He is not just out of step with God's mind; he is set against it.
- Redirected. His anger has one real target: God Himself, not the city that repented.
- Restricted. God's patience with his own guilty nation pleased him. The same patience towards outsiders did not.
- Revealed. He prays, yet the prayer only exposes him: at sea his eyes were on God, here they are on himself.
And he prayed unto Jehovah, and said, Ah, Jehovah, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I was minded to flee at first unto Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great loving-kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
God has spared Nineveh, and the prophet who preached to it is furious. In his prayer he admits why he first ran to Tarshish. He describes God in some of the loveliest words in the Bible — and says them as a complaint.
Jonah never denied that God was good. That was the problem. Commentators differ on what he feared most. One points to national privilege:
Jonah's real fear, as a Jew, was that the conversion of the Gentiles might rob his nation of its special place. Israel was the chosen nation, the only one to whom Jehovah had revealed Himself.
Others point to his standing as a prophet:
Jonah felt that his reputation as a prophet was gone. He had foretold that in forty days Nineveh would be overthrown. Now God had turned back from the harm He said He would do, and He did not do it. Jonah's word had not come true. How often have we been upset, angry and sulky, just like Jonah, over something God Himself allowed in our lives that we feel has hurt our reputation?
Jonah is in the wrong, yet he still prays. He calls God by His personal name, Jehovah, printed as "the LORD" in the verse. Everything he says about God is true — but he takes no pleasure in it:
Although he was as wrong as he could be spiritually when he prayed this bad-tempered prayer, Jonah had not lost all sense of his true relationship with God. So he addressed Him as "Jehovah." If he really knew all these delightful things about God, it should have been his joy to proclaim them to sinners everywhere. We know God more closely still. The cross of Calvary has revealed grace and mercy such as Jonah could not have imagined. If we are to be successful in our testimony, our hearts must be in tune with the great compassionate heart of God.
There is a reason judgment suited Jonah while mercy did not:
Jonah 4:2 exhibits the spirit of Jonah in all its deformity. The grace of God is unbearable to the pride of man. His justice is all very well. Man can clothe himself with it for his own glory. Man loves vengeance, and vengeance goes hand in hand with the power that carries it out. God must proclaim His justice. He does not save a man while leaving him in his sin. He makes man know his sin, in order to reconcile him to Himself. But He does it to make Himself known in pardoning him.
The prayer itself gives that away. Read it counting the pronouns:
Listen to Jonah's prayer, and count the number of times he speaks of himself... Nine times he speaks of himself. How this prophet reminds us again of the elder brother in Luke 15! That brother said: "Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends." The same object is before them both — self, that hateful self.
Jonah's last phrase describes God as One who turns back from the harm He threatened. That raises a question: does God change His mind?
God repenting does not mean a change of mind on His part. It means a change of action, caused by a change of mind on man's part. God sends warnings to man so that man may change his mind and repent. Then God may change His action from judgment to mercy. God has not changed His mind. God's mind has ever been toward mercy... but man's sin must bring down the righteous judgment of God, even though He is slow to anger.
What he now resented, he had once depended on:
If ever a man needed the grace and mercy of Jehovah it was Jonah himself, down in the belly of the great fish. He had been shown that grace and mercy. Now he was unwilling that others should receive what he himself had needed so desperately, and had been given so freely.
That inconsistency is not unique to him:
He was angry because those who had no claim upon God had found mercy. This only showed that he could not enter into the thought of grace. And how often it is the same with us! Though we ourselves have received mercy... we, in the folly of our natural thoughts and feelings, want others to be dealt with on the ground of justice.
- Known — Jonah did not run in ignorance. He knew God's character, and ran because of it.
- Known but unloved — the truth that should have been his joy to preach became his grievance. A creed can be right while the heart stays cold.
- Unbearable — grace offends the pride of man. He can wear God's justice as his own glory, but pardon leaves the glory with God.
- Unchanged — God relenting is not God changing His mind. His mind was always toward mercy. When man turns, God's action turns from judgment to mercy.
- Unshared — Jonah kept from Nineveh the very mercy that had saved him inside the fish. What he had freely received, he refused to want for others.
And now, Jehovah, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.
God has spared Nineveh, and the prophet who carried the warning is furious. His prayer starts by quoting God's own character back to Him — gracious, merciful, slow to anger. It ends with a strange request: that God would end his life.
Jonah speaks to God, but the subject is Jonah. One writer counts the personal pronouns, and finds a familiar figure behind the prophet.
Listen to Jonah's prayer, and count the number of times he speaks of himself... Nine times he speaks of himself. Here the prophet reminds us again of the elder brother in Luke 15: "Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends." The same object is before them both — self, that hateful self, that self that always stays with the writer, the reader, and Jonah alike.
A message of judgment would have made Jonah look like a true prophet. Mercy left him looking like a man whose word had failed.
Jonah was quite willing to proclaim the message of judgment to godless Nineveh — if only he were sure that it would be carried out. That would exalt Jonah both in his own eyes and in the eyes of all who believed in the truth of his mission... Announcing unsparing judgment exalted the preacher. But showing grace set aside the messenger and exalted God.
Elijah also asked God to take his life, and the two scenes look alike. One writer shows how differently the two men grieved.
His disappointment and anger were so great that he asks to die. Sad state of soul! For what led him to desire this? God had spared Nineveh, and with it came his frustration that he and his preaching seemed to be set aside!... For the moment [Elijah] had lost confidence in God, as he saw the power of the enemy on every hand. No doubt he was also disappointed that the Lord did not step in with judgment to defend the honour of His name. But this was quite a different thing from Jonah's desire. He thought neither of the Lord's honour nor of poor guilty Nineveh. He thought only, we repeat, of his own reputation as a prophet.
Jonah's words in verse 2 explain at last why he ran from God. One writer sees more than one man's bad temper here.
All of this uncovers the hidden springs behind the prophet's disobedience, and that is very significant. He had fled from the presence of the Lord, but hostility to the Gentiles was the real cause of it all. And so we may say, Like prophet, like people. Jonah's sin is Israel's sin. Israel has always refused the thought that the Gentiles could stand in the favour of God.
This is the only thing Jonah asks for in the whole prayer. One writer will not let us watch from a safe distance.
This is the only request in Jonah's prayer, a request that he might die. Why? Because he could not have his own way. Self-will and disappointment made him long to give up his honourable position as prophet and servant of Jehovah... and escape all his troubles in death. It was very wrong and very cowardly — just the kind of thing we do. When things go all wrong, and we do not get our own way, and we are disappointed and discouraged, then we sigh. We hope that the Lord may soon come and take us away to heaven.
One writer sets this prayer beside Jonah's earlier one, then turns Jonah's own words around.
Twice he tells us in his book that he prayed to Jehovah: in the fish's belly, and near Nineveh. The first was a genuine outpouring of the heart under the mighty hand of God, and it brought a speedy reply. The second was a peevish outburst, because his journey to Nineveh did not turn out as he expected. Twice the angry man said, "it is better for me to die than to live." And that is true enough. Any of us had better die than live if we are not willing to "proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9). A witness who misrepresents the character of the One who sends him is worse than useless in a needy world.
- Self counted — Nine times in one short prayer Jonah speaks of himself. Like the elder brother in Luke 15, he cannot get past self.
- Self offended — Judgment would have exalted the preacher; mercy exalted God and set the messenger aside. That is what he could not bear.
- Self compared — Elijah lost confidence in God before a strong enemy. Jonah only lost face. The words match, the hearts do not.
- Self enlarged — Like prophet, like people: Jonah's refusal to see Gentiles in God's favour was his whole nation's sin in one man.
- Self exposed — When we are disappointed and long to be taken away, we pray Jonah's prayer. A witness who misrepresents the One who sent him is worse than useless.
And Jehovah said, Doest thou well to be angry?
Jonah has just told God that he would rather die than watch Nineveh spared, and God's reply is not a sentence of judgment but a question. Why does God answer a sulking prophet with a question at all, and what was really behind the anger He was probing?
One writer notes how few words God uses here, and why He waits.
Could anything surpass the tender gentleness of the Lord with His wayward servant? For the moment He is content with a single word: "Do you do well to be angry?" or, as the margin has it, "Are you greatly angry?" That is all. The Lord dealt with Jonah as a mother deals with a fretful child. She knows it is useless to reason with him while his temper is on display. So she pays no attention to his foolish requests, and waits until the passion has died down.
One writer traces Jonah's rage back to his standing as a prophet.
Now God was ready to extend that same saving, sparing grace to a whole city with countless repentant people. And Jonah complained against that grace. Why? Because he thought that if God withdrew the judgment he had announced, his prophecy, and so his character as a prophet, would be compromised. Better a whole city destroyed, and millions of souls hurled into eternity and hell, than a prophet discredited!
Another writer refuses to let readers stand at a safe distance from him.
So we see what caused Jonah's displeasure and his anger. God's abundant mercy caused it. God did not bring a terrible punishment on a rival nation that Jonah wished to see destroyed. If we are honest, most of us know full well that in our own hearts we have been guilty of the very same thoughts about nations that are rivals of our own.
There is a reason mercy hurt Jonah in a way that judgment never would have.
Jonah was quite willing to proclaim the message of judgment to godless Nineveh — if only he were sure God would carry it out. That would exalt Jonah in his own eyes, and in the eyes of all who believed his mission was true. ... Announcing unsparing judgment exalted the preacher. The display of grace set the messenger aside and exalted God.
God had every right to punish Jonah. One writer sets what He did instead beside the way earthly rulers treat such a servant.
Jehovah did not discipline His rebellious servant harshly. He graciously stooped to reason with him: "Do you do well to be angry?" What a contrast between our God, sovereign over the universe, and the petty tyrants of earth! Such peevish rebellion as Jonah showed might have cost him his life at their hands. But God always seeks to win men's hearts, both in dealing with sinners outside and with wayward believers within.
A will can bend under trial while the heart stays untouched. One writer shows what that leaves behind.
How often this happens. In the fiery furnace of trial, under God's chastening hand, the will appears broken. Yet the sinful heart, with its selfish and idolatrous leanings, has never been judged in God's presence. So when the trial is over, the evil root is still in the heart. The knife of self-judgment never cut it to the quick. It sends out fresh shoots and soon bears its sad fruit. So it was with Jonah. ... Jehovah deals with His downhearted, complaining servant in grace and tenderness. He means to reach not only his conscience but his heart.
Jonah gives no reply here. One writer places God's gentleness with Jonah beside His gentleness with the prophet Elijah, and with us.
How gracious is Jehovah, whether to Jonah, or to Elijah, or to us! He could have rebuked Jonah sharply for such a prayer, or for coming into His presence in displeasure and anger. How gracious is His reply to another question too: "Do you do well to be angry?" Jonah did the very best thing he could have done — he was silent. His mouth was closed.
- The question, not the rod. Jonah asked to die. God answers with one short question, then waits for the temper to cool.
- The question exposes the cause. Jonah's fury came from mercy shown to a rival nation. He also feared that a withdrawn judgment would leave him a discredited prophet.
- The question touches the nerve. Announcing judgment would have exalted the preacher. Showing grace set the messenger aside and exalted God.
- The question aims at the heart. A will bent by trial is not a heart judged in God's presence, and the unjudged root sends up fresh shoots.
- The question is still asked. God stoops to reason instead of striking. He seeks to win hearts — of sinners outside and of wayward believers within.
And Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city.
Jonah has preached, God has spared Nineveh, and God has just asked the prophet why he is angry. Instead of answering, Jonah walks out of the city, builds himself a shelter, and sits down to watch — and the question is what he hoped to see.
The shelter he built has a name Israel knew well:
Booths were temporary dwellings made from tree branches. People used them especially at the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:42-43; Nehemiah 8:14-17). Jonah made himself such a shelter (Jonah 4:5). People also used them for cattle (Genesis 33:17). The Hebrew word is succoth.
God had asked him a direct question. Jonah gave no reply, and one writer explains why:
Jonah did not reply to the Lord's tender reproof; he was too angry for that. And he "went out of the city and sat to the east of the city ... till he should see what would become of the city." Poor man! He was clearly still hoping that the Lord would destroy Nineveh in spite of its repentance. He understood so little of the heart of the One who had sent him on his mission. But for the present God had finished with Nineveh. He had "relented of the disaster that He had said He would do to them," and He did not do it. That was final. He could not, in keeping with His holy name, satisfy the evil desires of Jonah.
Why sit and watch at all? Because the prophet had tied his own standing to the city's fall:
What a picture! His God had treated him with the greatest grace. Yet here he sits down and makes himself comfortable, hoping that God would change His mind and destroy the city! In that way his vanity would be satisfied and his reputation as a true prophet kept up. Wretched self-importance, almost without parallel in the history of the world!
One writer notes where Jonah sat, and the habit it pictures for anyone who has just preached:
Jonah "went out of the city and sat to the east of the city" — that was the side farthest from the land of Israel. I suppose about the worst thing we can do after preaching is to settle down as comfortably as we can and do nothing. We simply wait to see what the results may be. Our place is to deliver God's message, leave the results with Him, and pass on to other service for the same blessed Master.
One writer sets this watching prophet beside a later scene:
Our thoughts travel to Another Prophet, "greater than Jonah" and "greater than Moses" (Deuteronomy 18:15). Later He sat on a hillside overlooking a different city... Our Lord's last approach to Jerusalem was from the east... Then He came down the Mount of Olives, and Jerusalem came into view — long loved, yet full of guilt. Tears filled His eyes. "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes."
The contrast raises a question for anyone who warns others of judgment:
As faithful witnesses for God, it is our duty to warn an evil world of the judgment appointed. Woe to us if we fail to sound the warning! But how do we do it? Is it in the harsh spirit of denouncing people, or is it with trembling lips and compassionate hearts? Do we forget what we owe to the infinite grace of God and the costly sacrifice of the Lord Jesus? Without them we would be in the lake of fire ourselves.
What God does next is not what the prophet has earned:
Here we have a man who deserved severe discipline. God might rightly have removed him from His service for ever. Instead God gave him special relief from the effects of his own bad temper.
Jonah's position — outside the walls, unhappy — is where the book leaves him:
Sadly, the book of Jonah closes with the prophet complaining outside. Inside the city there was gladness and peace.
- Out — He leaves the city God sent him to save and takes a seat on the far side, away from his own land.
- Under — The booth is a shelter of branches, a shade he builds for himself while he waits.
- Why — He is still hoping for destruction, because his reputation as a prophet rides on it.
- Contrast — A greater Prophet also came to a guilty city from the east, and wept over it instead of watching for its fall.
- Yet — Grace follows him outside the walls. God relieves the very trouble his own bad temper caused.
And Jehovah Elohim prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his trouble. And Jonah was exceeding glad because of the gourd.
Jonah sits outside Nineveh, angry that God spared it, and God answers not with a rebuke but with a plant to shade his head. Why does God comfort a servant who is in the wrong, and why is Jonah's joy so much easier to stir than his mercy? (Older translations read "gourd" where the ESV has "plant," and the writers below use that word.)
God would not change His mind about Nineveh to suit Jonah. So He turned to deal with Jonah himself.
Jonah did not reply to the Lord's tender appeal; he was too angry for that... God had done, for the present, with Nineveh. He had turned from the disaster He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it. That could not be undone. And He could not satisfy Jonah's evil desires while staying true to His holy name. So His attention, in His love and grace, was now turned to His servant — to correct and instruct, as well as to explain and justify His own ways.
Two names for God stand together in this verse, and the pairing carries meaning.
"Jehovah God prepared a gourd." It is not now simply "God," nor only "Jehovah," but the blending of nature with special relationship. This seems to be why it is Jehovah God in this case. He "prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief"... Simply as God, we may say, He prepared the gourd; but as Jehovah God He prepared it to be a comfort for His servant Jonah.
This is not the first thing God prepared for Jonah, and the earlier ones were far bigger.
God is willing to care for our physical needs — whether rest and food for the prophet Elijah, or shade for Jonah. Notice, it was Jehovah Elohim Himself who prepared this gourd. Perhaps this tells not only of His faithful loving-kindness, but also of His power. It was not the first thing Jehovah had prepared for His erring servant. He had prepared the "great fish." He had sent out the "great wind," and now He prepared a gourd. Great things and small things are alike to our God. He can prepare the one as easily as the other... we may have learned that our God is able and willing to work for us in the "great" things. But we would be ashamed to expect Him to take an interest in a gourd — that is too small a thing! It is a blessed lesson to learn that all are alike to Him.
The words used for Jonah's joy match the words used for his anger. G C Willis sets them side by side.
Not only was he "glad," but he was "exceeding glad" because of the gourd, just as he had been "exceedingly displeased" because of God's mercy. How we delight in those passing mercies of this life that add to our ease and comfort! The luxuries of the present day are often to us what Jonah's gourd was to him — the cause of exceeding gladness.
What Jonah felt about a plant is the very thing God will use against him.
The prophet's delight in the gourd is only a faint reflection of the Lord's delight in the mercy that visits the creatures of His hand. It does not matter where they are — at Nineveh, at Jerusalem, or anywhere else. And if Jonah would gladly have the gourd spared, he must allow repentant Nineveh to be spared. Out of his own mouth he will be judged: Jonah will be a witness for the Lord against himself.
Jonah's misplaced care has a modern form.
Jonah cared far more about the fate of the gourd than about perhaps a million or more never-dying souls. They had just turned to the living and true God. What a lesson for us today! How many of us are far more deeply concerned over our gourds and our flowers, our houses and our business... than we are with the millions of perishing, yet never-dying, souls all around us... Self always takes the first place, unless the Lord has taught us to lift up our eyes and look off to JESUS.
- Prepared — the same God who prepared a great fish prepares a gourd; great things and small things cost Him the same.
- Personal — the name "Jehovah God" joins the Creator of nature to the God of relationship; the plant was comfort aimed at one man.
- Patient — Nineveh's case was settled, so God's grace turned to His angry servant, to correct him and explain His ways.
- Partial — his gladness matched his anger in force: "exceeding glad" over shade, "exceedingly displeased" over mercy.
- Pointed — his pity for a plant became God's own argument for sparing a city. The same mirror faces us over our houses, business and comfort.
But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it withered.
The shade Jonah loved lasted one night. At dawn the same God who had grown the plant sent something small to destroy it. He appointed both.
The gift and the loss come from the same hand. The ESV says God "appointed" the worm; older translations say "prepared," and that is the word the writers below use.
But God equally prepares the thing that takes Jonah's shelter away. And if only we felt this in our hearts — the same hand that raised the gourd raised the worm that struck it. The same hand that sent the one sent the other. God prepared a worm which struck the gourd, and it withered.
The verb is the point. It is the word used of the fish that swallowed Jonah in chapter one.
"But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it struck the gourd, so that it withered." Whether a whale or a worm, the same word is used. God "prepared" them both. When the things that added to our ease and pleasure fade and die, we may do well to ask a question. Is it our own loving God who has Himself prepared the worm to make them pass away?
In verse 6 the plant comes from "the LORD God." In verse 7 the worm comes from "God" alone. Commentators read the change as deliberate.
"The LORD God prepared a gourd." It is not now simply "God," nor only "the LORD," but the blending of nature with special relationship... Simply as God, we may say, He prepared the gourd; but as the LORD God He prepared it to be a comfort for His servant Jonah. "But God prepared a worm." Notice the fitting change. It is not "the LORD God" now, but Elohim — the author of creation.
The smallest creature in the story did the work everything else depended on.
The worm, the whale, and the tempest are all instruments in His hand. The most insignificant agents, as well as the most splendid, carry out His purposes. The east wind would not have worked, however fierce it was, if the worm had not first done its appointed work. How striking this is! Who would have thought that a worm and an east wind could be joint agents in doing a work of God?... Nothing is great or small with God.
Jonah had been "exceedingly glad" of the plant. When it died, his reaction showed what that gladness had really been.
It is deeply moving to see God watching over and caring for His self-willed servant. See the trouble He takes to convince him that his anger is unreasonable. Why did the prophet now rejoice with great joy? Because of the relief he felt from the shade of the gourd. His joy, like his anger, was entirely selfish... Completely wrapped up in himself, he is wretched and miserable — now because the gourd that had comforted him had been destroyed. This was the very point God had been leading him to.
Another writer names the words Jonah could have said instead.
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 complained. He might have said with Job, "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."
One writer asks who wrote this book, and draws his last lesson from the answer.
We believe it was Jonah's own hand that wrote the little book that bears his name. If this is so, we may see how deeply Jonah learned, before the end of his journey, to take all these things from the hand of God, and what gratitude must have risen in his heart at the tender care of his God for him. Who else would take the trouble to prepare a worm specially for him, to teach him a badly needed lesson? So, I suppose, at the end of our journey we will reach the place our Lord is preparing for us. Then our hearts will rise up in gratitude, not only for that prepared place, but for all His tender care along the way. We will thank Him for the worms, or what we now call "misfortunes," as well as for the gourds, or what we now call "the blessings." Both alike are specially prepared for us.
- Prepared — the fish. One word covers both. God prepared the fish that swallowed Jonah, and God prepared the worm.
- Prepared — the gourd. The name "the LORD God" marks it as comfort from a God in relationship with His servant.
- Prepared — the worm. The hand that raised the shade raised the worm that struck it. A creature that small was enough, because nothing is great or small with God.
- Prepared — the exposure. Losing the plant showed that Jonah's joy had been as selfish as his anger. He complained; Job blessed the name of the LORD.
- Prepared — the gratitude. God prepares worms and gourds alike, misfortunes and blessings. At journey's end we will thank Him for both.
And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, so that he fainted; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
Jonah sits east of Nineveh, watching a city he wanted destroyed, and the shade he enjoyed is gone. A scorching wind and a burning sun now bring him close to fainting, and the chapter presses one question: why would God add heat to a servant who is already sulking?
God sent the storm at sea. He did more than that with this wind:
God had only sent the great wind out onto the sea. But this scorching east wind He prepared with His own hand, to teach Jonah a lesson he might otherwise never have learned. God weighed and measured the force and the heat of that wind Himself. We can learn something here too. Some of the things we call "misfortunes" God Himself prepares for us.
The names used for God change across these verses. One writer reads the change as deliberate:
"Jehovah God prepared a gourd." It is not simply "God" here, nor only "Jehovah," but nature blended with special relationship… "But God prepared a worm." Notice the fitting change. It is not "Jehovah God" now, but Elohim — God as Creator… Impatience is always about self.
Jonah had prayed once before out of distress, inside the fish. This time the cry sounds different, and one writer traces why:
What a contrast this is to what he said at the bottom of the sea, inside the fish! There his conscience spoke to him, and he cried to God in his distress. At the withering of the gourd it was different. His conscience stayed silent, but his natural heart did not. It rose in rebellion against God. Was not the gourd a gift from God, one Jonah never asked for? And no sooner did he begin to enjoy its shade… than God took it away… Did it not seem cruel?
He had asked to die once already. Nothing since has moved him:
Poor, weary, disappointed, fainting Jonah still struggled on in his own self-will. Once again he asked that he might die, saying, "It is better for me to die than to live." The tender pleading and the loving care had not changed him. Neither had the harder lessons of the worm and the wind. Nothing seemed to reach the sulky, self-willed prophet.
Writing about another prophet who asked the same thing, Kelly sets out a rule that measures Jonah too:
There is often far more faith in being willing to live than in wishing to die. Wishing to die is no proof of faith at all… we may flinch at the trials we meet in this world… We ought to wish to do His will. That is the only right wish for a believer.
Jonah's grief is real, but look at what it attaches to. His comfort has died; a whole city has lived:
Jonah cared far more about what happened to the gourd than about a million or more never-dying souls who had just turned to the living and true God… How many of us are "exceedingly glad" of something that adds a little to our own comfort and ease and luxury? Yet we give no thought at all to whether there is joy, exceeding joy, in heaven over one sinner who repents.
Some writers read Jonah as standing for his whole people, and the wind as standing for what would bring them round:
He cares for the poor Gentiles, just as Jonah cared for the gourd. God created them for His pleasure, and He does not forget them. He will bring His chosen people round to His own mind about them. But for that they will need the "scorching east wind" and the burning sun, beating on their heads until they faint.
- Prepared — the gourd, the worm and the wind all come from the same hand. God measured out the heat on purpose. It was no accident of weather.
- Given — the shade was a gift Jonah never asked for. God took it back, and to Jonah it felt cruel.
- Exposed — in the fish his conscience spoke. Under the sun his heart spoke, and what came out was rebellion, not repentance.
- Refused — asking to die because you cannot have your own way is self-will, not faith. There is often more faith in being willing to live.
- Reversed — Jonah grieved over a dead plant and felt nothing for a city of living souls. God does not forget the people He created, and He will bring His own round to His mind about them.
And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, unto death.
God asks Jonah the same question twice in this chapter. The first time it was about Nineveh; now it is about a withered plant. The second time Jonah does not stay silent, and his answer exposes what has been driving him all along.
The first time God asked whether Jonah did well to be angry, the prophet said nothing. The loss of his shade changes that.
God's question is much the same as the one He had asked Jonah before. Then he was wisely silent. Self-will and bad temper had made him grow bolder, and now he dares to answer God back. He said, "I do well to be angry, angry enough to die!" Foolish man! God in His grace did not take him at his word, did not answer that rash prayer.
Another writer traces the same shift in tone — from grief to open defiance.
His heart withered inside him, like the tree in front of him, and rose in bitterness against God. The prophet's language now turns to open defiance. He replies, "I do well to be angry, even to death."
(Older translations read "gourd" where the ESV has "plant.")
Jonah's rage over a city and his rage over a shrub have one thing in common: both were about him.
He is wholly wrapped up in self, and so he is wretched and miserable. The gourd that had comforted him was destroyed, and perhaps his body was suffering too. It was to this point that God had been leading him... He had been angry because God did not overthrow Nineveh. Now he is angry because the gourd was destroyed. Both times he is angry because of how the thing affected him. His heart was that narrow and that wretched.
One writer notes that the book carefully varies the name used for God at each step, and that the speaker in this verse is not the same title as in verse 4.
"Jehovah said, Do you do well to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4) "Jehovah God (Elohim) prepared a gourd …" (Jonah 4:6) "God (Elohim) prepared a worm …" (Jonah 4:7) "God (Elohim) prepared a sultry east wind …" (Jonah 4:8) "God (Elohim) said to Jonah, Do you do well to be angry?" (Jonah 4:9) "Jehovah said, You have pity on the gourd …" (Jonah 4:10)
God's answer to this defiance is not the answer we would give.
To us it would seem that Jonah deserved a severe punishment. Suppose we had a naughty, self-willed child who kept up his bad temper and sulking. We would probably give him a good spanking, and feel he fully deserved it. But the amazing grace of God still goes on in patience with His poor failing servant, and we believe it wins the day.
The same restraint marks how God handles him throughout — not by force, but by reasoning with him.
Instead of disciplining His stubborn servant harshly, Jehovah stooped in grace to reason with him: "Do you do well to be angry?" What a contrast between our God, sovereign in the universe, and the petty tyrants of earth! Sulky rebellion like Jonah's might have cost him his life at their hands. But God always seeks to win men's hearts, both in dealing with sinners outside and with wayward saints within.
Jonah has just claimed a right to his anger, and that claim becomes the trap.
Then the Lord catches him in the net He had now woven around him with perfect and divine skill. He convicts him out of his own mouth, and makes his own words correct him. He shows him that he cannot keep both his proud and his angry sorrows. He must stop grieving either over mercy to Nineveh, or over judgment on the gourd... Nineveh was to the Lord just what the gourd had been to the prophet. If the prophet would gladly spare the gourd, he must let the Lord spare Nineveh.
We can catch ourselves using Jonah's words.
We all condemn the works of the flesh. Yet is something like covetousness not sometimes named among believers? Or anger? Are there none of us who at times say with Jonah, "I do well to be angry"? Yet we see here that anger is one of the works of the flesh.
- Question — God asks the same thing twice. The second time Jonah answers back, and God speaks to him as God, not by the covenant name Jehovah: bad temper costs closeness.
- Self — the anger over the city and the anger over the plant are one anger. Both are about Jonah himself.
- Patience — where we would punish a sulking child, God reasons with His servant and seeks to win his heart.
- Reversal — God turns Jonah's own defence around. Pity for a plant he never grew makes room for God's pity for Nineveh.
- Mirror — the phrase belongs to us too, and anger, however right it feels, is one of the works of the flesh.
And Jehovah said, Thou hast pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night
God ends the book of Jonah not with a verdict but with a question, and He builds it out of a plant. Jonah has just insisted he is right to be furious over a dead vine. The Lord takes that feeling and turns it into the argument that closes the story.
The Lord does not scold Jonah for his outburst. He follows it to its end.
He convicts him out of his own mouth, and makes his own words correct him. He shows him that he cannot keep both his proud sorrow and his angry one. He must stop grieving either over mercy to Nineveh or over judgment on the gourd... For Nineveh was to the Lord just what the gourd had been to the prophet. If the prophet would gladly spare the gourd, he must allow the Lord to spare Nineveh.
The heart of the verse is what Jonah did not do for the plant — older translations call it a gourd. That one phrase carries the whole comparison.
"You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow." What does that tell us? It tells us of God's tender care, not for the gourd alone, but for the many thousands of Nineveh. Each individual life in that great city was precious in God's sight. Each one was the work of God's hand, for each one He had laboured, and it was God alone who had "made each one to grow."
One writer looks at what that labour cost God.
He lets Jonah learn something more: He had laboured for them. Unlike Jonah with his gourd, He would bring His creatures back to Himself at the cost of His own toil.
Notice what God does not say.
The Lord did not rebuke Jonah for having pity on the gourd. There was nothing wrong in that. The wrong was this: he gave more pity, more thought, more care to a gourd. It came up in a night and perished in a night. He gave less to the crowded, perishing thousands of a great city. It is not by accident that God used that word, "perished," in a night. It is the fourth time in this little book we have heard that word "perish."
Both the shade and the worm came from the same hand. Then God asks Jonah a question about His own heart.
The same hand that raised the gourd raised the worm that struck it. The same hand that sent the one sent the other... What does God say to him? "Look at you — you never laboured for the gourd. You never toiled for it. It came up in a night and perished in a night, and you have compassion on it. Will you not allow Me to have compassion? Am I not to have a heart? Am I not to have affections? Am I not to exercise them?"
Watch which name for God appears in this last speech.
Not God, Elohim, the name of Him as Creator, speaks, but it is Jehovah, the Lord... Jonah felt pity and was angry over a small vine he had not planted or made to grow. Should not God then have far more right to show mercy on His creatures, whom He created and sustained? This silenced Jonah; he could not reply. The last word belongs to Jehovah. He showed that His infinite compassion holds not Israel alone, but all His creation — the Gentile world and even the animals.
Writers on this passage turn the picture on us.
How many of us care far more about our gourds and our flowers, our houses and our business, our cars and our radios? We care far less about the millions of perishing souls all around us — souls that will never die... And we are "exceedingly displeased" and "very angry" if anything happens to disturb our comfort and upset our settled way of life... Self always takes the first place, unless the Lord has taught us to lift up our eyes and look off to JESUS.
- Pity exposed. God does not argue Jonah out of his feeling; He uses it. Jonah's own words about the plant become the words that correct him.
- Pity unearned. The gourd cost Jonah nothing — no labour, no growing. That is what makes the contrast work.
- Pity earned. God made and sustained every life in Nineveh, and He would bring His creatures back at the cost of His own toil.
- Pity enlarged. It reaches past Israel to the whole Gentile world, and even to the animals God made.
- Pity redirected. Jonah could not reply, so the question comes to us: which do I care about more — my comfort, or people who are perishing?
and I, should not I have pity on Nineveh, the great city, wherein are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
The book of Jonah ends with a question, not a verdict. Jonah pitied a plant, yet he wanted a whole city destroyed. God asks him why He should not pity that city.
God takes the pity Jonah felt for his plant and turns it into the argument against him.
The prophet's delight in the gourd is only a faint reflection of the Lord's delight in mercy. That mercy visits the creatures of His hand — at Nineveh, at Jerusalem, or anywhere else. The place makes no difference. And if Jonah wants the gourd spared, he must allow repentant Nineveh to be spared. He will be judged out of his own mouth: Jonah will testify for the Lord against himself.
The comparison turns on work. Who made these lives, and who keeps them growing?
It tells us of God's tender care, not for the gourd alone, but for the many thousands of Nineveh. Each individual life in that great city was precious in God's sight. Each one was the work of God's hand. For each one He had labored, and God alone had "made each one to grow." This was true of the grown men and women. It was true of the little children too, and of the cattle, whom God singles out in these verses.
How large was Nineveh? The count in the verse gives a clue.
There were 120,000 who could not tell their right hand from their left. These were probably children. That would give a population of about 600,000.
That God counted them at all says something about how He governs the world.
We should weigh the last verse of the Book of Jonah with care. It gives us a delightful insight into the heart of God as Creator... So God, in His government of the earth, took account of 120,000 helpless children in Nineveh, "and also much cattle." And it made Him glad that the repentance of the king and his people let Him put the sword of judgement back in its sheath, at least for the time being.
The verse ends with animals. Why mention cattle at all?
Does God care about oxen? Yes, He does. That is why the book of Jonah ends by telling us that there were also "much cattle" in Nineveh. Had Nineveh been destroyed, the cattle in it would have perished; but God showed mercy on the men and on the poor animal creation too.
That small clause is treated as the proof of a principle that runs far wider than one city.
There were two things which the prophet (and, may we not add, many Christians also?) had not yet learned. First, that God's tender mercy is over all His works. (Psalm 145:9.) How beautifully this is shown by the words, "and also much cattle"!
Jonah wanted the sentence carried out in full. God's answer explains why He warns anyone at all.
He would refuse God the right to show mercy to His helpless creatures. He would demand that God carry out the sentence on the Gentile world in full, without even leaving space for repentance. God answers him. At first He does not unfold the counsels of His grace. He appeals instead to the rights of His sovereign goodness, to His nature, to His own character. Nineveh has listened to God. Now, if God threatens, it is so that man may turn from his sin and be spared. Why else should He warn the sinner? Why not leave him to ripen unwarned for judgment? But these are not the ways of God.
That such a book survived at all is itself remarkable.
Yes, He is the God of all grace, the God not of Jews only but of Gentiles also, whose mercies as the faithful Creator are over all His works. What Jew, what Rabbi, would ever have let such a book into the accepted collection of Scripture, if God had not written it for that purpose?
The book stops without telling us how Jonah answered.
The book thus closes abruptly. Jonah was left to answer the challenge as best he could, and the reader of today is left to answer it for himself.
And the challenge lands closer to home than we would like.
How many of us care far more about our gourds and our flowers, our houses and our business, than about the millions of perishing, yet never-dying, souls all around us... And we are "exceedingly displeased" and "very angry" if anything happens to disturb our comfort.
- Pity — Jonah pitied a plant, and God used that pity as the case against him.
- Labor — the plant cost Jonah nothing; every life in Nineveh was God's own work, made and grown by Him.
- Reach — that pity stretches down from the 120,000 children to the cattle, showing mercy over all He has made.
- Right — God is free to spare. He warns people so they will turn from sin, not to ripen them for judgment.
- Answer — the book ends on a question. Each reader must decide: does my own comfort matter more than perishing people?