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.