Why was Jonah angry that the Ninevites repented (Jonah 4:1-2)?

"And it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry." "Displeased exceedingly, and very angry," what a condition for a prophet of Jehovah, one who had just been the instrument in the hand of Jehovah 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, because Jehovah had shown grace and mercy to these repenting sinners.

If ever a man had 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, but now he was unwilling that others should receive what he himself had so mightily needed, and had so freely been given.

So we see that Jonah's displeasure, and his anger, were caused by God's abundant mercy, and because God did not bring a terrible punishment on a rival nation, whom Jonah wished to see destroyed. If we are honest, I suppose that most of us know full well that in our own hearts we have been guilty of the very same thoughts with regard to nations that are rivals of our own.

Perhaps we should make a remark on what Jonah says of God: "Thou … repentest Thee of the evil." We have already pointed out that repentance in man means to "think again," or a change of thought or a change of mind. In another place in Scripture (1 Samuel 15:29), we read: "The Hope of Israel will not lie nor repent; for He is not a man, that He should repent." What then does Jonah mean when he says "Thou … repentest Thee of the evil"? It does not mean a change of mind on God's part, but a change of action caused by a change of mind on man's part. God sends warnings to man, in order that man may change his mind, may repent, so that God may change His action from judgment to mercy. God has not changed His mind. God's mind has ever been toward mercy: "Thou art a gracious God, and merciful;" but man's sin must bring down the righteous judgment of God, even though He is slow to anger. There is only one way of escape, and that is by repentance on the part of sinful man. With this object in view God sends warnings to individuals and to nations. If they hear and repent, then God may act according to the desires of His heart, and show mercy. If man will not repent, there is no other way, and judgment must fall.

If we look for a motive of this disobedient prophet we find it given in the book itself. In chapter 4:2 we read, "Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, and slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of evil." But why should he fear that God might be merciful to Nineveh and save the city? It was undoubtedly a national spirit which possessed the prophet. It has been suggested that the prophet knew that the Assyrian would be used by the Lord as the instrument to punish Israel and that he thought if Nineveh would perish the people Israel might be saved. Inasmuch as God might show mercy to Assyria, Assyria would then be used as the rod upon Israel, and for this reason he was disobedient to the commission. But the direct prophecy that the Assyrian would be the staff in the hand of the Lord to bring judgment upon Israel was made through Isaiah (chapter 10), and that revelation had not yet been given, for Jonah lived before the prophet Isaiah. It was rather the fear Jonah had as a Jew that the conversion of the Gentiles might rob his nation of the distinction of being the nation of election, to whom Jehovah had revealed Himself exclusively. He therefore went to Joppa where he engaged passage on a ship which was to bring him to Tarshish, which he never reached. It was at Joppa where centuries later another Jew, who was also jealous for his nation, had a vision which made it clear that the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles. That Jew was Peter (Acts 10).

Nineveh repented; king, nobles, and people fell low together at the feet of their justly indignant Creator. Heaven was thus filled with rejoicing as the Lord teaches us in Luke 15. But while heaven rejoiced, "it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry" (Jonah 4:1). Alas, what is man! What an exposure of the narrowness and selfishness of the human heart, even in a divinely chosen and specially favoured servant of Jehovah! He would have preferred the whole population of a vast city to perish than that his own reputation as a prophet should suffer! He was amazed that he should have gone through the streets of Nineveh denouncing judgement within forty days, and then find the divine sentence withdrawn! Yet why should God have given forty days notice, unless He desired to give time for repentance? Does not Peter tell us that He is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance"? (2 Peter 3:9). Did He not say, long before Peter's day, "I have NO pleasure in the death of him that dies, says the Lord God; therefore turn yourselves and live ye." (Ezek. 18:32.) Even ecclesiastical Jezebel (Popery), the foulest evil upon which the eye of a holy God ever rested, has had space given her to repent of her fornication (Rev. 2:21). 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's behaviour reminds us of the churlish elder son of Luke 15:25 who "was angry and would not go in," because the father was lavishing grace upon a returning sinner. Where should we have been — reader and writer alike — if the God against whom we have all sinned were like some of His poor faulty servants.

Here then we learn that God was believed by the men of Nineveh, who accordingly took the place of the guilty in repentance before God. When the matter came to the king, "he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God." Here the place of humiliation is kept up in a thorough, if somewhat singular, manner. "Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?" They have not long to wait for an answer of mercy. "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do to them; and he did it not. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry." Yes, Jonah is the same man still when proved to the core. It may appear to us wonderful that so it should be after all the dealings of God with him. The mercy shown was too much for him whose message covered Nineveh with sackcloth. What he had warned he had warned; and he could bear no mitigation lest it should detract from himself. This feeling was too deeply ingrained in his nature to be altered even by such discipline as he had passed through. No experience can ever correct the evil of the fleshly mind. So thoroughly hopeless is it in itself that nothing short of death and resurrection with Christ, given to faith and kept up in dependence on Him, can avail. To be swallowed up by the great fish and to come forth again was used for good doubtless; but no such measure sufficed to meet the demand. We only live by present dependence on God; and there can be no greater ruin for a soul than to attempt to live on the past alone, still less going back to one's old thoughts and feelings.

Jonah indeed practically set aside the fruit of the solemn discipline for his soul which he had gone through in the depths of the sea. But God was the same God; and had His own way of setting Jonah right. "He prayed to Jehovah." Here we find the propriety of the language again. The prophet does not fall back merely on the place of man as such with God; he speaks to Him as one who knew Him on special ground, according to the covenant name of Jehovah in which He is known to the Jew. "He prayed to Jehovah, and said, I pray thee, O Jehovah, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before to 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." This was the secret spring of the prophet's dread — God's mercy! "Therefore now, O Jehovah, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live." He could not bear to live if his word were not accomplished to the letter. He would rather see that word carried out rigorously in the extermination of all the Ninevites than that it should seem to fail. How proud, selfish, and destructive is the impatient heart even of a godly man! And how beautiful it is to find in the apostle Paul what I referred to at the beginning! A man of like passions with Jonah and with us, who nevertheless gives patience as the special, chief, and most memorable sign of an apostle. He says truly that all the signs of an apostle were found with him in reproving the ungrateful Corinthians; but what does he allege as the first great sign of it? Not tongues or miracles. Be assured of this — that patience is better than any such powers; and patience in every form God wrought in the heart of that blessed man. Yet it does not seem to my mind from all we read that Paul was a patient man after his own nature. Does it not rather seem that he was amazingly quick of feeling, and as rapid in coming to a conclusion as he was firm in holding to it when formed? Nevertheless, though he had a mind as fitted for deep-sea fathoming as for taking in the various sides of whatever came before him, we know that he was thoroughly a Jew — "a Hebrew of Hebrews" as he says himself, to whom his nation was unspeakably dear. At the same time he was a man most energetic in carrying out practically whatever conscience and heart received as according to God. This he was even in his unconverted days; and certainly he was not less so when broken down by grace and filled with a love which poured forth from every channel of his large heart. But the permanent quality that marks Paul as apostle, as he urges to the Corinthian doubters and for the good of all saints, is patience. I doubt that any other thing is so great a sign of spiritual power. There is a day coming when power will not be shown in patience; but the truest sign of divine power morally carried on now is this ability to endure. Now this was what Jonah completely failed in. He had known wonders of divine power and mercy in his own case; but there is nothing like the cross, no lesson like that of death and resurrection as Paul had learnt it. Some may think it a very unusual expression of our hearts, bad as they are, to put one's own reputation above the welfare and even the lives of the people of the great city; and that few or none of us would be tempted to feel so hardly. Be assured however that the flesh is untrustworthy; and that self is as cruel as it is paltry when allowed. This may seem to some a dreadful thought; but is it not true? Man is the first man still; and it is in the Christian ready to repeat itself, unless by faith held for dead.

The God of grace has compassion on the works of His hands, when they humble themselves before Him and tremble at the hearing of His righteous judgments. But Jonah, instead of caring for them, thinks only of his own reputation as a prophet. Wretched heart of man, so unable to rise up to the goodness of God! If Jonah had been nearer to God, he would have known that this was truly the God whom he proclaimed, whom he had learnt to love by knowing Him. He would have been able to say, Now, indeed, the Ninevites know the God whose testimony I gloried in bearing, and they will be happy. But Jonah thought only of himself; and the horrid selfishness of his heart hides from him the God of grace, faithful to His love for His helpless creatures. Jonah 4:2 exhibits the spirit of Jonah in all its deformity. The grace of God is insupportable to the pride of man. His justice is all very well: man can invest himself with it for his own glory; for man loves vengeance which is allied with the power that executes it. God must proclaim His justice. He does not save in sin. He makes man know his sin, in order to reconcile him to Himself, in order that his restoration may be real — may be that of his heart and of his conscience with God. But it is to make Himself known in pardoning him.

But God is above all the wretched evil of man, and He treats even Jonah with kindness, yet making him feel, at the same time, that He will not renounce His grace, His nature, to satisfy the frowardness of man's heart. He relieves the suffering of Jonah, disappointed at the non-fulfilment of his words; and the selfishness of Jonah's heart delights in this relief. He almost forgets the vengeance he had desired, in his satisfaction at being sheltered from the burning heat of the sun. Having gone out of Nineveh, and seated himself apart that he might see what would become of this city whose repentance vexed his evil heart, he rejoiced, in the midst of his anger, at the gourd which God prepared for him. But what a testimony to the utter iniquity of the flesh! The repentance of the sinner, his return to God, irritates the heart. It is really this ; for the city is spared on account of its repentance. Will God smite one who returns to Him in humiliation for his sins? He who does not know the heart of man could not understand the application of such a word as "Charity rejoices not in iniquity." We see it here in the case of a prophet. There is the same thing — having also the same application, and the same patient grace on God's part — in the case of the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son. But if man is content with that which relieves his own distress, and is even angry in his selfishness when that which relieved him is destroyed, shall not God spare the works of His hand and have compassion on that which, in His goodness, He has created? Assuredly He will not listen to the man who would silence His kindness towards those who need it. Most touching and beautiful is the last verse of this book, in which God displays this force, this 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 a perfection 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.

There was not much that was loveable about Jonah, unless it was his fierce patriotism. This may have accounted for much in him that to us appears repellent. He did not want to carry any message from God to Nineveh, "bloody city, full of lies and robbery," for he knew enough about the God he served, to know that if they hearkened to His word and repented of their sins, they would be forgiven and spared, even as it turned out. And he had no wish except that Nineveh should perish utterly without a warning. Why should the oppressor of his people be spared? So he fled, not from Nineveh, for he was no coward; it was not men that scared him from the will of God, it was from the presence of the Lord that he fled. What he feared was an out-pouring of the mercy of God upon an alien and guilty foe. In his concern for his nation and his own reputation, he was selfish, miserable, without compassion, and despicable — as unlike his God as he could possibly be.

But we may go a little deeper, and enquire into the special grounds of Jonah's anger. We read: "And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before 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. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live." (vv. 2, 3.)

That is, he was afraid lest God might show mercy to Nineveh, and, himself desiring judgment and destruction, he was unwilling to be the bearer of the divine message. What narrowness and hardness of heart! we might say. But there is more than this. There is in this foolish prayer the very essence of self and self-importance. To proclaim the message of judgment to godless Nineveh Jonah was quite willing — if he were but sure that it would be executed — for that would exalt Jonah both in his own eyes, and in the eyes of all who believed in the truth of his mission. Even James and John said to the Lord, "Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?" But the Lord turned, and rebuked them; for God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Jonah was of the same spirit with these disciples, only he went further, and opposed the manifestation, of mercy. For if, on the one hand, the annunciation of unsparing judgment exalted the preacher, the exhibition of grace set aside the messenger and exalted God. As another has said, Jonah, instead of caring for Nineveh, thinks only of his own reputation as a prophet. Wretched heart of man, so unable to rise up to the goodness of God! … Jonah thought only of himself, and the horrid selfishness of his heart hides from him the God of grace, faithful to His love for His helpless creatures. And we may add that he was entirely without excuse. He says, "For I knew that thou art a gracious God," etc, and yet he was angry — not satisfied with the character of the God he knew!

Verses 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."

Jonah's reluctance to obey, appears to have been fear that God would turn from His wrath and spare Nineveh. Was this the pride of heart that could not bear to "lose face," as we would say in China? Or, was it the bitter prejudice of an Israelite towards a Gentile nation? Or, did Jonah's eye look forward some fifty years and see the king of Nineveh coming against his own native land? (2 Kings 15:19)