Jonah 4

Jon 4:1-11.

JONAH

FRETS AT

GOD'S

MERCY TO

NINEVEH:

IS

REPROVED BY THE

TYPE OF A

GOURD.

1. angry--literally, "hot," probably, with grief or

vexation, rather than anger

[FAIRBAIRN]. How sad the contrast between God's

feeling on the repentance of Nineveh towards Him, and Jonah's feeling on

the repentance of God towards Nineveh. Strange in one who was himself a

monument of mercy on his repentance! We all, like him, need the lesson

taught in the parable of the unforgiving, though forgiven, debtor

(Mt 18:23-35).

Jonah was grieved because Nineveh's preservation, after his

denunciation, made him seem a false prophet [CALVIN]. But it would make Jonah a demon, not a man, to

have preferred the destruction of six hundred thousand men rather than

that his prophecy should be set aside through God's mercy triumphing

over judgment. And God in that case would have severely chastised,

whereas he only expostulates mildly with him, and by a mode of dealing,

at once gentle and condescending, tries to show him his error.

Moreover, Jonah himself, in apologizing for his vexation, does not

mention the failure of his prediction as the cause: but solely

the thought of God's slowness to anger. This was what led him to

flee to Tarshish at his first commission; not the likelihood

then of his prediction being falsified; for in fact his

commission then was not to foretell Nineveh's downfall, but simply to

"cry against" Nineveh's "wickedness" as having "come up before God."

Jonah could hardly have been so vexed for the letter of his prediction

failing, when the end of his commission had virtually been gained in

leading Nineveh to repentance. This then cannot have been regarded by

Jonah as the ultimate end of his commission. If Nineveh had been

the prominent object with him, he would have rejoiced at the result of

his mission. But Israel was the prominent aim of Jonah, as a prophet of

the elect people. Probably then he regarded the destruction of Nineveh

as fitted to be an example of God's judgment at last suspending His

long forbearance so as to startle Israel from its desperate degeneracy,

heightened by its new prosperity under Jeroboam II at that very time,

in a way that all other means had failed to do. Jonah, despairing of

anything effectual being done for God in Israel, unless there were

first given a striking example of severity, thought when he proclaimed

the downfall of Nineveh in forty days, that now at last God is about to

give such an example; so when this means of awakening Israel was set

aside by God's mercy on Nineveh's repentance, he was bitterly

disappointed, not from pride or mercilessness, but from hopelessness as

to anything being possible for the reformation of Israel, now that his

cherished hope is baffled. But GOD'S plan was to

teach Israel, by the example of Nineveh, how inexcusable is their own

impenitence, and how inevitable their ruin if they persevere. Repenting

Nineveh has proved herself more worthy of God's favor than apostate

Israel; the children of the covenant have not only fallen down to, but

actually below, the level of a heathen people; Israel, therefore, must

go down, and the heathen rise above her. Jonah did not know the

important lessons of hope to the penitent, and condemnation to those

amidst outward privileges impenitent, which Nineveh's preservation on

repentance was to have for aftertimes, and to all ages. He could not

foresee that Messiah Himself was thus to apply that history. A lesson

to us that if we could in any particular alter the plan of

Providence, it would not be for the better, but for the worse [FAIRBAIRN].

2. my saying--my thought, or feeling.

fled before--I anticipated by fleeing, the disappointment of my

design through Thy long-suffering mercy.

gracious . . . and merciful, &c.--Jonah here has

before his mind

Ex 34:6;

as Joel

(Joe 2:13)

in his turn quotes from Jonah.

3. 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

(1Ki 18:1-46)

failing through Jezebel

(1Ki 19:4).

4. Doest thou well to be angry?--or grieved; rather as the

Margin, "Art thou much angry," or "grieved?"

[FAIRBAIRN with the

Septuagint and Syriac]. But English Version suits the spirit

of the passage, and is quite tenable in the Hebrew

[GESENIUS].

5. made him a booth--that is, a temporary hut of branches and leaves,

so slightly formed as to be open to the wind and sun's heat.

see what would become of the city--The term of forty days had not yet

elapsed, and Jonah did not know that anything more than a suspension, or

mitigation, of judgment had been granted to Nineveh. Therefore, not

from sullennesss, but in order to watch the event from a neighboring

station, he lodged in the booth. As a stranger, he did not know the

depth of Nineveh's repentance; besides, from the Old Testament

standpoint he knew that chastening judgments often followed, as in

David's case

(2Sa 12:10-12, 14),

even where sin had been repented of. To show him what he knew not, the

largeness and completeness of God's mercy to penitent Nineveh, and the

reasonableness of it, God made his booth a school of discipline to give

him more enlightened views.

6. gourd--Hebrew, kikaion; the Egyptian kiki, the "ricinus"

or castor-oil plant, commonly called "palm-christ" (palma-christi).

It grows from eight to ten feet high. Only one leaf grows on a branch,

but that leaf being often more than a foot large, the collective leaves

give good shelter from the heat. It grows rapidly, and fades as suddenly

when injured.

to deliver him from his grief--It was therefore grief, not selfish

anger, which Jonah felt

(see on

Jon 4:1).

Some external comforts will often turn the mind away from its sorrowful

bent.

7. a worm--of a particular kind, deadly to the ricinus. A small worm

at the root destroys a large gourd. So it takes but little to make our

creature comforts wither. It should silence discontent to remember, that

when our gourd is gone, our God is not gone.

the next day--after Jonah was so "exceeding glad" (compare

Ps 80:7).

8. vehement--rather, "scorching"; the Margin, "silent," expressing

sultry stillness, not vehemence.

9. (See on

Jon 4:4).

I do well to be angry, even unto death--"I am very much grieved,

even to death" [FAIRBAIRN]. So the Antitype

(Mt 26:38).

10, 11. The main lesson of the book. If Jonah so pities a plant which

cost him no toil to rear, and which is so short lived and valueless,

much more must Jehovah pity those hundreds of thousands of immortal men

and women in great Nineveh whom He has made with such a display of

creative power, especially when many of them repent, and seeing that, if

all in it were destroyed, "more than six score thousand" of

unoffending children, besides "much cattle," would be involved in

the common destruction: Compare the same argument drawn from God's

justice and mercy in

Ge 18:23-33.

A similar illustration from the insignificance of a plant, which

"to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven," and which,

nevertheless, is clothed by God with surpassing beauty, is given by

Christ to prove that God will care for the infinitely more precious

bodies and souls of men who are to live for ever

(Mt 6:28-30).

One soul is of more value than the whole world; surely, then, one soul

is of more value than many gourds. The point of comparison spiritually

is the need which Jonah, for the time being, had of the foliage

of the gourd. However he might dispense with it at other times, now it

was necessary for his comfort, and almost for his life. So now that

Nineveh, as a city, fears God and turns to Him, God's cause needs it,

and would suffer by its overthrow, just as Jonah's material well-being

suffered by the withering of the gourd. If there were any hope of

Israel's being awakened by Nineveh's destruction to fulfil her high

destination of being a light to surrounding heathenism, then there

would not have been the same need to God's cause of Nineveh's

preservation, (though there would have always been need of saving the

penitent). But as Israel, after judgments, now with returning

prosperity turns back to apostasy, the means needed to vindicate

God's cause, and provoke Israel, if possible, to jealousy, is the

example of the great capital of heathendom suddenly repenting at the

first warning, and consequently being spared. Thus Israel would see the

kingdom of heaven transplanted from its ancient seat to another which

would willingly yield its spiritual fruits. The tidings which Jonah

brought back to his countrymen of Nineveh's repentance and rescue,

would, if believingly understood, be far more fitted than the news of

its overthrow to recall Israel to the service of God. Israel failed to

learn the lesson, and so was cast out of her land. But even this was

not an unmitigated evil. Jonah was a type, as of Christ, so also of

Israel. Jonah, though an outcast, was highly honored of God in Nineveh;

so Israel's outcast condition would prove no impediment to her serving

God's cause still, if only she was faithful to God. Ezekiel and Daniel

were so at Babylon; and the Jews, scattered in all lands as witnesses

for the one true God, pioneered the way for Christianity, so that it

spread with a rapidity which otherwise was not likely to have attended

it [FAIRBAIRN].

11. that cannot discern between their right hand and their left--children under three of four years old

(De 1:39).

Six score thousand of these, allowing them to be a fifth of the

whole, would give a total population of six hundred thousand.

much cattle--God cares even for the brute creatures, of which man takes

little account. These in wonderful powers and in utility are far above

the shrub which Jonah is so concerned about. Yet Jonah is reckless as to

their destruction and that of innocent children. The abruptness of the

close of the book is more strikingly suggestive than if the thought had

been followed out in detail.

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