Jonah 4:1-6

Jonah 4:1 (KJV)

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

 

Most prophets would rejoice at the news that the people they spoke to responded positively to their message making their mission successful.  Not Jonah, he was tremendously displeased at their repentance.  The word “displeased” in the Hebrew carries with it the meaning of “evil or bad.”  So Jonah thought that the repentance of the Ninevites were evil.  The Assyrians were the enemy of Israel and Jonah could not fathom the idea that God allowed them to repent instead of destroying them making Israel a safer place to live.  Not only was he displeased but his anger was kindled within him concerning their repentance.  How soon he forgot the ordeal he underwent with the sea and now it seems he is back to complaining instead of accepting God’s plan in this situation.

 

Jonah 4:2 (KJV)

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.

 

Jonah had refused to go to Nineveh not because he did not want to preach to them but he was afraid that they would heed the message and repent and then they would not be destroyed.  Whatever motive Jonah had for not wanting to go to Nineveh, he wanted them destroyed.   Jonah went to Nineveh to preach the coming justice of God on the Assyrians but instead he saw the forgiving mercy of God in action.  He then tries and justifies his flight to Tarshish.  He knew that God could judge nations as He has in the past but Jonah also knew that God was gracious and had a merciful side about Him.  God was also slow to anger because His patience was divine in that he could wait much longer than we could.  God was also greatly kind that He forgives the sinner who truly repents and will not bring calamity upon those whom God has chosen as His Elect.  These were the things Jonah was afraid would happen in Nineveh and they did.  He would much rather have seen the Assyrians destroyed by God by rejecting his message of repentance.

 

Jonah 4:3 (KJV)

Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

 

Now Jonah seems to be going into a suicidal depression since his greatest fear came to pass, which is the repentance of the Assyrians.  He is so distraught over their repentance that he is asking God to take his life.  Somehow he believes he would feel better if he were dead.  He believed that someday the Assyrians would attack Israel and overtake it and he did not want to be around when that happened.  It happened 39 years later and there is nothing written to let us know if Jonah lived to see it or not.

 

Jonah 4:4 (KJV)

Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?

 

Then the Lord asks Jonah, doest thou well to be angry?  In other words Jonah, are you really seeing this from my perspective or are you so blinded by hate that you cannot see a good thing happened here?  Do you believe that by being angry, that you are actually doing something good?

 

Jonah 4:5 (KJV)

So 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 shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.

 

Jonah was still in the city and he witnessed the repentance and contrition that took place among the people and among royalty.  So now that Jonah was so agitated that the Assyrians repented that he decided to leave the city.  So he had gone to the east side of the city where there looked like there was hilly country so Jonah made himself a booth which shaded him from the sun where he sat under it.  He was keeping an eye on the city to see what would happen to it and that maybe God would change His mind and destroy it after all.  He probably remembers that God did not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah until Lot and his family left the city, so he might have been hoping for a similar situation.

 

Jonah 4:6 (KJV)

And the LORD God 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. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.

 

The gourd is believed to be the castor oil tree which had broad leaves and would be able to give Jonah extra shade.  The word “prepared” is also the same word which God used to prepare the fish in 1:17 and the worm in 4:7, it carries with it the meaning of “appointed or ordained.”  With this extra shade Jonah was very happy because it probably made his stay outside of town a little more comfortable which would possibly help to pacify his seething anger.  This was also a miracle which God performed on behalf of Jonah since the tree came up very quickly and covered his booth.

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