• Introduction
Who reading or listening to this has never been tempted to be angry with God?
- Something has happened to us – some experience – that may have seemed to us hard and unfair.
- Something happened to us that disappointed us or hurt us or shamed us … and the effect of that has STUCK with us.
- It wasn’t what we expected in life, and it’s caused us to think and possibly react negatively towards God.
Now don’t immediately – please – as you hear me say this go down to Joppa and go down into a ship bound for Tarshish (as far from God as you can go) ... because Jonah 4 may well not be directly relevant to your experience of your pain but it may (positively) give some hints as you reflect on what’s said that you could reflect on and (when processed in your own prayerful reflection) that you might find useful in your own personal experience.
So let’s clarify what Jonah 4 is and clearly ISN’T about.
Jonah 4 is all about being angry with God.
- It doesn’t spell out an apologetic response His followers can make to those who are angry with God.
- That’s not its context.
- Nor is it suggesting a pastoral response that we should make to comfort Christians who’ve been hurt by something.
- But it IS concerned with what God says to his prophet Jonah, who has stepped away from fulfilling God’s plans for Jonah’s life and mission because Jonah’s become ANGRY about who God will put up with … moreover … who God will give repentance and therefore deliverance to.
And it’s in this chapter of Jonah that things come to a head, and the point of the book is plainly revealed.
The key to it is the way the chapter starts, portraying to us Jonah: the anger-driven prophet.
Now it might help us grasp the overall purpose of this unique book to know the shape of this chapter looks like this:
Jonah is the Anger-driven prophet
• Meet the ANGER-driven prophet, vv. 1-3
Why is Jonah angry?
So Jonah eventually prayed
I was RIGHT!
Jonah’s self-justification
Jonah’s ‘issue’ with God
A prisoner of his past disillusionment
• The ETHICS-driven God, v. 4
• The TEACHING LORD (who illustrates the point with a parable), vv. 5-8
• The ETHICS-driven God, v. 9a
• The (still) ANGER-driven prophet, v. 9b
• Conclusion (God NOT now speaking in parables), v. 10
• The ANGER-driven prophet, vv. 1-3
The Prophet Jonah has finally obeyed God’s command and gone to Nineveh to preach to those really dreadful people over there and what’s happened is that they have deeply, thoroughly and AMAZINGLY repented and turned to God on the basis of a sermon that really had nothing appealing, clear or (you might say) HELPFUL about it at all!
If anyone I know had preached so poor a sermon and seen God do such a GREAT thing wth it, they’d be saying ‘Hallelujah!’
Not Jonah.
From the start of this chapter he is in a total funk.
Here’s what we read:
“But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, ‘Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.’”
Let’s break it down and see what’s happening.
Why is Jonah angry?
The NET says:
“This displeased Jonah terribly
and he became very angry.”
Now, that ‘This’ refers back to the repentance of the Ninevites … and Jonah is ANGERED by it.
Heb “It was evil to Jonah, a great evil.”
This is a POWEFUL emotion he’s experiencing and expressing.
The cognate accusative construction וַיֵּרע...רָעָה (vayyeraʿ…raʿah) emphasizes the great magnitude of his displeasure (e.g., Neh 2:10 for the identical construction; see IBHS 167 §10.2.1g).
The verb רָעַע (raʿaʿ) means “to be displeasing” (BDB 949 s.v. רָעַע 1; e.g., Gen 21:11, 12; 48:17; Num 11:16; 22:34; Josh 24:15; 1 Sam 8:6; 2 Sam 11:25; Neh 2:10; 13:8; Prov 24:18; Jer 40:4).
The use of the verb רָעַע (“to be evil, bad”) and the noun רָעָה (“evil, bad, calamity”) here in 4:1 creates a wordplay with the use of that word in 3:8-10 where the King of Nineveh commands repentance amongst his people:
“Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.’
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
What Jonah is objecting to, and what seems ‘evil’ to the distorted view of the world his cherished bitterness had put into him, is that when God saw that the Ninevites repented from their moral evil (רָעָה), God relented from the calamity (רָעָה) that he had threatened—and this development greatly displeased (רָעָה) Jonah.
So Jonah prayed
He prayed to the Lord and said,
“Oh, Lord, this is just what I thought would happen when I was in my own country.
He PRAYED to the Lord?
When did he last do that in this book?
There is no hint anywhere else in the book that Jonah had argued with God when he was originally commissioned. While most English versions render it “I said” or “my saying,” a few take it as inner speech: “This is what I feared” (NEB), “It is just as I feared” (REB), and “I knew from the very beginning” (CEV).
I was RIGHT!
“He prayed to the Lord, ‘Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish.
The verb אָמַר (ʾamar, “to say”) here refers to the inner speech and thoughts of Jonah (e.g., Gen 17:17; Ruth 4:4; 1 Sam 20:26; Esth 6:6; Jonah 2:4).
There’s a common view in our culture that ‘talking to yourself’ is outlandish and odd by definition.
Now, if your ‘inner speech’ IS outlandish and odd then, yes, that talking to yourself IS outlandish and odd.
But the fact is, we DO address ourselves inwardly and when we are being rational and lucid it s normal and to be expected.
The big issue is HOW we talk to ourselves and what we say.
It is actually quite important, what we say to ourselves in this way.
It steers and guides our conduct, builds our resolve and enables our rational and spiritual principles to direct ourselves to be led aright not astray!
That’s why we need to keep a close eye on our inner discourse, our inner speech.
Jonah’s inner speech had been leading him to say God would only go and convert those Ninevites that Jonah didn’t want anything but judgement for if Jonah went an did what God commanded Jonah to do … and Jonah wasn’t happy with that outcome at all.
He HATED the violent and barbaric Ninevites and wanted God to do what JONAH wanted God to do with them … which was definitely going to HURT those Ninevites badly.
Now, in fact, there is no hint anywhere else in the book that Jonah had argued with God when he was originally commissioned.
But Jonah’s emotional response against the Ninevites isn’t going to allow the facts of the matter to cloud his chosen stance.
Jonah’s self-justification
This is what I tried to prevent by attempting to escape to Tarshish, says Jonah in v. 2b:
“That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish.”
You really have to be staggered by the astonishing delusion of this prophet who thinks his personal unfaithfulness and disloyalty to God can forestall the Lord’s predetermined purposes.
Jonah, nor we, are really quite such a big deal.
What actually happened when God commissioned Jonah for that preaching trip to Nineveh is spelled out for us in Jonah 1:
“But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.
He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port.
After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.”
Jonah 1:3
Jonah’s actual motivation at the time roots the whole thing relationally … Jonah did this because he wanted to run away from the Lord.
There’s never been one word of repentance about this from Jonah in the whole book, and now he is trying to rewrite history as if he knew better … and knew better than God to grant the Ninevites repentance … all along.
Here’s what he says:
I fled from this challenging mission …
“because I knew”
‘Knew’ or “know” are both viable translations.
What Jonah knew then he still knows about the Lord’s character, which is being demonstrated in his dealings with both Nineveh and Jonah.
In reality, the Hebrew suffixed tense accommodates both times here.
So what IS it that Jonah knew, still knows and that stimulated to flee from God’s commission?
Because he knows …
that you are a gracious and compassionate God,
slow to anger and
abounding in mercy,
Jonah’s ‘issue’ with God
There’s a terrific Hebrew expression here, Jonah says he acted so unfaithfully as to flee because he knew God was so “long of nostrils.”
Because the nose often expresses anger through flared nostrils, it became the source of this idiom meaning “slow to anger”
THERE you have it!
Slow to anger and abounding in mercy.
God is the OPPOSITE of what Jonah wants God to be in this regard, and the opposite of what bitter Jonah wants to be.
THAT is the issue.
Jonah KNOWS what God is like, that He is ‘long of nostril’, and Jonah is not up for that at all.
SO not up for it that he’d rather have NOTHING to do with this gracious God … or even die himself … rather than go out to preach judgement to awful people (which he wanted for them) only for God to grant then repentance leading to life!
This is classic prodigal son parable stuff!
Jonah is the prodigal son who always stayed home until the prodigal son who had gone away returned and THEN left for good.
Don’t ask me why the Lord didn’t make the link to Jonah when he told that parable and liken the errant religious teachers of HIS day to Jonah because I don’t know!
What I do know is that Jonah was such a legalist that he couldn’t tolerate a God Who was gracious to awful sinners, and was …
“one who relents concerning threatened judgment.
Now, let’s not forget that everything Jonah objects to here is based on the truth.
Or PART of it.
The classic statement of God’s willingness to relent from judgment when a sinful people repent is Jer 18:1-11.
“Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.”
Now, Jonah is precisely correct in his listing of the Lord’s attributes.
See Exod 34:6-7; Num 14:18-19; 2 Chr 30:9; Neh 9:17, 31-32; Pss 86:3-8, 15; 103:2-13; 116:5 (note the parallels to Jonah 2 in Ps 116:1-4); 145:8; Neh 9:17; Joel 2:13.
But whilst Jonah might formulate the doctrine of the sovereignty of God IMMACUALTELY, He doesn’t seem prepared to LIVE with it in practise.
Why?
A prisoner of his past disillusionment
His history, of course, is relevant to Jonah’s response.
Do you remember that back at the beginning of this short series of expositions of Jonah we talked about the only time outside this book that Jonah gets mentioned in the Old Testament?
Well, that’s in 2 Kings 14:23-25 where Jonah prophesies to one of Israel’s WORST Kings, King Jeroboam II, that Jeroboam would win a battle and regain a load of territory on Israel’s Northern border.
As we said then, the (good) prophet Amos also confronted Jeroboam about the bad things Jeroboam was doing and specifically REVERSED the prophecy Jonah had given, saying Jeroboam would LOSE all those towns because of all the bad stuff Jeroboam was doing … it’s in Amos 6:13-14.
Jonah’s previous experience of God’s sovereignty at work is being allowed to adversely affect his response to God in the here and now.
This is something we REALLY have to watch ourselves over.
What we HAVE to remember is that Jonah has got history with getting it wrong when he speaks out as if for God and he really isn’t happy about that experience … he is BITTER with God on account of it.
And unrepented bitterness about how God led Israel is not doing him any good at all in the present.
He would rather be dead now it’s all happened (as it were) again.
It’s a weird quirk of this cautionary tale that as Jonah despairs that the Lord should show mercy, Jonah despairs of his own life itself.
You sometimes see this.
It is a desperately sad quirk of human nature
3 So now, Lord, kill me instead, because I would rather die than live!”
4 The Lord said, “Are you really so very angry?”
His prayer, now that he is praying at last, is that God would now take his life from him.
Jonah has been there before!
Jonah has got bitterness and anger at God and its’ partner despair with his own life running right through his personality here and this ANGER is what the Lord God (who sees into the very depth of every individual’s heart) picks up on in His analysis of Jonah’s situation.
The Lord emphasises this both here and in v. 9
Heb “better my death than my life.”
THAT is where self-righteous legalism, we’d say “Pharisaism’ leads you.
It doesn’t dignify human life by so-called high standards but degrades it by marring God’s image in humanity … robbing life of the milk of human kindness.
Jonah is driven by his fallen human emotions, but his response to the God-glorifying repentance of the awful Babylonians in Nineveh is immediately challenged by the ethics-driven God.
God hears the emotional outburst of Jonah and challenges his ETHICS, the rightness of Jonah’s response!
Jonah was DESPERATE for God to judge these Ninevites Jonah’s angry with because from within Jonah’s fallen view of the world that would be right … their just deserts.
But God is about to challenge strongly and directly the rightness of Jonah’s response:
• The ETHICS-driven God, v. 4
v. 4 “The Lord said, “Are you really so very angry?”
Heb “Rightly/thoroughly does it burn to you?”
This same question occurs again in v. 9 concerning the withered plant.
The Hiphil of יָטַב (yatav, “to do good”) here may have one of two meanings. First, it may mean “to do [something] rightly” in terms of ethical right and wrong (BDB 406 s.v. יָטַב 5.b; HALOT 408 s.v. יטב 3.c; e.g., Gen 4:7; Lev 5:4; Pss 36:4; 119:68; Isa 1:17; Jer 4:22; 13:23). This approach is adopted by many English versions: “Do you have any right to be angry?” (NIV);
“Are you right to be angry?” (REB, NJB);
“Is it right for you to be angry?” (NRSV, NLT);
“Do you have good reason to be angry?” (NASB);
“Do you do well to be angry?” (cf. KJV, NKJV, ASV, RSV); “What right do you have to be angry?” (cf. TEV, CEV).
Second, it may mean “well, utterly, thoroughly,” as an adverb (BDB 405 s.v. 3; HALOT 408 s.v. 5; e.g., Deut 9:21; 13:15; 17:4; 19:18; 27:8; 1 Sam 16:17; 2 Kgs 11:18; Prov 15:2; Isa 23:16; Jer 1:12; Ezek 33:32; Mic 7:3).
This view is adopted by other English versions: “Are you that deeply grieved?” (JPS, NJPS); “Are you so angry?” (NEB). This is also the approach of the Tg. Jonah 4:4: “Are you that greatly angered?”
The first interpretation can say such anger reflected the lack of submission to God’s sovereignty that caused Jonah to disobey initially.
If God wanted to show mercy or wanted the plant to die, who was Jonah to get angry? But the rightness or wrongness of anger over plant death can seem a trivial question, and the later dialogue may focus on the depth of Jonah’s anger: He would rather be dead than alive (vv. 3, 8), and he concludes by saying that he was as angry as he could possibly be (v. 9; see note on עַד־מָוֶת [ʿad mavet, “to death”] in v. 9).
The Lord then uses an a fortiori argument (from lesser to greater): Jonah was very upset that the plant had died (v. 10); likewise, God was very concerned about averting the destruction of Nineveh (v. 11).sn
The use of the term יָטַב (yatab, “rightly, good”) creates a wordplay with its antonym רָעָה (raʿah, “evil, wrong”), which is used in 4:1 of Jonah’s bad attitude.
• The TEACHING LORD, vv. 5-8
“Jonah left the city and sat down east[p] of it.[q] He made a shelter for himself there and sat down under it in the shade to see what would happen to the city.[r] 6 The Lord God appointed[s] a little plant[t] and caused it to grow up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to rescue[u] him from his misery.[v] Now Jonah was very delighted[w] about the little plant.
So God sent a worm at dawn the next day, and it attacked the little plant so that it dried up.
When the sun began to shine, God sent a hot east wind.
So the sun beat down on Jonah’s head, and he grew faint.
So he despaired of life and said, “I would rather die than live!”
• The ETHICS-driven God, v. 9a
v. 9a “God said to Jonah, “Are you really so very angry about the little plant?”
Heb “Does it burn so thoroughly to you?”;
or “Does it burn rightly to you?”
• The (still) ANGER-driven prophet, v. 9b
“And he said, “I am as angry as I could possibly be!”
• The GRACE-driven God, vv. 10-11
• Conclusion, vv. 10-11
“The Lord said, “You were upset about this little plant, something for which you did not work, nor did you do anything to make it grow.
It grew up overnight and died the next day.
Should I not be more concerned about Nineveh, this enormous city?
There are more than 120,000 people in it who do not know right from wrong,
as well as many animals.”
And in doing so the Lord distinguishes His human, and in fact His ANIMATE, creation with the dignity and the priority He intended for both from the first.
We will have to come back too much of that as we revisit the rest of this chapter next time.
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