Verse 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
Why? What did his hatred of Nineveh stem from? Don’t really know. Was he angry at God, at himself, or at the situation, or at all of these possibilities?
Verse 2 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.
The prophet Jonah knew his LORD as revealed in the verse above, and so he knew the city would be saved. He new that the same mercy and grace that God bestowed on him would be given to the Ninevites, and apparently that was not Jonah’s desire. Hence his attempt to run away and hide from the LORD. He knew God’s heart. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9 And now the people of Nineveh were repenting because of the message Jonah delivered to them.
Application: Jonah allowed his fleshly feelings to cloud his judgement and his actions. Christian believers need to be careful that their personal ideas, opinions and emotions do not get in the way of God’s plan.
Verse 3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
The prophet Jonah was so upset and so angry that he just wanted to die. This attitude and emotion was harming him at this point. He was apparently unable/unwilling to see the miracle of God’s redemptive power and that God loved the people of Nineveh as much as He loved Jonah. After all, He had saved Jonah’s life and given him a second chance to fulfill his duty and role as a prophet of the Most High God.
Application: Anger is an emotion that is part of God’s character, and an emotion that all people everywhere have to deal with throughout their earthly lives. Anger is unreasonable if not righteous anger. When people are angry, they do not think logically and can often do terrible things to those who are the source of their anger. But the Christian believer can be angry if the anger is directed towards evil and if it is righteous and not carnal. “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:” Ephesians 4:26. So it is acceptable to be angry towards the things that God is angry towards also, which is sin, but taking action as a result of that anger (be it angry and hurtful speech, angry and unforgiving thoughts, or angry/violent actions) is not acceptable in the Kingdom of God. And all anger should be dealt with on the day that the anger arises and not brooded upon the next day. Why? Because the command to do so in the verse above is from God and is to be obeyed, and because unresolved anger causes multiple negative physical symptoms such as sleeplessness, upset stomach, and elevated blood pressure. The Christian believer’s body is the dwelling place of the Holy Ghost/Spirit, and it should not be turned into a “garbage dump” of negative feelings and physical imbalances.
Verses 4-5 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry? 5 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.
God points out to Jonah that his anger is unreasonable by asking a question. To paraphrase the question, God was asking Jonah if he was doing the right thing being angry, was he pleasing God, and where was his joy and gladness that a huge number of people were being saved? In other words, was his anger justified. God doesn’t criticize or chastise Jonah, but just asks a question, giving Jonah time to ponder an answer. So Jonah exits the city and erects a primitive shelter and sits down to see what will happen to the city.
Application: The prophet Jonah was sulking, alone with his negative emotions, hoping that the city would still be destroyed. Do Christian believers sometimes become like Jonah, obedient to God in actions, but having their hearts wrong and still hoping that judgement will fall?
Verse 6 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.
Apparently it got a little hot inside the prophet Jonah’s makeshift shelter, and so God miraculously has a plant of some kind grow up to provide shade and to make his physical environment a little more comfortable. And the verse above records that Jonah was very glad for the protection of the plant. And there Jonah sat and waited.
Application: God is a loving God and cares about every little thing that is in the life of His children here on Earth. “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” 1 Peter 5:7 In the King James Bible, all verbs ending in “eth” means that the action is ongoing. God doesn’t just care about His people occasionally or when they please Him, etc., but He cares about them all the time and His care for His people is ongoing until they leave Earth and enter Heaven where they are then dwelling in His presence.
Verse 7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
So the prophet Jonah went to bed glad of his shelter with the protective plant, and woke up to find it all withered and dead. Not a great start to his morning. Why did God send a worm and miraculously kill the plant? Because He was giving Jonah an object lesson. Jonah was hoping that the city would be destroyed and the people in it. He wanted them to suffer loss. He wanted to see God destroy everything. The protective plant, something that was important to Jonah, was destroyed and he was no longer comfortable. He needed to understand that the city and the lives of the people of Nineveh were important to God, and just as God had miraculously sheltered and cared for Jonah, God was going to miraculously shelter and care for the people of Nineveh, regardless of how Jonah felt about the situation.
Verse 8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
Not only did the prophet Jonah lose his sun shade, but now he had to deal with a hot, dry wind. The Hebrew word translated as “vehement” is “chariyshiy” and it means harsh, hot, and sultry. It appears that Jonah was at risk of heatstroke. The questions to be asked here are why didn’t Jonah go back to the city and get liquids and find a more appropriate place to sit down in? Why didn’t he seek help from the people he hated so much? Why didn’t he seek help from God who miraculously rescued him from a sea and provided a plant for shade? Was it because of pride? Regardless, he still wanted to die and he was still holding on to his anger.
Application: Unfortunately, there are people living today that would rather die physically and spiritually than surrender to the leadership of the LORD God Almighty. Like Jonah, they want their own way and they are too prideful to repent, get baptized, and be filled with the Holy Ghost/Spirit as commanded in chapter two of the book of Acts.
Verse 9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
Once again God asks the prophet Jonah if his anger is justified. Jonah’s stubborn response is basically, “Yes, and I will stay angry until I die.”
Verse 10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
The gourd or plant provided by God for Jonah’s comfort was supernatural as in the natural, no plant can sprout and grow to maturity in a 24 hour period of time and then wither away just as quickly. Again, God tries to show and correct Jonah’s wrong thinking by comparing and contrasting the plant and Jonah’s feeling towards the plant to His feelings towards the city of Nineveh and its people. Just as the plant or gourd was important to Jonah, the city of Nineveh was important to God. Just as God created the gourd and nourished it and then destroyed it, so He created and nourished the city and the people living in it and then chose not to destroy it. Both the gourd and the city belonged to Him and they were His to do with as He willed. And the prophet Jonah needed to prioritize his pity as people were more important than one gourd.
Verse 11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? (Jonah 4)
If God had mercy on a plant and a man, should not Jonah have mercy on 120,000 men, women and children who apparently were ignorant of their sin and of the LORD God? The LORD was putting things into perspective and clearly showing the prophet Jonah that his priorities were wrong. People were more important than plants. Jonah needed to learn the lesson that the God he was serving was/is almighty and Sovereign and just as He chose to have mercy on Jonah in his sin and rebellion, He had the right to have mercy on Nineveh and her people. Just as they could not discern their right hand from their left hand (total ignorance and helplessness), so this was Jonah’s condition when he tried to run from God. Jonah was just like the people of Nineveh. He needed to see this truth, but unfortunately, the Scripture does not record what happened from here. But it is known that Jonah had descendants and that one of them was the Apostle Peter. The Apostle Peter demonstrated some of the tendencies of his ancestor, the prophet Jonah: impetuous, rash, not always thinking things through or considering what the effect will be of his words or actions. But the Apostle Peter was/is a true servant of the LORD Jesus Christ and is one of the people that this writer wants to see when arriving in Heaven.