#5 Question: What’s up with Jonah?

Sometimes we become angry with how our parents treat a younger sibling. Remember the time your little brother or sister turned over the milk at the table and no punishment occurred? When you had done the same thing, you had to stand in the corner? Later in life we can appreciate how our parents treated each of us but not when we were little at the point of the infraction!

Jonah had just such a time in his life after he finally preached at Nineveh. He had preached that Nineveh would be destroyed. Then it did not occur, Jonah, 3:10:

“When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

This lack of punishment of the Assyrians made Jonah unhappy, Jonah 4:1:

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

This is the prophet Jonah, who had at first refused to obey God and go preach to Nineveh. Instead, he had fled in a ship. He was tossed overboard during a terrible storm, swallowed by a fish that God had sent, and after three days, vomited up on dry land. Then, God told him a second time to go preach to Nineveh. Apparently, he immediately went.

He had preached that if Nineveh did not repent, they would be destroyed in 40 days. The Ninevites repented. Then, due to this repentance God relented of the disaster forecasted by Jonah. Strangely, this repentance of Nineveh made Jonah unhappy, so unhappy that he offered a lame excuse to God in a prayer and asked to die, Jonah 4:2-3:

“And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Note this prayer. Jonah is saying that he knew better than God all along and that the Lord would not punish Nineveh, when, in fact, Jonah did not know. All Jonah knew was that God had been gracious to him when he had rebelled against God’s command to preach to Nineveh. Now Jonah is angry that God had shown the same kind of mercy to Nineveh.

At this point, God had a question, Jonah 4:4:

“And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

This language is similar to God’s talk to Cain when he became angry and shows that God was not pleased with Jonah …or Cain.

Jonah had no reply. Instead, he went out to a hillside and built a little shelter where he could watch what would happen to Nineveh, if anything.

Jonah is making a terrible mistake. He implies that he was right to disobey and flee earlier. He is actually saying that God was initially wrong to send him to preach. God can never be wrong. Further, it can never be right to disobey God and then disagree with God’s actions for the penitent.

Consider Jonah’s character:

  1. He had been with God when he preached to Nineveh. Now he is opposed to God. This is a dangerous position to occupy.
  2. He was glad to repent and be forgiven in the belly of the fish, but he did not want the repentant Ninevites to be forgiven.
  3. When he did not get his wishes, he became angry with God and wanted to die. Such a disposition of the soul when you die is a tragedy to take into eternity.

This part of the book of Jonah has several lessons for us:

  1. God cares for all people and is sensitive to their repentance. He cared for the Ninevites.
  2. Unlike Jonah we need to be happy to see sinners repent.
  3. We should be content to let God decide the fate of others.
  4. We should always obey God and not think that we know better than God.

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