Jonah 4
English Standard Version

Jonah's Anger and the LORD's Compassion
4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 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. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

Jonah is really upset with the LORD that the LORD showed mercy to the Ninevites that repented (mercy for me, but wrath for thee seemed to be Jonah's philosophy here when it came to Jews and Gentiles).  In fact, Jonah admits that this was the very reason why he tried to run in the first place--he was concerned that the LORD might use him to bring about revival and repentance, and he did not want the people of Nineveh to receive grace and mercy.  Jonah says he would rather die to live and watch this revival happen.  The LORD asks a simple probing question, "Do you do well to be angry?" (He asks Jonah if he believes he has just cause for his anger).

Jonah does not answer, which in itself is an answer, and he builds a shelter for himself much like what the people would make during the festival of booths.  The booth gave him shelter and shade from the sun, but the LORD decided that He would help reinforce the lesson He was trying to teach Jonah with an object-lesson.  He caused a plant to grow supernaturally fast and to provide shade for Jonah's head to make him more comfortable.  Jonah's mood quickly changed and now he was exceedingly happy because of the plant (notice how volatile Jonah's mood is--he will quickly swing from one extreme to the other).

At that time, the LORD cause a worm to come and eat the plant so that it would wither and die, and Jonah is right back into his mood of asking the LORD to kill him.  He is also angry at the LORD for allowing the plant that was providing him with shade and comfort to die.  The LORD asked a similar diagnostic question to Jonah, "Do you do good to be angry about the plant?"  Jonah does answer this time and feels his anger is justified and he adds that he is angry enough to die.

The LORD then shows Jonah that he cares more about the plant than about the people and animals of the city that he wants to see destroyed.  Jonah did no work to cultivate or plant or water the plant that gave him shade,  It was literally there one day and gone the next by no work of Jonah's hand, and yet, Jonah valued that plant more than the thousands or millions of people of people--there are more than 120, 000 innocent, young children that do not know "right from left" (right from wrong).  That doesn't count any of the older children or adults who understood morality and chose to sin.  There are also lots of innocent animals there--though they don't have a soul, they would suffer in the judgment that they LORD was planning on sending.  Should Jonah not consider the suffering of the innocent?  The LORD certainly did and realized there was still a chance for this innocents to come to a place of being God-fearing.

This passage really gets to the heart of the matter (literally).  This whole scenario is the LORD dealing with Jonah's heart.  The one that is called His prophet is the one who is most in need of repentance.  Are we ever angry at God for being exactly who He said He is and doing exactly what He said He loves to do? Do we get angry over things with no cause? Are we every so self-centered that we get more angry about our own comfort than the lives and souls of the lost people of the world?  I think we unfortunately have to admit that we can sometimes have a lot in common with Jonah and that we too need to let this book speak to us and let the Spirit do His work to convict us of sin when it comes to selfishness and hatred or apathy towards those who are far away and unlike us.

This is the end of this book.  It doesn't feel like there is a nice resolution to it.  We leave Jonah there sulking and don't ever know if he stops being bitter and angry at God over His grace and mercy towards the people of Nineveh.  We don't know if he realizes he's just as much in need of the LORD's grace and mercy and is just as wicked (and so are his people Israel and Judah).  We don't see if the people had a conversion experience that was long-lasting or lasted a generation or less (this will be answered in another of the Minor Prophets, so hang on), but we are left with many unanswered questions.  Though many skeptics point to this book as being too fantastical (being swallowed by a great fish and vomited up on land) to believe, I think this kind of ending points to the fact that this was not written by the Hebrew scribes.  The only Jew in this story is the "bad guy" and the Ninevites are the "good guys."  Salvation is brought to the Gentiles, and there is this lack of resolution at the end that leaves this one called a prophet of the LORD sulking and depressed and ready to die because of the good that the LORD had done.  It is because of this that the Bible seems even more real to me because we don't see perfect heroes nor do we see the kinds of heroes that the Greeks and Romans had who committed egregious amounts of sin to make man feel okay about theirs.  We see the LORD correcting Jonah here because he was in sin, and Jonah is still struggling with having victory over that sin when we leave him.  That is a very normal thing in our lives and points to the reality that God uses imperfect people to convey His perfect message to accomplish His perfect plans and purposes--the bring about salvation for the Jew first, but also for the Gentile.

Jonah 3:6-10
English Standard Version

The People of Nineveh Repent
6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

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.

The message that Jonah proclaimed reached the ears the king.  Now you might expect the king to be upset and to be out for blood--wanting to kill the prophet that would dare to proclaim judgment against him and his people  After all, we've seen that kind of response from the kings of Israel and Judah, so why not expect it from the king of a wicked people.

However, that is not the response.  He took off his royal robes and put on sackcloth (a visible symbol of repentance and mourning over one's sins).  He also issued a proclamation that no man or domesticated animal was to eat or drink anything (a total fast) and all men and domesticated animals were to be covered in sackcloth.  They are all together to cry out to God that He might save them.

He proclaims that all men should turn away from their violence and other evil ways.  He hopes that perhaps God may change His mind and turn away from His fierce anger so that they will not perish (I think the king thinks of perishing in both the first death and second death contexts here).

The LORD hears the prayers of the king and the people of Nineveh and delays judgment (He does not say that they will never be judged, but He gives this generation that repents a reprieve).  The judgment will come, but not against these particular people  How do you think Jonah will respond?  We'll see that in the rest of this book.

Jonah 3:1-5
English Standard Version

Jonah Goes to Nineveh
3 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD . Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

Jonah gets another bite at the apple now as the LORD speaks to him and calls him to go to Nineveh once again.  The call is the mostly the same, but there is a slight, but important difference.  Chapter 1 verse 2 says, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”   Now we see in Chapter 3 verse 2 that the LORD says, ​ “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”  Did you notice the difference?  In chapter 1, the LORD is talking about their evil being noticed by Him, but the message has changed to telling Jonah to go and cry out (proclaim) the message that the LORD gives to Jonah.  There is no indication anymore that the message will be a message of judgement or destruction.

The author takes a brief aside to let us know why Nineveh was called a "great city."  Just to walk through the breadth of the city on foot would take three days (Jonah knows this and it will be important to what he proclaims).  Jonah enters the city and goes in a day's journey so that he is about one-third of the way into the city.  He then proclaims a message that we hope is the message that the LORD gave to him, but I have my suspicions that Jonah is inserting his own message in the place of the one the LORD had given him here because of some conversation that occurs later in the book.

Amazingly, this exceedingly wicked group of people that we would think of today like modern-day terrorists believed God and repented of their sin.  Smallest to greatest, young to old, man and animal all fasted and put on sackcloth as an outward sign of their humiliation and repentance.  This was not the response that Jonah expected or wanted (notice that his message gave no kind of "altar call").  Don't you imagine that the LORD's true message gave some sort of call to turn from their sin and repent? Fortunately the LORD can be faithful to transmit His intended message even through faithless messengers.  Jonah proclaimed the part of the message that he favored--destruction for the people that were his enemies, but he did not want to proclaim a message of salvation being available to all--to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.  The LORD is again exposing the heart of Jonah here, that he does not have the heart of the LORD, and Jonah will admit as much and say that this is why he ran away when he heard the LORD's call.  He knew the LORD was going to have compassion and forgive them of their sin, and he did not want to be any part of that, because he only wanted to see this people judged and destroyed.  He wanted to see them die in their sins and be condemned to eternal damnation.  That's how much he hated these people.  Is there any group of people that you might resist taking the gospel to or that you would have a hard time seeing them repent and become brothers or sisters in Christ? Would you ever be angry at God for saving someone because you have been nursing hatred for that person or that people group for so long that you can't imagine God loving them? Before we are so quick to judge Jonah, let's take the time to examine our own hearts here and see if there is not a log in our own eye before we try to pick the speck out of Jonah's eye. 

The ESV Study Bible puts the timing of the setting of the book of Jonah around 760 B.C. (about 38 years before the fall of Israel).  At that time, Israel was not in direct conflict with Assyria, so we would probably assume that Jonah's hatred is due to him feeling indignant about the great evil that he saw (like the LORD did) and wanting to see the LORD's wrath poured out on the wicked.  Jonah was ready to see the LORD be the Judge of these people, but not ready to see Him be their Redeemer and Savior.  That was a relationship the Jonah imagined was exclusive for the Jewish people.  This is not just a problem with Jonah, but we see this carry over into the people Jesus spoke to in the New Testament.  Feel how these words of Jesus would sting, "41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here." (Matthew 12:41).

Jonah 2
English Standard Version

Jonah's Prayer
2 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying,

“I called out to the LORD , out of my distress,
    and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
    and you heard my voice.
3 For you cast me into the deep,
    into the heart of the seas,
    and the flood surrounded me;
all your breakers and your waves
    passed over me.
4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away
    from your sight;
yet I shall again look
    upon your holy temple.’
5 The waters closed in over me to take my life;
    the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I went down,
    to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.
Yet you brought up my life from the pit,
    O LORD my God.
7 When my life was fainting away,
    I remembered the LORD,
and my prayer came to you,
    into your holy temple.
8 Those who pay regard to vain idols
    forsake their hope of steadfast love.
9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving
    will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
    Salvation belongs to the LORD!”

10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Jonah prays expectantly.  Notice how he claims the LORD "answered" him in the past tense, even before he has made his prayer.  He believed that the LORD will hear and answer him.  He compares being in the belly of the fish to being in the Grave (Sheol)--what Jesus would later call "the belly of the earth."  That means that we can look Jonah's prayer here and get a sense at what the conversation between God the Son and God the Father might have been like right before the Resurrection.

Jonah was cast into the stormy sea, surrounded by the violent waves.  Jesus faced agony and crucifixion, surrounded by a mob of murderous people made up of both Jews and Gentiles.  All mankind reviled and rejected Him.  Jonah felt driven away from the LORD's sight.  Jesus cried out from the cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?"  (See Psalm 22 which bears this title and prophetically tells of all the suffering that Jesus will endure before anyone even knew about crucifixion).

Jonah was sure he was going to die, and he was pretty sure that he was going to go to what we would call hell (the place of separation and punishment), because he would have died in rebellion against the LORD.  However, in that moment, the LORD caused Jonah to remember Him.  Though Jonah was far away from the Temple in Jerusalem, the LORD heard his prayer and answered, for He is not like the gods that the pagans imagined that only sees and hears things within some realm of influence centered on a temple (and all those gods were false and had no real power, but Jonah is still drawing the contrast the LORD sees, hears and knows all, and His power extends over all people in all places in all times--even over those who are actively rebelling against Him).

Jonah repents of his wickedness, and then his heart turns towards those who are trapped in idolatry (like the people of Nineveh that the LORD wants Him to prophesy to).  They should not hope for mercy, lovingkindness, and steadfast, covenant love that endures forever.  This only comes from the LORD.  Jonah sings David's psalms of praise and offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise while in the belly of the fish and sings "Salvation belongs to the LORD."  (Palm 3:8, part of a psalm entitled "Save Me, O My God").

The LORD hears him and responds by commanding the fish to vomit Jonah up onto dry land.  We aren't told exactly where Jonah ends up, but the LORD gives Jonah a "do-over" and will repeat His call to Him to go to the people of Nineveh.  Let's see if Jonah responds differently this time when we look at the beginning of chapter 3 next time.

Jonah 1:17
English Standard Version

A Great Fish Swallows Jonah
17  And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Many skeptics have issues with this verse.  I won't say that they have any more issue with it than anything else supernatural in the Bible, but up to this point they are okay with the story--even with the violent storm and it ending when they threw Jonah overboard.  They may just chalk all that up to mere coincidence that the storm started around the time he got on board and ended around the same time they threw him in and they may claim that the story was embellished a bit to try to show causality where there was none (there was causality because the LORD was working to get Jonah's attention and to send a message to the people on the boat with Jonah).   However, you get to this point in the story and you really only have two options.  You believe the story by faith or you say that it is mythology and fairy tale.  Try as people might, there is no natural explanation for what we are about to read.

At just the right moment, the LORD caused a great fish (not a whale) which He had prepared for this very occasion to swallow Jonah and get him back on track for the journey which the LORD had called him to.  He would spend three days and three nights in the belly of the fish (which Jesus will point to later as something He will "fulfill" by spending three days and thee nights in the belly of the earth).

Jonah will have a lot of soul-searching to do while he's in the belly of the fish and we'll get to read some of the prayers that he makes to the LORD while he is there in the next chapter.  Things would have been much easier for him if he had just obeyed to start off with, but God ended up taking what was meant for evil (Jonah's disobedience) and turning it into something for His glory and the good of others (the gospel being proclaimed to the men on the boat, and us having "The Sign of Jonah" for Jesus to point to in the New Testament).  You will never stop God from accomplishing His plans and purposes, but let's hope He doesn't have to send a giant fish made just for you after you to swallow you up and take you where He told you to go and that you don't have to come out of the situation smelling like fish guts and vomit like Jonah did.

​Jonah 1:7-16
English Standard Version

Jonah Is Thrown into the Sea
7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” 9 And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 12 He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. 14 Therefore they called out to the LORD, “O LORD, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you.” 15 So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16 Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.

I touched on this passage a bit yesterday as many of us probably know this story well.  We ended yesterday with the captain of the ship coming to Jonah to ask him to cry out to his god because everyone else had cried out to their gods with no avail and the captains saying, "Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”  In the mind of the captain, the LORD is just one of many gods on equal footing with all the other gods worshiped by all the other men from various people groups on board that ship.  However, Jonah knows differently as we see from his no-answer here.  He does not respond to the plea of the captain because he does not speak to the LORD, he probably feels worthy of death, and given what we see in other places in the book, he probably wouldn't feel too bad about a ship full of godless pagans going down with him.

So, the LORD puts it in the minds of the people on the ship to cast lots to see who is responsible for this calamity that has come upon them.  To most, this would appear to be pure divination and attributing meaning to things that were random chance, but that's part of the pagan ideas--they worshiped The Fates and believed that their gods could control seemingly random events to communicate with them.  This is a perversion of something we know to be true about the LORD-"The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD." (Proverbs 16:33).  Only the LORD can control the outcome of this lot that is being cast (just like He did on Purim, which is literally a word for a lot being cast) because these other gods are powerless idols.  However, Jonah should know that He's in trouble here as he should have known of stories like that of Achan's sin when the LORD used lots to reveal to the community the guilty party.

Just like Achan, Jonah does not tell the truth about what is going on until the lot falls on him--he hopes somehow that the lot might fall on someone else and they might be punished for the wrongdoing he has done (or he seriously thinks he has done nothing wrong until the lot falls on him because his heart is cold).  They then ask for an explanation.  They want to know who he is, what he does for a living, where he has come from, what people he belongs to, and what he has done that might cause this evil to come upon them.  He tells them that he is a Hebrew and fears the LORD (though it doesn't look like it in this moment).  He refers to the LORD as "The God of heaven who made the sea and dry land" as most of these pagans would not be familiar with the LORD or His covenant Name that He had revealed to His people. 

The men on the ship are then exceedingly afraid and ask Jonah, "What have you done?"  They realize that a god who is able to speak everything into existence out of nothing is not a god to be trifled with.  Notice the one question Jonah didn't want to answer is "What is your occupation?"  Imagine how they would react if he said, "I'm a prophet of the LORD," because they already knew he was trying to run away from the LORD.  Even the pagan people on this ship can see how Jonah's rebellion would anger the LORD, and they didn't even worship the LORD.

They ask Jonah what they should do to him so that the LORD would be appeased and Jonah claims they should pick him up and throw him into the sea (a kind of pagan sacrifice they would recognize to try to appease the god of the sea).  Jonah knows the LORD is not appeased by human sacrifice, but Jonah does not want to repent and is probably hoping that he would die at sea and never have to go to to Nineveh.  He knows he is at fault--at least he is willing to admit that much, but he is unwilling to say "Turn the ship around so that I can be obedient instead of disobedient."  Then, the pagans start crying out to the LORD asking Him to save them because they do not want to be held accountable for Jonah's sins--this is amazing stuff that the very people Jonah saw as godless and was willing to let them die condemned are, without much help from Jonah, seemingly on the path to recognizing that the LORD is the only one who can save them and on the path to asking Him for salvation and understanding the concepts of sin being an offense to the LORD worthy of death and eternal punishment.  Don't lose this, as this as this is a microcosm of something we'll see on a macro-scale later in the book.  God is using the pagans to do a work on Jonah, not the other way around (which is what we would expect).

They ask that the LORD not charge the death of Jonah against them because they see what they are doing as just punishment for his sins/crimes and that they don't see this as the shedding of innocent blood, and then they picked up Jonah and threw him into the raging sea.  Not only did the storm immediately stop (which we know is not normal, and the men realize this because they truly began to fear the LORD, and they offered sacrifices to Him in worship (and they likely understood the idea of blood sacrifices for the forgiveness of sin as that idea was as old as the Garden of Eden and the idea probably was passed to all peoples, even the people that came from Noah and his sons after the Flood that were divided and confused at the Tower of Babel).  For now, we'll leave Jonah being thrown into the sea, but the LORD is not going to let Jonah get off that easy.  If you already know this story, you know what is coming next.

Jonah 1:1-6
English Standard Version

Jonah Flees the Presence of the LORD
1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.

4 But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. 6 So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”

Jonah's story is an interesting one to me as we'll see later because Jonah seems more than willing to to be a messenger of God to those who are like him, but he does not want to go and deliver God's news of judgment to those whom he perceives as his enemies worthy of hellfire and eternal damnation because he is afraid that God might show them the same kind of grace and mercy that He has shown to Jonah and Jonah's people--salvation for me, but not for thee.  This will become more obvious later as Jonah and God will have some conversations, and the book ends in a most unsatisfying way, but it tells us much about the heart of God.  He wanted to save some of the most evil people (the closet word I can come up with today would be "terrorists."

The LORD calls Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian empire.  He is to call out against it (proclaim judgment against it) because the LORD has seen evil and it is time for judgment to come upon them.  Jonah hears the LORD's call, but instead of heading east into the Assyrian empire, he gets on a ship to sail as far west as he can go, towards Tarshish (modern day Spain).  Why?  He was trying to get away from the presence of the LORD (he should have listened to the Psalms of David that tell us there is nowhere we can go to hide from the LORD).

The LORD stirs up a storm that threatens to break up the ship.  The pagan sailors start calling out to their idols to save them (none of them can), and they threw as much of the cargo and tackle overboard as they could to lighten the load.  While there is chaos on the deck of the ship, Jonah goes down below deck to sleep (which the captain can't believe).  I don't think this was Jonah believing God was going to take care of him, but more of Jonah giving in to the fact that he thought he was going to die (and he probably thought all the pagan idolaters deserved to die too and he was more than okay doing nothing to try to save them or himself).  The captain finally came to him to wake him up to ask him why he was not calling out to his god like all the other men on the boat were doing.  The captain then says, "Perhaps your god can save us."  There it is--the whole point of the book.  Perhaps the pagans see more clearly that the LORD is the only one that can save them, and perhaps they see that even more clearly than the one known as the prophet of the LORD.  We'll pick up here next time when Jonah has to admit all this is because of him, and he really doesn't feel much like talking to the LORD right now as he's trying to run away from Him, and Jonah would rather die, being thrown into the sea as a sacrifice, than to be obedient to the LORD's command.  The LORD has other plans for Jonah, which we will talk about next time.