Jonah 4:1-11

YHWH Uses An Illustration In Order to Demonstrate To Jonah The Reasonableness Of His Mercy (Jonah 4:1).

The mercy of YHWH having been revealed in chapter 1 to the mariners, in chapter 2 to Jonah, and in chapter 3 to the Ninevites, His mercy is now underlined as God seeks to teach Jonah a lesson in mercy. Jonah was clearly still very angry that YHWH should show mercy to the Assyrians. This may have been because of what they had done to his family when they had previously invaded northern Israel, so that he was unable to forgive them, or it may have been because he felt that the sparing of the Assyrians after he had proclaimed judgment against them demeaned him as a genuine prophet. But his very words to YHWH prove that he had all along seen it as a good possibility that YHWH would spare the Ninevites. After all, why else should He send Jonah to speak against them whilst giving them a forty day period of probation? He thus did not see YHWH as exclusivist.

The way in which YHWH got over His point to Jonah was by initially providing him with genuine shelter from the burning sun, and then causing that shelter to be removed by means of the destructive activity of a worm. When Jonah was angry at the injustice of what had happened to the gourd which had sheltered him, YHWH pointed out to him that if he could have compassion on a mere gourd, which he had had no part in producing, how much more should YHWH, Whom he himself had declared to be merciful, slow to anger and abundant in compassion, have mercy on a whole city of people whom He had created, numbering over one hundred and twenty thousand people, not forgetting their domestic animals.

Analysis of Jonah 4:1.

a But it displeased Jonah greatly, and he was angry, and he prayed to YHWH, and said, “I pray you, O YHWH, was not this what I said when I was yet in my own country? Therefore I rushed to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repent yourself of the evil” (Jonah 4:1).

b “Therefore now, O YHWH, take, I beg you, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:3).

c And YHWH said, “Do you do well to be angry?” (Jonah 4:4).

d Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made for himself a shelter, and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city (Jonah 4:5).

e And YHWH God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, in order that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his evil situation (Jonah 4:6 a).

f So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the gourd (Jonah 4:6 b).

e But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it withered (Jonah 4:7).

d And it came about, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat Jonah's head so that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:8).

c And God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the gourd?” (Jonah 4:9 a).

b And he said, “I do well to be angry, even to death” (Jonah 4:9 b).

a And YHWH said, “You have had regard for the gourd, for which you have not laboured, nor made it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night, and should not I have regard for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:10).

Note that in ‘a' Jonah reveals his chagrin and outlines the wonder of the mercy of God, and in the parallel YHWH points to that mercy as the reason why He has spared Nineveh. In ‘b' Jonah asks to die, and in the parallel declares that such an appeal is justified. In ‘c' YHWH asks him whether he does well to be angry, and in the parallel whether he does well to be angry with the gourd. In ‘d' Jonah sought to avoid the heat of the sun by making a shelter, and in the parallel he was exhausted by the sun because his shelter does not fulfil its purpose. In ‘e' YHWH God prepared a gourd to shelter Jonah, and in the parallel God prepared a worm to destroy the gourd. Centrally in ‘f' Jonah was delighted with the gourd, which was a picture of God's sheltering mercy.