Jonah 4:5-11

So Jonah went out of the city.

God’s expostulation with Jonah

We may presume that Jonah had two reasons for going out of Nineveh. One was, that he might provide for his personal safety. The other, that he might witness the execution of Jehovah’s threatening, and be a spectator of the ruin which he had himself predicted. With this view he went to the east side of Nineveh, perhaps because there was an eminence where he would be secure from danger, and from which he could survey the wide extent of the devoted city. Whatever were the images of ruin which presented themselves to the mind of Jonah, it is certain that he looked, nay, that he longed, for the destruction of the city. What a contrast to our blessed Lord looking down upon Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. What forbearance and condescension Jonah had experienced at God’s hand! The very mildness of the Divine expostulation ought to have made him ashamed of his folly and perverseness. But God’s reproof was disregarded, and we have now to notice the other method which God adopted in order to bring him to a better mind. The gourd relieved Jonah from much physical suffering, and by diverting his attention from the bitter disappointment over which he had been brooding, it helped materially to tranquillise his mind. Brief, however, was the stay of the gourd, and of his tranquillity. A worm ruined the gourd. Afflictions seldom come single. Sun and wind followed loss of gourd. Jonah felt his very life a burden. When men set their hearts upon earthly treasures, and forget their obligations to the Giver of all good, they are ill prepared for encountering adversity. Then their days are days of darkness, and they become weary of life without being prepared for death. What was the design of the peculiar trial to which Jonah was subjected? The trial was sent to convince him of his sin in wishing the destruction of Nineveh in opposition to the will of God, and for the sake of maintaining his own credit as a prophet. Instruction had to come to him by the way of chastisement. But pride perverts the understanding, and passion darkens it; and when these unhappy influences are at work, men, when visited with trouble, are slow to perceive the end for which God afflicts them. Thus it was with Jonah. See God’s reproof of the prophet, as given in verse 11. He had sighed very bitterly over the premature decay of the mere gourd; should he not have had pity on the populous city? Thus God reproved Jonah, and condescended to vindicate His own procedure. With His solemn and touching expostulation the book closes. Learn from the case of this prophet the indispensable necessity of cultivating an humble and self-denying spirit, and of guarding with holy jealousy against any such feelings as would prompt us, on the one hand, to arraign the equity of Jehovah’s dispensations, when they seem to be averse to our personal comfort or our fancied honour, or would prevent us, on the other, from cherishing compassion for any of our fellow-creatures, or even for the beasts that perish. And let us be encouraged, by the view here given us of the character of God, to approach Him, in the exercise of faith and penitence, by the way of His appointment. He delighteth in mercy. Beware lest we should be found to despise the goodness and forbearance of God. (David Couper.)

Out of sympathy with God

From first to last, in this book, we have an exhibition of God’s mercy in all its greatness and heavenly grandeur, and, as contrasted with this in the most forcible way, an exhibition of man’s littleness. The exhibition of mercy on God’s part is of the richest and most gracious kind. Jonah in his conduct was but a representative of his nation. What he did and felt as an individual, they would have done and felt as a nation in like circumstances; and the one great purpose of the book seems to be to prove how wrong he was in his unwillingness to appreciate God’s mercy towards the Gentiles, in order that his fellow-countrymen, who had exactly the same ideas, might take a warning from him, and give up their exclusive spirit and haughty bearing towards other nations. We are often in danger of sinning in the same way as Jonah and the Jewish people. There are times when we are inclined to take narrow and exclusive views of God’s mercy.

I. Jonah’s displeasure. He went out, and sat on the east of the city. He made himself a booth, a mere hut of branches. There he sat and watched the city to see what would become of it. He had hoped, perhaps, that fire would come from heaven and destroy Nineveh, as Sodom was destroyed of old. But no such hope was to be realised. The fortieth day arrived, and no destruction took place. Why was Jonah so displeased at this grand exercise of God’s mercy, at this triumph of mercy over judgment? In some measure it may be accounted for on natural causes. He may have been experiencing that depression of spirit which is the natural result of physical weakness, produced by bodily or mental toil. Mistaken zeal for God may also in part account for the prophet’s displeasure. He may have fancied that the Ninevites were not in a fit state to appreciate mercy. Personal pride also had some share in it. It is hard for a man, even when a prophet of God, to forget himself in doing God’s work. He was afraid that the Ninevites would despise him as a prophet of lies. A more satisfactory reason than these must be found. Jonah’s displeasure resulted from the fact that his exclusive love for his own country and his own people caused him to have no sympathy with this extension of God’s mercy to a Gentile people. To his way of thinking, Nineveh’s being spared, was like the strengthening and prospering, of his country’s greatest enemy. Taking such a view of the case, he had no sympathy whatever with God s mercy being extended to them. In God s dealings with Nineveh there was a glorious revelation of many mercies yet in store for the Gentiles. If Jonah saw that vision, that “first fruits” of mercy to the Gentiles, he turned away from the sight and shut his eyes. It did not agree with another vision, a picture of his own fancy--the lasting greatness of the Jewish people as the exclusive people of God. Jonah came to a better mind afterwards. His heart was enlarged, and his sympathies widened, when God spoke to him. It was then that he wrote this story.

II. God’s plea in vindication of his sparing mercy. There is something wonderful in this condescension on God’s part to argue with the prophet and to justify Himself. He shows him the folly and the wrongness of his displeasure. But He has to prepare Jonah’s mind first of all.

1. He begins by taking away Jonah’s displeasure. An angry man cannot look all round a question; he takes a one-sided view, and keeps to that. And Jonah, before he can see the full meaning of God’s mercy, must become calm, and rid himself of all his vexation. This God did when He prepared the “gourd,” and caused it to overshadow the prophet. This plant is of exceedingly quick growth. It is chiefly remarkable for its leaves. Only one leaf grows on a branch, but, being large, sometimes measuring more than a foot, and spread out in the shape of an open hand, their collective shade would afford excellent shelter from the heat of the sun. There was nothing miraculous in the fact of this plant springing up beside Jonah’s resting-place, but if the words be taken literally, the development of the plant so quickly is certainly miraculous. The Ruler of nature is here working, not contrary to, but in harmony with, and yet above, natural law. Under the shelter of this plant Jonah’s spirits revive, displeasure vanishes, and he who yesterday was exceedingly displeased is now found “exceeding glad.” Jonah is now in a better state of mind to listen to God.

2. But God has something more to do before He speaks to Jonah. Comfort is to be followed again by discomfort. The gourd withers, and a “vehement east wind” arises. This was not as our east winds. It was the sultry and oppressive wind which blows in the summer months across the vast Arabian desert, and produces universal languor and relaxation. Thus exposed, the prophet sinks down into weariness and languor. Sorrow comes over him, and he longs to die. Now the voice of God comes to him. “Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?” Let us have a clear idea of the point on which God’s argument turns. It is neither the gourd nor the worm that God lays hold of in His plea, but Jonah’s sorrow for the gourd. The gourd was a loss to the man, for which he grieved. But it was more and better than a selfish regret. Man has a sympathy with all life, not only in the animal, but also in the vegetable world. Jonah pitied the gourd, with its short life. Then came further sublime Divine pleadings. In the light of heaven Jonah now sees his unreasonableness. All his fault lay in not allowing God to have the same sympathies as he had himself. What was a gourd compared with the great city of Nineveh? Yet Jonah pitied the one, and was angry because God had pity upon the other; Jonah was all wrong, and he sees it now and is silent. Silently and in shame he rises and goes home to his country and to his people, to tell them how wrong he was, that they might know how right God was. (James Menzies.)