Jonah 4:4-10

GOD'S MESSENGER RUNNING AHEAD OF GODTHE DEMONSTRATION BY JEHOVAH

TEXT: Jonah 4:4-10

4

And Jehovah said, Doest thou well to be angry?

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Then 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 shade, till he might see what would become of the city.

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And Jehovah God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his evil case. So Jonah was exceeding glad because of the gourd,

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But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it withered.

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And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

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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.

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And Jehovah said, Thou hast had regard for the gourd, for which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:

QUERIES

a.

Why does God ask Jonah twice if he does well to be angry?

b.

What kind of booth did Jonah prepare for himself and why?

c.

What is the lesson to be learned from the gourd?

PARAPHRASE

And God said to Jonah, Are you right in being grieved because I have spared Nineveh? But Jonah went out and built a little lean-to on the east side of the city and camped under its shade. He wanted to wait to see if God would not bring judgment upon Nineveh after all. And when the leaves of the little shelter withered in the heat, the Lord prepared a gourd vine to grow up quickly and spread its broad leaves over Jonah's head to shade him. Jonah was very happy that the vine was there to shade him from the hot sun. God also prepared a worm! And the next morning the worm killed the gourd vine and it withered and dried up and gave shade to Jonah no longer. So when the sun began to bear down in the heat of the day God also caused a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah and he grew so hot he became very weak to the point of fainting and actually wished to die. He said, Death is better than this! But God said again to Jonah, Are you right in being so grieved over the withering of the gourd? Jonah replied, Yes, I am right in being grieved enough to die. And God said, You are grieved in your soul over the gourd vine because you had need of it in the direst way. You cannot claim the gourd as your right because you did not create it, or plant it, or cultivate it. And the gourd vine is, at best, only a plant which has withered and died.

SUMMARY

Jonah succumbs to discouragement. God gives him an object lesson. God is about to show Jonah how inconsistent his thinking is.

COMMENT

Jonah 4:4-5. DOEST THOU WELL TO BE ANGRY?. JONAH WENT OUT OF THE CITY. TILL HE MIGHT SEE WHAT WOULD BECOME OF THE CITY. God asks, Are you certain that your concept of how I should deal with the Ninevites is correct? are you certain that My dealing with them as I have is grievous? It would seem that God is giving Jonah opportunity to think, perhaps to pray, and learn a new lesson about God's purposes and ways. The Lord plants the idea in Jonah's heart that he may not be doing well in being grieved.

But Jonah could not yet believe that the Ninevites would be allowed to resume their former course of peace and prosperity without a strong demonstration of God's wrath. And, as we have said before, this lingering concept in the mind of Jonah was not due to any maliciousness or bloodthirstiness. Even when he knew the people had repented he might have considered some form of punishment still perfectly compatible with God's righteousness and justice. Many have still felt the consequences of their sins long after they have repented (cf. David, Moses, etc.). After all, Jonah took his revelation of God's nature from the Old Testament and not from the New. And there is a difference! Fairbairn says, These considerations appear to me perfectly sufficient to account for a state of mind in Jonah such as might induce him, without any disobedience to the will of God, so far as that had yet been made known to him, to go and erect a booth at some distance from the city, where he might wait in anxious expectation to see what would become of it. All of Jonah's knowledge of how God dealt with sin, especially heathen wickedness, was learned from the O. T. What Jonah needed still to learn, and what God had not yet shown him, was the largeness of the mercy to be extended to Ninevehthat it amounted to an entire remission of the threatened penalty. To teach him this, to show him it was reasonable and just on the part of God, yea, even of urgent necessity in the best interests of those whom Jonah loved so dearly, his own countrymen, Jonah's temporary shelter from the burning sun was turned into a school of discipline.

This booth which Jonah built was a temporary, small, lean-to affair, built usually of palm leaves, or at other times with any type of leafy tree branch, which would afford shade from the searing desert sun.

Jonah 4:6-8. JEHOVAH PREPARED A GOURD. JONAH WAS EXCEEDING GLAD. BUT GOD PREPARED A WORM. AND IT SMOTE THE GOURD, THAT IT WITHERED. GOD PREPARED A SULTRY EAST WIND. JONAH. FAINTED, AND REQUESTED. THAT HE MIGHT DIE. God knows exactly how to correct Jonah's mistaken concept of the Divine purpose for Nineveh's salvation. Jonah needed something that would graphically turn his thoughts from the channel they were in to ideas of God's purpose which had never entered his imagination, For this purpose God permitted him to go construct his frail booth near the city and to experience there for a time inconvenience and discomfort. Then suddenly God brought over Jonah, without any exertion on the part of Jonah at all, the shadow of a broad foliage by the growth of the gourd vine. Then, just as suddenly, God made him feel again, in an even more intense way, the scorching sun and parching wind, by causing a worm to destroy the gourd vine. Jonah suffered a mild sunstroke and fainted from the exposure and said he would have found death itself a happy release.

Jonah 4:9-10. DOEST THOU WELL TO BE ANGRY FOR THE GOURD?. THOU HAST REGARD FOR THE GOURD, FOR WHICH THOU HAST NOT LABORED. God is leading him slowly but surely to an ever higher plan concerning the Divine behavior. In other circumstances it would have been a matter of little significance to Jonah what happened to the gourd vine. Situated as he was, however, depending for his comfort, and in a sense, also for his life on its ample foliage, its sudden destruction necessarily came upon him as a terrible tragedya calamity. This is exactly the relationship God would have him consider concerning Nineveh. Nineveh, a city that feared the name and obeyed the voice of God, God had need of it in this time of extreme necessity in the case of Israel. God's cause would suffer by its annihilation.

If there had been any hope of the people in Israel being still brought permanently to repentance by some great example of the wrath of God, God would have known it and brought it to pass. But this hope could no longer be entertained. Everything of this sort had already been tried with Israel and still their hearts waxed hard and cold.

QUIZ

1.

Why did God allow Jonah to leave the city and sit and wait?

2.

Why might Jonah still cling to the hope that the city would be destroyed?

3.

What was God's purpose in shading Jonah with a gourd vine and then taking it away?