Jonah 4:5

CHAPTER IX. GOD'S WAYS VINDICATED, AND THE PROPHET'S VIEWS RECTIFIED AND ENLARGED

IT would seem, from the concluding portion of the narrative, that the Divine purpose respecting Nineveh had been communicated somewhat gradually to Jonah, and that he had not been at the first certified of the absolute recall of the threatened judgment. A present suspension of the judgment appears to have been all that meanwhile became known to him; and the apprehension still lingered in his bosom, that some display of severity would take place, only at a later period, or in a less appalling form than had been announced. He could not yet believe that matters would be allowed to resume their former course of peace and prosperity, without a strong demonstration given from above of the guilt of former iniquities. And in this belief not from any sullenness of temper, as is often gratuitously imagined, but merely with the design of observing, as from a watch-tower, the march of Divine providence, yet imperfectly disclosed to him “he 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 shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.”

The brief account of this part of the transactions renders it impossible for us to speak with certainty of the ground of Jonah's views and expectations. We cannot suppose that he was so utterly ignorant of the repentance that had taken place among the people, or so little acquainted with the principles of the Divine government, as to have looked for precisely the same kind and measure of severity now, that would have been suitable if no decided effect had been produced by his preaching. Neither of these suppositions can be regarded as in the least degree credible. But there is no improbability in supposing, that, both from his position as a stranger, and from the peculiar character of the mission given him to discharge in Nineveh, Jonah was but imperfectly acquainted with the spirit of repentance awakened among its people; nor is it unlikely that he was aware of many who had not undergone any real change so many as might warrant, in his own mind, the belief that judgment, to some extent, might still righteously be executed. And there is also room for entertaining another thought respecting him. With all that he felt and spake of the richness of God's mercy and goodness, he might, even with a conviction of the general penitence of the people, have judged a certain degree of severity perfectly compatible with God's righteousness. This, it must be remembered, was a point on which the economy of the Old Testament shed a comparatively defective light. There is nowhere in that portion of God's revelations which had been given before the time of Jonah, such a manifestation of sovereign grace, freely and at once restoring the penitent sinner to the full enjoyment of God's favour and blessing, as can once be compared to that unfolded in the parable of the prodigal son. The dispensation of Moses peculiarly failed here, being adapted throughout and, from its shadowy and imperfect nature, necessarily adapted to impress more upon men's convictions the evil and condemnation of sin, than to lay open to them the riches of Divine beneficence. Accordingly, David's repentance, though betokening the most intense sorrow and remorse on account of sin, did not save him from certain painful executions of judgment. And Jonah's own experience also, driven forth, as he had been, like a forlorn outcast into the deep, after the most pungent feelings of contrition had been awakened in his bosom, had only brought a new proof of the judgment which was then wont to mingle so much with mercy in the procedure of God. Can we, then, be surprised if he should have deemed it probable that Nineveh, even when repenting, might be visited with tokens of displeasure, though the doom originally threatened was no longer to be enforced? We must endeavour to picture his state of mind, not from a New, but from an Old Testament point of view; and remember that, though he was a prophet, he still had to take his ideas of God's character and dealings from the comparatively imperfect pattern of things belonging to the dispensation under which he lived.

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. What he still needed to learn, and what he must also be taught to acquiesce in, was the largeness of the mercy to be extended to Nineveh that it amounted to an entire remission of the threatened penalty. And, partly to convey to him this instruction, partly also to commend it to him as reasonable and just, nay, as of essential moment to the best interests of the Divine kingdom, his temporary lodging was turned for him into a school of discipline, and he was taught, from the things of his own experience, to rise to higher and more enlightened views of the procedure of God.