The Chapter We Would not Write
Jonah chapter 4----The Chapter We Would Not Write
One outcome Jonah that Jonah feared was that God would be gracious unto Nineveh and they would repent, and He would not destroy the city. He was all too happy to say, " Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."3:4 He was glad that God was going to execute His judgment on the people of Nineveh, for they deserved it. They were not godly people. They did not deserve God's love as Jonah said in 4: 2," I pray thee O LORD, was this my saying...I fled to Tarshish..for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repented thee of the evil."
This is not the ending I expected either. Jonah is so angry, white hot anger 4:1 it says that " he prayed unto the LORD" . If this is what you are going to do God, then, " I beseech thee, take, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live." 4:3 He is mad because He gave the message that they would be overthrown. It made he thought him look like someone who was giving a false prophecy. Jonah is not happy because ," God saw their works that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." 3:10
Does this sound familiar? We too have a lot of anger about things, and in fact, some are so angry that if they do not get their way, they stop serving God. They just sit at home. Why bother? God is out there doing His thing and it is not my thing , so why bother? That is what some people say. I imagine even some of us have said that under our breath. This is all too common. Our ways are not God's ways, are they? Jonah was mourning ( his name means mourning dove) because some people he did not like were getting salvation instead of fire. That did not seem right to him at all. These people were not in the covenant that God had made with Israel. They were outside God's love in his thinking. It made no sense to him at all. He was so down about it. He felt like dying.
II. God does not treat Jonah badly but makes him a shelter. (gourd)
"The name kikayon here used in the Hebrew is akin to the word kikeia or kiki (Herodot. II. 94), which ancient authors tell us was used by the Egyptians and others for the castor-oil plant. That plant is a native of North Africa, Arabia, Syria and Palestine, and is said by travellers to grow abundantly and to a great size in the neighbourhood of the Tigris. It is succulent, with a hollow stem, and has broad vine-like leaves (much larger, however, than those of the vine), which from their supposed resemblance to the extended palm of the hand have gained for the plant the name of Palma Christi, or palmchrist." Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Then we read that God was asking, " Doest thou well to be angry?" 4:4 Jonah went outside the city to see the fireworks. He wanted to see the destruction of Nineveh. He "made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city."
4:6 " And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief."
Even though Jonah was grieved without reason or cause except his own prejudices and preconceptions, God was gracious and cared for him. How true this is for us too!
Take a moment to think about this. Despite our lives of great imperfection, God does not withdraw His lovingkindness from us, even though we do not deserve His grace. How often we have tried Him . How many times have we spurned His affection, and ignored His laws and His direction, yet He does not withdraw from us. We should be thankful, not resentful, even though His plan was not our plan.
III. The Book Ends where it Began in the Plan, Love and Grace of our Gracious Sovereign Creator and LORD
" And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city....?" 4:11
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers says,"
And also much cattle.—This, which at first reads like an anti-climax, is really, perhaps, the most striking thing in the whole of this marvellous book. Already the idea that a sympathy could exist between Jonah and the gourd has seemed to anticipate by thousands of years the feeling of modern poetry expressed in the lines,
“To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears;”
and now the final touch, laying especial emphasis on the thought that even the cattle are an interest and care to God, seems at once to leap to the truth which even our own age has been slow to learn.
“He prayeth best who loveth best,
All creatures great and small,
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
One outcome Jonah that Jonah feared was that God would be gracious unto Nineveh and they would repent, and He would not destroy the city. He was all too happy to say, " Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."3:4 He was glad that God was going to execute His judgment on the people of Nineveh, for they deserved it. They were not godly people. They did not deserve God's love as Jonah said in 4: 2," I pray thee O LORD, was this my saying...I fled to Tarshish..for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repented thee of the evil."
This is not the ending I expected either. Jonah is so angry, white hot anger 4:1 it says that " he prayed unto the LORD" . If this is what you are going to do God, then, " I beseech thee, take, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live." 4:3 He is mad because He gave the message that they would be overthrown. It made he thought him look like someone who was giving a false prophecy. Jonah is not happy because ," God saw their works that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." 3:10
Does this sound familiar? We too have a lot of anger about things, and in fact, some are so angry that if they do not get their way, they stop serving God. They just sit at home. Why bother? God is out there doing His thing and it is not my thing , so why bother? That is what some people say. I imagine even some of us have said that under our breath. This is all too common. Our ways are not God's ways, are they? Jonah was mourning ( his name means mourning dove) because some people he did not like were getting salvation instead of fire. That did not seem right to him at all. These people were not in the covenant that God had made with Israel. They were outside God's love in his thinking. It made no sense to him at all. He was so down about it. He felt like dying.
II. God does not treat Jonah badly but makes him a shelter. (gourd)
"The name kikayon here used in the Hebrew is akin to the word kikeia or kiki (Herodot. II. 94), which ancient authors tell us was used by the Egyptians and others for the castor-oil plant. That plant is a native of North Africa, Arabia, Syria and Palestine, and is said by travellers to grow abundantly and to a great size in the neighbourhood of the Tigris. It is succulent, with a hollow stem, and has broad vine-like leaves (much larger, however, than those of the vine), which from their supposed resemblance to the extended palm of the hand have gained for the plant the name of Palma Christi, or palmchrist." Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Then we read that God was asking, " Doest thou well to be angry?" 4:4 Jonah went outside the city to see the fireworks. He wanted to see the destruction of Nineveh. He "made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city."
4:6 " And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief."
Even though Jonah was grieved without reason or cause except his own prejudices and preconceptions, God was gracious and cared for him. How true this is for us too!
Take a moment to think about this. Despite our lives of great imperfection, God does not withdraw His lovingkindness from us, even though we do not deserve His grace. How often we have tried Him . How many times have we spurned His affection, and ignored His laws and His direction, yet He does not withdraw from us. We should be thankful, not resentful, even though His plan was not our plan.
III. The Book Ends where it Began in the Plan, Love and Grace of our Gracious Sovereign Creator and LORD
" And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city....?" 4:11
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers says,"
And also much cattle.—This, which at first reads like an anti-climax, is really, perhaps, the most striking thing in the whole of this marvellous book. Already the idea that a sympathy could exist between Jonah and the gourd has seemed to anticipate by thousands of years the feeling of modern poetry expressed in the lines,
“To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears;”
and now the final touch, laying especial emphasis on the thought that even the cattle are an interest and care to God, seems at once to leap to the truth which even our own age has been slow to learn.
“He prayeth best who loveth best,
All creatures great and small,
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
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