Bible Study Notes - Jonah 3:10 to 4:11 Part II

Bible Study Notes

A Community to Redeem 

Jonah 3:10 to 4:11 Part II

Jonah 3:10 to 4:4 – Jonah Seethes in Anger

This passage centers upon two central themes, dividing evenly between Jonah’s fury over the Lord’s forgiveness of the Ninevites and our Heavenly Father’s enduing desire to teach humankind to love each other as He does.  The final verse of the third chapter details the success of Jonah’s preaching and the subsequent repentance and revival.  The Ninevites’ religious reforms successfully engender the mercy of Almighty God.  Surprisingly, Jonah is not pleased with the results of his preaching or God’s responses to the Ninevites.  Rather than relishing in this monumental and unparalleled spiritual success, Jonah ignites and nourishes his anger which represents his maniacal thirst for the annihilation of the city of Nineveh.  Nonetheless, God steadfastly teaches Jonah the radical, scandalous and incredulous nature of His love.  Moreover, although Jonah relegates the Ninevites to being worthless in terms of his time, talent, treasure and temperament, God perpetually sees them as a community to redeem.

Why does Jonah waste so much emotion fretting over his unfulfilled expectations of doom in Nineveh?  Initially, you assume Jonah does not wish to go on this missionary journey because he thinks he will fail.  Now that he succeeds, we understand his negative assumptions about the odds of success actually cloak his prejudice toward the people.  He thinks they are beneath him and people like him.  Jonah reveals his heart felt thoughts when he frankly discloses to God in prayer his contempt for the Ninevites.  “O lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home?  That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish.”  More significantly, Jonah did not want to travel to Nineveh to announce gloom and doom because he correctly suspects in the final analysis the Lord’s heart would yield to the repentance and humility of the people.  If God were going to destroy the Ninevites, He did not need Jonah to travel to the city and preach a very bleak sermon.  Also, if their repentance could constrain the mighty and avenging hand of God, then the trip was equally unnecessary.  Essentially, Jonah reasons this missionary expedition is appropriate if the Ninevites received their due punishment and the Lord air lifts Jonah out of the city before the onslaught of any hellfire and brimstone.

Startlingly, Jonah castigates God for being “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”  In seeking to denigrate God’s attributes of love, mercy and kindness, Jonah ironically describes a wonderful and majestic Heavenly Father whose infinite grace and compassion extends to a thousand generations forevermore.  Additionally, Jonah’s tirade discloses God’s patience toward humankind.  God is longsuffering in His willingness and capacity to wait for us to choose to live in right relationship with Him.  Having created us in His image and with the express desire of enjoying holy fellowship with us, God does not desire to punish us unnecessarily.  Like earthly parents who thoroughly enjoy friendship and communication with respectful, obedient, likeable and loving children, Almighty God greatly wants us “to get it right” with Him.  Accordingly, He quickly forgives when we are sincere about repentance and reestablishing our relationship with Him.

After defining those magnificent divine characteristics, Jonah prays for His death. Jonah determines he would be better off dead than alive.  The Ninevite revival disgusts the prophet to the degree of actually pleading with the Lord to take his own life.  Notice Jonah’s pathology grows to the insanity that he persuades himself that his one life holds greater worth than the collective lives of 120,000 citizens of Nineveh.  Examine how deeply twisted racial and religious discrimination can poison the minds and hearts of otherwise well-meaning believers!

The Lord asks Jonah about the prophet’s righteous indignation.  “Have you any right to be angry?”  It stands to reason that Jonah previously experienced immeasurable grace, mercy and love from God.  In the preceding chapter, he receives a blessed second chance after his stint in the belly of whale.  Should not Jonah’s thankfulness have motivated him to appreciate the revival in Nineveh?  Does he believe only Israel comprises the singular people to whom God bestows His compassion?  Jonah cloaks his cultural and religious chauvinism under the socially and theologically respectable designer garments of holy anger.  He posits God is wasting the divine self upon people who cannot appreciate such an incalculable gift.  However, God’s question reminds and exhorts Jonah the same God who had sympathy upon Jonah also loves the Ninevites with similar kindness.  What right does Jonah have to be angry?