As we begin today's text we find the Lord countering Jonah's angry words in a calm and reasonable manner. "But the Lord said, 'Is it right for you to be angry?'" (Jonah 4:4) The Lord invites the prophet to think things through. Why is he angry and does he have any right to feel this way? The Lord doesn't condemn Jonah's feelings, although they are wrong, but instead asks him to examine his heart to determine where these feelings are coming from.
We already know that Jonah harbors a great deal of prejudice against the heathen citizens of the nation of Assyria. He thinks they deserve whatever punishment the Lord wants to dole out. Not only that, but we've already learned that he wanted the Lord's wrath to fall upon them. While he traveled throughout the enormous city of Nineveh warning them that they would be destroyed for their sins in forty days, he wasn't hoping they would take the words to heart and be sorry for their sins. He was merely pronouncing the word of doom upon them. He was simply discharging the duty conferred upon him by the Lord---a duty he found distasteful.
We previously talked about the theory that he considered it a waste of time to speak to heathen idolaters, not necessarily because he thought they wouldn't repent but because he thought them unworthy of the Lord's attention and of no use for the kingdom of God. He cannot imagine why the Lord would want to save the Gentiles, although he must have been aware that the Lord told Abraham long ago that all the nations of the world would be blessed through his offspring. (Genesis 12:3) When the Lord spoke of "the nations" or "the peoples" He meant the Gentiles, not Israel. The Lord did indeed call the people of Israel to be a chosen nation to Him in ancient times but He also always intended to reach His hand of mercy out to the Gentiles. Instead of being angry with the Lord about this, Jonah should have praised Him for His goodness to all people. Jonah should have been thankful for being commissioned to take part in the Lord's outreach to the Gentiles.
But when the Lord asks Jonah to examine his heart to determine why he doesn't want to see the same mercy extended to the Gentiles that He extended to the descendants of Abraham, Jonah continues to cling to his prejudices and his resentment. When the forty days are up, he hopes there is still a slim chance that the repentance of the Ninevites is not genuine. He waits at a place outside the city to see whether the Lord might destroy it after all. "Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant." (2 Jonah 4:5-6)
A number of scholars believe that the original text indicates the past tense here in regard to when Jonah constructed the shelter. They believe that he had already made it before the forty days were up and that perhaps this shelter is where he lodged each evening during the period of time in which he preached at Nineveh. He very likely received invitations to lodge in Nineveh---indeed, the repentant king of Assyria may very well have urged him to stay at his palace during his sojourn in the city---but Jonah did not want to step foot into a Gentile home. Although his attitude was a common one among the people of his nation of his day, it fails to take into consideration the conversion of the Ninevites. They had been saved by faith just as Jonah was, just as Jonah's ancestors were, and just as Abraham himself was. Their homes may still have contained some idolatrous objects at this time and their kitchens may not have been kosher but their hearts were made right in the eyes of God. What Jonah ought to have done was what the apostles of the New Testament did: he should have taught the people what they needed to do after their conversion. He should have worked among them for however long the Lord directed him to do so, instructing them in the ways of godly living. They have believed on the name of the Lord but they know very little about Him. Jonah has a great opportunity to teach them about the Lord but instead he's still hoping against hope to see fire and brimstone falling on them.
The Lord causes a plant with broad leaves to grow up over Jonah's shelter because He intends to use the plant as an object lesson. Instead of raining down fire and brimstone on the people Nineveh at dawn, He causes the plant to die. "But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, 'It would be better for me to die than to live.' But God said to Jonah, 'Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?' 'It is,' he said. 'And I'm so angry I wish I were dead.'" (Jonah 4:6-9)
Jonah feels sorrier for himself than for the men, women, and children of Nineveh. He's too warm in the heat and he's getting a sunburn and those things concern him far more than if all the citizens of the city were burned up by the wrath of God. He feels more sadness about the death of a plant than about the prospect of thousands of lives and thousands of souls being lost. The Lord is trying to show him the wrongness of his thinking but Jonah is refusing to look at the situation from the Lord's perspective. The prophet persists in stubbornly clinging to his prejudice against these people and so the book ends with the Lord using Jonah's pity for the plant as a symbol of His pity for the people of Nineveh, but we do not find Jonah coming around to the Lord's way of thinking. Our text concludes below with the Lord asking Jonah a question about human and animal welfare, yet we never learn of Jonah's answer. It has been concluded by many scholars that Jonah's attitude never changed and that as a result the Lord was never able to use him to do any more great things. The fact that the Bible never tells us of anything else Jonah ever did may be the proof that this is the case.
"But the Lord said, 'You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left---and also many animals?'" (Jonah 4:10-11) Jonah didn't put a seed into the ground to make the plant grow. He didn't water or fertilize the seed or prune the plant. Yet he was sad when it perished. By contrast, he had made an investment in the people of Nineveh. He sowed the seeds there that caused thousands of people to repent of their sins. He spent day after day proclaiming the message of the Lord and the seeds of faith sprouted up in the people. His duty to those people was to remain to water and fertilize and prune these sprouts: in other words, teaching them right from wrong and helping them to form a relationship with the Lord and aiding them in growing their relationship with the Lord. Instead he is sad that the Lord did not destroy them! Jonah did not allow himself to develop a heart for these people while he worked among them. He did not allow himself to feel any compassion for them. He does not want the Lord to extend any mercy toward them. That is why the book of Jonah ends on a sad note---for Jonah. It ends with the Lord asking a question that Jonah apparently does not answer.
The Lord loved the people of Nineveh in spite of their sins, just as He loved us while we were still living in sin. The Lord was righteous to offer the opportunity to the Ninevites to be saved, for He invites everyone to come to Him for salvation. We must accept the invitation, of course, in order to be saved but Jonah seems to have wanted to prevent the Ninevites from ever receiving the invitation in the first place. I wish he had come off as a likable person on the pages of the Bible! I really want him to be a sympathetic character and he just isn't, although I hope that at some point during the remainder of his life he repented of his attitude toward the Ninevites just as he repented of refusing to go where the Lord wanted to send him. We can't know for sure one way or the other because this matter is left up in the air with Jonah's stubborn refusal to love the Ninevites standing out in stark contrast to the Lord's merciful compassion on them.
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