Jonah 4:1-4
I Knew You Would Forgive Them
1Jonah, however, was greatly displeased, and he became angry.
2So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.
3And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”
Berean Standard Bible
A whole city has been spared, and the man who preached to it is furious. Not disappointed. The verse says it twice over, that Jonah was greatly displeased and that he became angry, and what has done this to him is that nobody died.
Then he prays, and the prayer accounts for everything that has happened since the first verse of chapter one. He tells God that this is exactly what he said back home, and that it is why he was so quick to run for Tarshish. Then he says why.
I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion, One who relents from sending disaster.
He did not run because he was frightened, or because the voyage was long, or because Nineveh was a dangerous place for a foreigner to walk into. He ran because he knew what God is like, and he did not want it spent on these particular people.
The words are not his own, either. When God passed in front of Moses on the mountain, he described himself out loud in those terms: compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. Jonah has it by heart. He can recite the character of God, and he is handing it back as a charge.
Then he asks to die.
And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.
Nothing in the chapter softens that, and it should not be softened at this table either. A man is so angry about kindness shown to people he did not want spared that he would rather stop living. Elijah prayed something close to it once, sitting under a broom tree in the wilderness, worn through and frightened and sure he had failed. Jonah has not failed at anything. The preaching worked, and the working of it is what he cannot bear.
What God does with a man in that condition is the surprise of the chapter. He does not strike him. There is no lecture, no withdrawal of the calling, and no naming him a hypocrite, which could have been done fairly.
Have you any right to be angry?
A question, left open, with the angry man still sitting there and the chapter carrying on around him.
How We Know
Verse 2 is a quotation. Exodus 34:6 has the LORD pass in front of Moses and name himself: compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. Jonah gives it back to God with the first two terms reversed, and uses it as the reason he ran.
The same formula was widely known. Joel 2:13 carries it as a reason to return to God. Jonah carries it as a complaint.
His request in verse 3 also has a match. First Kings 19:4 has Elijah sit under a broom tree and pray that he might die, saying he has had enough. Same office, the same plea, and in Elijah's case it follows a victory rather than a mercy he resented.
Questions
1 Why is Jonah angry?
AnswerBecause Nineveh was spared. The city turned, God did not destroy it, and the preacher who carried the warning to them cannot stand the result. He is not upset that his sermon failed. He is upset that it worked.
2 He finally tells God why he ran. What was the reason?
AnswerHe knew God was gracious and compassionate and slow to anger, and he did not want any of that spent on Nineveh. We find that out here, near the end of the book, in Jonah's own words.
3 Is there anybody you would rather God were not kind to? Nobody has to say a name out loud.
AnswerMost of us have somebody. What Jonah has going for him is that he says it where God can hear it instead of nursing it quietly, and God does not destroy him for saying it.
4 What does God say back to him?
AnswerHe asks a question. Have you any right to be angry? There is no punishment, no rebuke, and no taking away of the job Jonah was given. God could have said a great deal here, and what he says instead is short enough to fit in one line and leaves Jonah holding it.
What This Means for Us
He was angry that God was kind to the wrong people. That complaint is far more common than we let on, and almost nobody says it where anybody can hear. Jonah knew every true thing about God, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and could have taught the whole of it to somebody else. Pointed at Nineveh, he found he hated it.
The hopeful part is what God did with a man in that state. He asked him a question. Whatever any of us is carrying that we would not say at this table, God is more patient with it than we expect, and he is willing to ask before he does anything else.
Prayer
Father, we have wanted mercy for ourselves and something else for other people, and Jonah says out loud what we usually keep quiet. Thank you that you asked him a question instead of ending him. Ask us the same one, and give us the honesty to answer. Amen.