Jonah 4:1

This whole chapter of eleven verses deals almost exclusively with Jonah's disappointment, anger, and resentment because of the conversion of the Ninevites, and with the gentle persuasion of the Lord, who provided motivation for Jonah, pointing him toward a more acceptable attitude.

Jonah 4:1

"But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry."

Bible students have imagined all kinds of reasons for the anger of Jonah, and it is surely possible that there were a number of different considerations making up a complex basis for it. Certainly, this amazing anger on Jonah's part is one of the strangest things in the Bible; and yet, we must believe that it was grounded in very human and very understandable attitudes in Jonah himself. "Here is absolutely the most amazing reaction to spiritual awakening we can find anywhere. Of all people, one would think the preacher would be happy about converts!"[1]

There are different opinions about the exact point in this history that Jonah became angry. Keil was of a very positive opinion that Jonah's anger did not flair until the forty days were concluded, and it became evident that God would not destroy Nineveh. "There is nothing whatever to force us to the assumption that Jonah had left Nineveh before the fortieth day."[2] Dean, on the contrary, thought that:

The fact that God would spare Nineveh probably was made known to Jonah before the forty days expired by Divine communication, in accordance with the saying in Amos 3:7, "Surely the Lord will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret to his servants the prophets."[3]

Both of these viewpoints, of course, are plausible; but we believe there is a clue in the text itself, in the very next verse (Jonah 4:2). Jonah had observed the wholesale conversion of the people; and his knowledge of God's true nature, mentioned by Jonah in the next verse, led him to the conclusion that God would in no wise destroy a penitent and pleading people. That Jonah acted upon this deduction would explain the element of uncertainty in the clause, "to see what would become of the city" (Jonah 4:5). At any rate, the question is one of interest, but not one of importance.

A far more urgent question is the one of "why was Jonah angry"?

REASONS FOR JONAH'S ANGER

(1) There was a terrible "loss of face" on Jonah's part. His words concerning the restoration of Israel's cities (2 Kings 14:25) had been gloriously fulfilled; but now,

His reputation as a prophet was irreparably damaged. He would be called a false prophet, a liar, a deceiver, and would be ridiculed and denounced for prophesying something which did not occur.[4]

(2) It may very well be that Jonah was also aware of the prophetic implications of Nineveh's conversion, forecasting the ultimate rejection of Israel as God's people, and the coming of the Gentiles into that sphere of God's favor, which until then was the sole prerogative of Israel. A true prophet of God (which Jonah surely was) could not have failed to read the dire implications for Israel in the astounding events he had just witnessed.

(3) Deep-seated prejudice and hatred of the Gentiles on the part of Jonah are also mentioned frequently as the cause of his anger; and there is little doubt of the truth of this. Jonah himself confessed that his flight to Tarshish in the first place had been prompted by his unwillingness to see Nineveh converted and spared.

(4) Jonah recognized that the sparing of Nineveh would ultimately result in the loss of Israel's territory, the very territory which, following his prophecy, Jeroboam II had recovered for Israel. He also projected prosperity of Nineveh as a sign that God would ultimately use Assyria to punish Israel for their disobedience, a fact which Isaiah later pointed out (Isaiah 10:5). Thus, Jonah's patriotism and love of his own country could have been at the root of his anger. The Jews of Jonah's time, "could only see God's kingdom being established by the overthrow of the kingdom of the world,"[5] a misunderstanding that persisted and finally resulted in their rejection of the Christ himself. In fact, one of the shameful and destructive influences on earth till this day is the savage, malignant, and carnal patriotism which equated love of one's own nation with the hatred of every other nation.

(5) There may have been in Jonah a deep desire for the destruction of Nineveh that could be used by himself as an example of God's anger with sin, such an example being, in Jonah's mind, the very last hope of arresting the degeneracy and rebellion of Israel against God. With the conversion of Nineveh, his hope of converting Israel through the use of such a terrible example was frustrated, leaving him nothing to look forward to (in regard to Israel) except their ultimate overthrow by the faithful God whose will they had so consistently violated. It was this hopelessness of Jonah on behalf of Israel that angered him, according to some. As Jamieson said:

"When this means of awakening Israel was set aside by God's mercy on the repentance of Nineveh, he was bitterly disappointed, not from pride or mercilessness, but by hopelessness as to anything being possible for the reformation of Israel, now that his cherished hope is baffled."[6]

(6) Common jealousy is discerned by some as the cause of Jonah's anger; and this could surely have entered into it.

"At the root of all this was jealousy. Jonah was jealous because the Ninevites, who had been hated and despised by the Jews for their extreme wickedness and cruelty, were now standing with the Jews in their worship of the one supreme God .... Such a thing is vividly prevalent, even in our day."[7]

Despite the plausibility of such reasons as those cited above, and without denying that traces of the attitudes mentioned must surely have existed in Jonah, there is, it seems to this writer, a far more compelling reason for his anger.

(7) The conversion of Nineveh was the doom of Jonah himself, as far as any further acceptable relationship with Israel was concerned. Jonah could not, after the conversion of the greatest pagan city on earth, return in triumph and honor to his native land. No indeed! Take a look at the case of Saul of Tarsus. The uncompromising hatred and animosity of Israel which already existed toward Nineveh, would, after the conversion of that city, have been intensified and transferred to Jonah. "He saw the utter weakening of his hands, the destruction of his usefulness among his countrymen."[8] All of Jonah's hope of bringing his own nation to do the will of God perished, in the event of Nineveh's conversion, which as it seemed to Jonah, "would eclipse the honor of God, destroy the credit of his ministry, and harden the hearts of his countrymen.[9] To ascribe Jonah's anger to such motivations as this explains his desire to die (Jonah 4:3,8). Did not Paul also prefer to die rather than accept the lost condition of Israel? (Romans 9:2). Regarding the speculation mentioned in the previous chapter concerning the funeral for Jonah in Israel, see under Jonah, the Great Old Testament Type, at the end of this chapter.

Whatever the reasons for Jonah's anger, he was wrong in it.

"The whole of Jonah 4 is an account of Jonah's displeasure. His anger was as much a repudiation of God as was his flight in Jonah 1. It was an anger that could not tolerate the thought of God having compassion upon the heathen."[10]