Verse 9
God’s question here was very similar to His question in Jonah 4:4. Was Jonah right to be angry about the plant, God asked? Jonah’s reply was a strong superlative. [Note: D. Winton Thomas, "Consideration of Some Unusual Ways of Expressing the Superlative in Hebrew," Vetus Testamentum 3 (1953):220.] He felt that strong anger was proper. Evidently Jonah believed that God was not even treating him with the compassion that He normally showed all people, much less His chosen servants.
"The double question in Jonah 4:4 and Jonah 4:9 . . . is unmistakably the key to the book’s central message. The climax of the story comes here-not with the repentance of the Ninevites in chap. 3 or at any other point-when God challenges Jonah to recognize how wrong he has been in his bitter nationalism, and how right God has been to show compassion toward the plight of the Assyrians in Nineveh." [Note: Stuart, p. 435.]
In this pericope God was setting the stage for the lesson that He would explain to His prophet shortly.
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