Jonah 4:1-11 - God's Grace and Jonah's Anger

Please turn with me to the book of Jonah. It’s on pg 727 in your black pew Bibles. Some of you may be thinking, Jonah? I thought we were in the Psalms. Are we starting the book of Jonah? We’re actually ending the book of Jonah. We took a month and half long break, so I thank you for your patience. We’re now in the 4th/final chapter of the book of Jonah. Final episode.

But we need a recap, so prev: Ch 1 introduces a mission, and this mission is a crucial part of the plot line. God’s word came to His prophet Jonah and commands him to arise, go and call out against Nineveh. Instead of doing that, prophet Jonah flees from God and ends up getting swallowed by a great fish in Ch 2. Jonah prays to God and the fish vomits him out. In Ch 3, God repeats Jonah’s mission to him, and Jonah finally obeys God. Jonah goes to Nineveh, proclaims a prophecy, the entire city of Nineveh repents of their sins, God accepts their repentance of their sins and relents, he showed them compassion by not destroying them.

If chapter 3 had ended the Jonah story, the story would have ended with God accomplishing His mission through prophet Jonah. The ending is a happy ending. It would be the Jonah trilogy, episodes 1, 2, and 3. So why are we listening to another message on Jonah this morning? Because there’s a chapter 4. There’s another episode to the story. If the story had ended with chapter 3, the readers would have been left with a lot of “ifs”. There are so many things that the three chapters imply that are never explicitly stated: until Jonah chapter 4.

The hints are finally revealed in Jonah 4. We wondered why Jonah fled from the presence of the LORD in chapter 1. We find out why in chapter 4. Some of us thought Jonah had a heart change in chapter 2. We see Jonah’s true heart in chapter 4. It seemed like Jonah wanted to die in chapters 1 and 2. We find out the truth in chapter 4. We speculated how Jonah felt throughout the story, his emotions. We see his emotions clearly without ambiguity in chapter 4. In chapters 1, 2, and 3, we saw numerous indications of God’s grace and mercy but the author never explicitly uses those exact words. We finally see them used in chapter 4.

We assume God and Jonah are talking to each other throughout the story, but we never see them have a conversation. Chapter 1, God talks to Jonah but Jonah doesn’t talk to God. Chapter 2, Jonah talks to God, but God doesn’t talk to Jonah. Chapter 3, God talks to Jonah, but Jonah doesn’t talk to God. You would think they were playing phone tag. We finally witness the two main characters in the story, the only characters in the story with names, talk to each other in this final episode of this four-part series, not a trilogy but a tetralogy.

Please follow along as I read the final chapter of a book about a gracious merciful God and His prophet named Jonah.

*read Jonah 4:1-11 Big Idea: When we anger over God’s lack of divine justice, God teaches us about His divine compassion.

As we work through the text, we are going to focus on three things this morning:

- First, we’re going to focus on Jonah’s anger toward God, anger toward His grace and mercy. (v 1-4)

- Then, we’re going to focus on God’s lesson for Jonah, God uses this as a teaching moment about His compassion (v. 5-11)

- Then lastly, we’ll focus on God’s lesson for us, and I’ll sprinkle this throughout the message as well.

We see Jonah’s anger toward God immediately in the first verse.

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

This verse immediately connects us to what just happened at the end of chapter 3, and you really see the connection through one Hebrew word which can be translated either “evil” or “disaster.” In 3:10, it reads “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evilway, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.”

Those words “evil” and “disaster” have the same root word. Our ESV captures the English well by drawing the distinction between two English words, but it’s really the same word. So how does this relate to 4:1? A more literal translation of 4:1 is “and it was evil to Jonah, a great evil, and it burned to him.” Same Hebrew word. The author is deliberately using wordplay to say this: God relented of the “evil” He said He would do to Nineveh after they turned from their evil, and to Jonah, this was a great evil. In other words, God’s compassion for Nineveh was not just evil, but a great

As a result, Jonah is angry. We shouldn’t interpret this to be regular anger. Have you ever witnessed a person overtaken by fury, red all over, yelling at the top of his or her lungs, throwing things across the room, the people around are either afraid or tense, resume to fight/flight mode? That’s this kind of anger. Jonah is furious. He is burning. He is hot. He’s red all over. This is the first time we see Jonah feel something in the story, and it’s intense. The first emotion we see of Jonah is furious, resentful anger. Jonah feels this way because he sees God’s lack of justice by not destroying the wicked Ninevites as injustice. To Jonah, God is unjust for not showing just punishment. To Jonah, God not punishing evil is a great evil. To Jonah, God is evil.

Verse 1 hints why Jonah fled from God and his mission in chapter 1.

Verse 2 tells us. Verse 2 is the big reveal, the thing we’ve been waiting for this whole time. We ask, “Jonah, why did you flee from God?” Jonah answers in the next verse.

2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

We now know the true reason for why Jonah fled at the very beginning of the story. Jonah knew that God would “relent from disaster.” Why is this such a big deal to Jonah? When Jonah says “my country,” we see that Jonah is concerned for his nation Israel, and he knows that Assyria is Israel’s greatest foreign threat.

In 841 BC, Assyria invades Israel and begins killing, imprisoning, and deporting Israelites to Assyria. This continues for over 100 years until in 722 BC, they finally takeover Samaria which is the capital city of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Judah, the southern nation is still there, but Assyria overthrows Israel. Assyria was the most powerfuland violent nation at the time. According to ancient sources, they would skin people alive, took pride in torture, built pyramids using human heads. You can imagine what they did to captured women and children. This is why Jonah feels the way he does about Nineveh.

The story of Jonah takes place around 750 BC. Israel falls in 722. So if you do the math, Assyria takes over within 30 years of our story. You can disagree with Jonah’s sinful posture, but can you at least relate to what he’s feeling?

Jonah is praying here in v. 2-3, and just like what he did in his Ch 2 prayer, Jonah again quotes Scripture in this Ch 4 prayer. Did you all catch that? We actually heard the biblical text Jonah is referencing during our Scripture reading this morning: Exodus 34:6. In Exodus 34, God renews His covenant with the Israelites after they violate the covenant, and during that covenant renewal, God describes Himself. If you ever want to know more about God from God, read Ex 34:6-7.

What does this mean for Jonah? When Jonah references Exodus 34 and possibly prophet Joel who probably lived before Jonah, God’s natural characteristics and attributes are Jonah’s criticisms of God. When Joel references Exodus 34, he states it as a positive statement that glorifies God (Joel 2:13). When Jonah says the exact same thing, he states it as a negative statement that criticizes God. What’s humorous is that prophet Joel is prophesying over Israel. See, when you apply God to your people, grace and mercy are wonderful. When you apply God to your enemies, grace and mercy are terrible. This really appeals to our own sense of fairness and justice. IL: When you drive 15 miles over the speed limit and a cop pulls you over, you think “oh please grace and mercy.” When another driver almost gets you into an accident and the cop pulls him over, you drive by screaming, “Justice. Justice.” We are so much like Jonah.

In chapters 1-3, the author hints that Jonah wants to die. In the next verse, there’s another big reveal. You finally hear Jonah say it.

3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

These are very strong words. “God, please kill me because I’d rather be dead than be alive.” A tendency as a lay-reader could be to think, “Jeez Jonah get over it. God is gracious and merciful.” But within the historical context I provided earlier, this is what I think he’s really saying, “O LORD, I would rather die now than to be alive later in 30 years and witness what will become of my country. This city of this country that you didn’t destroy, Assyria, - because You caused them to repent by Your word - is going to kill all of us. These Assyrians are going to enslave, torture, and murder our men, women, and children.” That may be what Jonah is really saying. Some of you might disagree with some of the things Jonah has been saying so far in the chapter, but you might agree on how Jonah feels. You might be thinking, “You know, it’s understandable and justified for Jonah to feel angry. In a situation like this, I would be angry too! I would have the right to be angry!” Hold that thought as we hear God’s response.

4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

Well do you? You really have to think through what God is asking before you answer honestly. We’ll dig deeper into Jonah’s anger later since it comes up again.

Remember the first half of the big idea: We anger over God’s lack of divine justice. Is that true for you this morning? The world is filled with thieves, deceivers, attackers, murderers. The world is filled with people taken advantage of, victims of sexual assault, loss of family members due to violence or something fatal. Do you always feel joyfulknowing doctrinally, conceptually, intellectually that God is just? Or do you sometimes feel what Jonah feels? Furious, resentful, angry knowing that God could allow such a thing to happen, something that contradicts justice, or to clarify, something that conflicts with your ownsense of justice.

We finished the 1st sectionof the chapter focusing on Jonah’s anger. Now we look at the 2nd half(5-11) focusing on God’s lesson for Jonah. This addresses the 2ndhalf of our main idea: When we anger over God’s lack of divine justice, He teaches us about His divine compassion.

God just asked Jonah a question. We now see Jonah’s answer to God’s question.

5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.

Jonah doesn’t answer God. To be fair, I do believe God’s question is rhetorical, but Jonah doesn’t continue the conversation. We come to find out is that Jonah and God were having a conversation inside the city of Nineveh. Jonah is asking God to destroy him while he’s still in the city. Fire and brimstone from the skies. Jonah might be thinking, “God didn’t kill you Nineveh, but He’s going to kill me, and when I die, I’m taking all of you with me.” And when Jonah realizes that God isn’t going to kill him, he leaves the city. And outside the city, Jonah still hopes that God will destroy Nineveh. You’re probably thinking, “why does Jonah still think God is going to kill the Ninevites?”

It’s possible that Jonah misinterpreted God. I argued that Jonah misinterpreted God back in Chapter 3 with the word “overthrown.” It’s possible Jonah misinterpreted God again here by hearing, “Do you do well to be angry even though I’m going to finish the job?” That’s the only reason I could find in the text for why Jonah still thinks this way. Jonah really wants God to kill all the Ninevites. To Jonah, that’s justice. In the next verse, we see God do something, but it’s not destroy Nineveh.

6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.

This is the first time in the story where Jonah is happy. He isn’t just happy. He’s exceedingly happy. The words are “great joy.” Two reasons for this great joy: 1) his own comfort, 2) the supernatural act was, to Jonah, a sign that God is comforting him and reassuring him that he was right to wait and watch the city.

IL: a kid who says he wants fireworks in the yard, the parent says no, the kid gets angry because he really wants fireworks, the parent brings him outside, sits him on a lawn chair, brings him bag of popcorn. the child thinks, “oh we’re outside, and on a chair and I’m eating popcorn. yes, finally we’re going to see some fireworks”

If you pay attention in the narrative, the plant is the only thing in the entire story that makes Jonah happy. Jonah really likes the plant. He really hates Nineveh, he really likes the plant. Scholars wonder, through countless hours of research and publications, what kind of plant this is. Is it a castor oil plant? Is it a gourd? The type of plant is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that God appoints the plant (purpose). In Hebrew, the plant is called a qiqayon. It’s a plant, it’s big, it’s fast growing. Some of you might have a ton of qiqayons growing in your backyard. Jonah is really happy about the plant, because he’s only concerned over his own well-being.

Remember, this is an object lesson. What is God trying to teach Jonah through the plant? God trying to teach Jonah at least three things, and I will tell you that what God is trying to teach Jonah directly applies to what God is teaching us:

1) the plant that God made is more sufficient than the shady booth Jonah made. What God provides for you is more sufficient than what you provide for yourself.

2) the plant is there to provide shade, it’s there to cool-off a burning, hot, angry Jonah; Jonah’s hot and angry, and it’s God who allows him shade and joy. Jonah’s joy came out of God’s natural provision, not Jonah’s material provision

3) the plant is there “to save him from his discomfort” It lit. says “to save him from his evil/disaster.” God is not primarily interested in saving you from being uncomfortable. His primary interest is His own glory and one way He glorifies Himself is not saving you from your discomfort but saving you from hell.

This plant is the only thing in the entire story that gives Jonah great joy. Jonah doesn’t get joy from God / sinners repenting / other people in his life / his own life.

This plant is the sole joy-giving thing to Jonah. In Hebrew, it’s called a qiqayon. What’s this called in your life? Is it your smartphone (social media/videos/porn)? Is it your $? What’s this called in your life? God is using physical objects to teach him a spiritual lesson. God completes His lesson for Jonah in the next two verses.

DON’T READ 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

By the time you get to v 7-8, you see that God does a lot of appointing in the story. In Ch 2, God appointed a great fish. Here, he appoints a plant, then appoints a worm to attack the plant, and then appoints a wind. God isn’t appointing these things at random. God appoints a worm because the worm symbolizes death in the grave. This matches well with Jonah continually saying he wants to die. God appoints a scorching east wind, lit. “easterly cutting wind” because Jonah is on the east side of the city and the wind is “cutting” or “biting” Jonah as the worm is cutting and biting through the plant. It could also mean scorching as the ESV has it in which the hot wind reflects a hot, angry Jonah. Do you see how nothing is random in Scripture? Everything is intentional. God’s lesson here is intentional.

Here, Jonah says he wants to die again (since earlier in v 3), but this time, it’s different in two ways. Here’s the first: earlier, Jonah wanted to die due to the ongoing existence of Israel’s enemy, Assyria. Now, Jonah wants to die because he’s really uncomfortable. I can’t help but feel bad for the man. In Ch 2, Jonah is dying by water and in Ch 4, Jonah is dying by fire, by heat. Secondly, the narrator lit. says, “he asked himself to die.” The implication here is that Jonah isn’t talking to God anymore. He’s talking to himself. God initiates another conversation in v 9.

9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”

The author writes this in a way where Jonah comes off sounding like a child talking back to his parent. It’s also funny how Jonah responds this way since I argued that God is asking a rhetorical question. Rhetorical questions are not intended to seek truth but to draw out the truth. Rhetorical questions are effective because the asker and the askee have shared knowledge. And believe it or not, one area of shared knowledge between God and Jonah is anger.

In one sense, Jonah’s anger reflects God’s anger over Nineveh’s wickedness (3:9). But at the same time, Jonah’s anger also stands in contrast to God’s anger. Why? Jonah doesn’t believe that Nineveh’s evil should be forgiven. God was trying to teach Jonah a lesson about His compassion, and Jonah misses it. So in v 10 and 11, God explains what He has been trying to teach Jonah through the object lesson.

10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.

11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

By sheer number of converts, this is the most successful revival and conversion event in all of human history (minus Jesus Christ). Minus Jesus, no one has ever been as successful in converting such a large number of people to faith in such a short amount of time. This is very impressive, and Jonah should be pleased, but he isn’t and he has more compassion for a plant than for 120,000 repentant sinners.

Due to the odd way the story ends, I spent several days meditating on the last words of this book. Look at the end of verse 11. “and also much cattle.” The strict lit. word order is, “and cattle much?” Why does it end like this? Why is God suddenly talking about cows? God’s basically saying, “Jonah, you seem to care about plants and animals. I know in Nineveh you don’t care about the men and women and fathers and mothers and children who don’t know right from wrong, but Jonah, Nineveh has a lot of cows. You like cows. You like plants, you probably like cows. Don’t you want me to not destroy Nineveh for the many cows and cattle since you seem to have a lot of compassion for them?” That’s what God’s saying.

We saw Jonah’s anger, we heard God’s lesson, and now we have to understand God’s lesson for us. We’ve received many lessons already, but we can best understand God’s lesson for us through the lens of the narrative we just finished together. We just finished the entire book of Jonah, and we witnessed so many major events in the story. In a similar way, in your own life, you have experienced many major life events that probably echo aspects of the Jonah story.

All of us, at some point, have been called by God to faith, all of us have disobeyed God, all of us have been caught in a storm, been selfish, said you fear and worship God when your actions say otherwise, all of us have been swallowed up by something (maybe something beyond our control, maybe something we directly caused), have prayed a disingenuous or self-delusional prayer, misapplied Scripture whether on purpose or through negligence, do the bare minimum that God commands you to do, get furious and angry when things don’t go your way.

We all have experienced major life events that question our perspective of God, experienced how we see the world for what it is, how we see our terrible circumstances, and how a righteous and just God could allow such evil and brokenness to exist. And all those major and significant events in the story of your life culminate and conclude into this one question, a single question asked by God in verse 11. “Shouldn’t I have compassion?” So, how does prophet Jonah respond?

Jonah doesn’t respond to God, and as a reader who just finished reading the story, you come to find out, just as the author intended, that God isn’t asking Jonah. He’s asking you. What do you say Embassy? Shouldn’t God have compassion for your enemies? The very enemies that are trying to kill you and your loved ones?

We have to be careful the way we answer this question. If you say yes, then what you are effectively doing is greenlighting God to allow wicked people to destroy everyone you love, and you have to trust that He will enact divine justice the way He sees fit in His time. This is way easier said than done. If you say no, then you are effectively waging war against God as you are deliberately opposing the very nature of who God is, and God will kill you. This ethical dilemma sounds like a lose-lose situation, doesn’t it? In fact, we appear to be in the same ethical dilemma that Jonah put the pagan sailors in in Jonah 1:14. Just like the author’s point in Jonah 1, maybe that’s God’s point. Maybe, while we’re trying to answer this question (which is inherently rhetorical), God answers this question for us. Around 750 BC, God asks this question and over 7 centuries later, God Himself answers and He answers with another story.

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In this story, God sees the entire world and sees what Jonah sees in Nineveh: wicked, violent, adulterous, murderous, unbelieving, idol-worshiping, amoral and immoral evil creatures. We are all included.

And God, in His pure, unadulterated, perfect justice, sees that the destruction of mankind is necessary. And so God destroys mankind. I’m not talking about the Noah flood story. I’m talking about a story after the flood story, but there’s a twist.

He destroys all of mankind represented in His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. God came down into this broken world as a man, and this man, Jesus, God in the flesh, puts upon himself our sins, and although he didn’t do anything wrong, although he was without sin, Jesus voluntarily, self-sacrificially became sin and died a terrible death in our place. His wounds paid our ransom. God the Father destroyed mankind by destroying mankind’s representative, our substitute, His beloved Son on the cross. And in that moment, God demonstrated divine justice upon the world, while He simultaneously demonstrated divine compassion upon the world. God successfully executes His wrath and judgment, yet we are still alive today.

So great! That’s the end of the story, and we’re alive and Jesus died for us. No. That’s not the end of the story. Here’s the good news (gospel), Jesus in the greatest moment of triumph in all of cosmic history, does what Jonah did at the end of chapter 2, he comes back to life. The key difference is that, unlike Jonah, Jesus raised himself up from the dead by his own power after bearing the weight of man’s sins and he singlehandedly conquers death. And that’s still not the end of the gospel story. Jesus ascends into heaven, sends the third Person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit down to dwell and live within us. And if you believe everything I’m saying, it is only because the Holy Spirit is living out your sanctifying life.

The Holy Spirit gives you ears to hear and eyes to see. It is by the Holy Spirit that you live within the conclusion of the gospel story, and not the conclusion of the Jonah story. Embassy, are some of you still living in the conclusion of the Jonah story? Are you living in anger, resentment, bitterness? Is it possible that God is appointing hot, burning circumstances in your life to show you the hot, burning attitude inside your own heart? Are living in self-destruction, selfishness, hatred or negative feelings toward people? Or are you living in the kingdom of God on earth, living in faith, hope, love, grace and mercy, justice and compassion? Are you living in the conclusion of the gospel story that will reach the full conclusion when Jesus Christ returns? Which conclusion of which story are you living in this morning?

I would like to conclude with this final thought:

I want you all to think of one person in your life with whom you refuse your grace. This one person in your life who’s still alive yet dead to you. You see that this person doesn’t deserve your mercy. So here’s the thought: If God has compassion for His enemies, shouldn’t you have compassion for yours?

It's an amazing thing, even more amazing than living in a fish for three days, to live day in and day out within the compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ. For those who feel unloved this morning, those who feel like people have treated you with very little sympathy or compassion, know that Jesus really does love you and he is quick to move you with his compassion, and in doing so, enables you to show compassion to others.

The question that God asks at the end of the Jonah story sounds very similar to the question that we’re going to sing together at the end of our service today. I encourage you to prepare your hearts for it. The last stanza of the song reads,

Why should I gain from His reward?

I cannot give an answer

But this I know with all my heart

His wounds have paid my ransom.

Jonah's Anger and the Lord's Compassion

4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”