Jonah 4.3-Jonah Request That The Lord Take His Life From Him
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday December 1, 2010
Jonah: Jonah 4:3-Jonah Requests That The Lord Take His Life From Him
Lesson # 51
Please turn in your Bibles to Jonah 4:1.
In Jonah 4:3, the prophet complains to the Lord in prayer that he’d rather die than live and see Him spare the lives of the Ninevites.
Jonah 4:1, “But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.’”
This verse expresses an inference from the fact that God had exercised His grace policy towards the Ninevites.
It expresses an inference from the fact that the Lord was merciful towards the Ninevites and was slow to exercise His righteous indignation towards them.
The statement expresses the inference from the fact that God exercised His transcendent unconditional love towards them and graciously relented from judging them.
“Please” is the particle of entreaty nā(ʾ) (נָא) (naw), which is a marker of emphasis with focus on the desire of the speaker, used to heighten a sense of urgency, intensity.
It means “please” in the sense of “I beg of you” and is used of Jonah addressing Yahweh.
The word emphasizes his desire to die and expresses the urgency and the intensity of his prayer.
“Take my life from me” refers to the Lord ending the existence of Jonah’s soul in his physical body, thus ending his life on earth.
“For death is better to me than life” presents the reason for Jonah’s request that the Lord end his life on earth and expresses the idea that for Jonah physical death is superior to living.
Jonah 4:3 marks the end of Jonah’s prayer to the Lord, which took the form of a complaint regarding the Lord’s character.
In Jonah 2, we saw the prophet praying that the Lord would deliver him from drowning to death but now in Jonah 4:2-3, we see him begging that the Lord would take his life because it was too much for Jonah to bear that the Lord would spare the lives of the Ninevites rather than destroy them.
The Lord answered his prayer in chapter 2 but not here in chapter 4 since it was not the Lord’s will to kill Jonah.
Rather, the Lord wanted to teach Jonah something about His grace policy towards the human race and His love for them.
Jonah’s prayer reveals that the prophet does not have the same perspective as God with regards to the human race and specifically in relation to the Gentiles.
Like Jonah’s angry reaction to the Lord sparing the Ninevites, the prophet’s prayer is an example of Israelite national pride and self-righteousness.
Jonah hates the idea of God sparing the lives of the Ninevites and treating them in grace because he is comparing the righteousness of himself and Israel to the lack of righteousness on the part of the Ninevites.
Jonah is comparing himself to the Ninevites and concludes that he and his Jewish countrymen are superior to the Ninevites.
However, he fails to see that God concludes that both groups have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and that there is none righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10).
Jonah is not judging himself and Israel according to God’s perfect holy standards but rather he is doing so by comparing himself to the Ninevites.
In chapter 4, the Lord is teaching Jonah that He has compassion for all men and not just Israel including the wicked Assyrians.
Compassion is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by suffering or misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the pain or remove its cause.
The Lord expressed a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for the Ninevites who were stricken by the curse of sin and who were enslaved to Satan and his cosmic system.
Thus the Lord attempted to remove the curse of sin in the lives of the Ninevites by sending Jonah to preach the Gospel which according to Romans 1:16 is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ as Savior.
Jonah’s attitude is indicative of the nation of Israel at that time.
The nation of Israel failed in evangelizing the world.
They were to be the instruments that God employed to present the Gospel to the unbelieving Gentiles.
They failed.
Jonah failed to see because of self-righteous arrogance that the Ninevites were just as much qualified to be recipients of salvation as Jonah and the rest of the nation of Israel.
Like the Pharisees in our Lord’s Day, Jonah lacked the Lord’s view of the world.
The Lord saw Nineveh as a field ready to be harvest.
Jonah failed to go to Nineveh and do his job as a prophet because he did not possess divine viewpoint even though he was saved.
He lacked compassion and mercy and failed to see the great opportunity that the Lord had given him to preach to the Gentiles unbelievers in Nineveh.
Jonah failed to appreciate the fact that the Lord had used him to produce the greatest harvest of souls in the Old Testament, 120,000 people were saved.
Yet Jonah failed to appreciate this wonderful work of God which was performed through him.
Jonah 4:3 presents the first of two requests by Jonah of the Lord to end his life.
The second is found in 4:8.
In the former, he explicitly requests that the Lord would take his life but in the second he does not explicitly do so but it is implied.
Both requests are self-centered and the result of the function of the sin nature and being deceived by the cosmic system of Satan.
This self-centeredness is manifested by the fact that though Jonah acknowledges the character of God in verse 2, he accompanies this acknowledgement with nine references to himself in verses 2-3.
So Jonah’s view of the human race and in particular the Gentiles was distorted because of his nationalist pride and self-righteousness.
Jonah’s also involved in hypocrisy since he echoes Elijah’s prayer in 1 Kings 19:4 since the first six Hebrew words in Jonah’s prayer in 4:3 include the same four terms that served to form Elijah’s prayer in 1 Kings 19:4.
Though Jonah uses these words, he is not spiritual or guided by the Spirit since the Spirit desires all men to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9).
Elijah requested death because he thought the entire nation of Israel was in apostasy and that he was the only one in the nation who was not unfaithful to the Lord.
However, Jonah’s request is based upon the fact that he is infuriated that God exercised His grace and mercy towards the Ninevites and spared their lives.
Jonah wanted to see a city destroyed whereas Elijah wanted a national revival in Israel.
“Hypocrisy” is “a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not possess; a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.”
Therefore, Jonah is making a pretense of having a virtuous character that he does not possess and is making a pretense of having a spiritual attitude by using Elijah’s words. However, he does not fool God.
His hypocrisy was first manifested in Jonah 1:9.
In Jonah 4:2-3, he is manifesting his hypocrisy once again by echoing the words of Elijah so as to make a pretense of having a spiritual attitude and to justify his resentment towards God sparing the Ninevites.
