Jonah 4.10-11-The Lord Rebukes Jonah For Showing More Concern For The Plant Than The Ninevites
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday December 16, 2010
Jonah: Jonah 4:10-11-The Lord Rebukes Jonah For Showing More Concern For The Plant Than The Ninevites
Lesson # 60
Please turn in your Bibles to Jonah 3:10.
In Jonah 4:10-11, the Lord rebukes Jonah for showing more concern about the plant than the Ninevites.
Jonah 3:10, “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it. 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.’ 4 The Lord said, ‘Do you have good reason to be angry?’ 5 Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. 6 So the Lord God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. 7 But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. 8 When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, ‘Death is better to me than life.’ 9 Then God said to Jonah, ‘Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?’ And he said, ‘I have good reason to be angry, even to death.’ 10 Then the Lord said, ‘You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.’” (NASU)
This verse stands in direct contrast with Jonah’s reply to God’s question that appears in verse 9.
Therefore, the contrast is between Jonah’s justification for being angry over God’s decision to kill the plant and spare the Ninevites and God’s response in verses 10-11 in which the Lord declares that the prophet is not justified for being angry about the plant and His decision to spare the Ninevites.
“You had compassion on the plant” is composed of the second person masculine singular form of the pronoun ʾǎt∙tā(h) (אַתָּה) (aw-thaw), “you” and the second person masculine singular qal active perfect form of the verb ḥûs (חוּס) (khoos), “had compassion” and the preposition ʿǎl (אַל) (al), “on” and the articular masculine singular form of the noun qî∙qāy∙wōn (קִיקָיוֹן) (kee-kaw-yone), “the plant”
The pronoun ʾǎt∙tā(h) refers of course to Jonah and is appended to the verb ḥûs, “had compassion” for emphasis and should be rendered “yourself.”
The emphasis upon Jonah in verse 10 sets up the emphasis on Yahweh in verse 11 who will describe Himself as the subject of the same verb.
The verb ḥûs means “to show concern for, to be concerned about” something or someone, which in our context is the plant.
God is affirming that Jonah “had concern for” the plant.
“For which you did not work” indicates that Jonah by no means put forth considerable effort and energy in cultivating or tending the plant.
“And which you did not cause to grow” indicates that Jonah by no means caused the plant to grow bigger.
“Which came up overnight” refers to the fact that the plant became mature in a time period of overnight and “perished overnight” refers to the death of the plant.
Jonah 4:10, “But the Lord replied, ‘You yourself had concern for this little qîqāywōn plant, which you have by no means worked for it and in addition by no means caused it to grow, which offspring came into existence overnight and in addition which offspring died overnight.’” (My translation)
In this verse, the Lord is attempting to teach Jonah that he is totally unjustified in his anger concerning His decision to kill the plant with a worm and more importantly spare the lives of the Ninevites.
The Lord rebukes Jonah for his unjustified anger about the death of the plant by telling Jonah that he by no means worked for it and by no means did he cause it to grow.
The plant came into existence in one night and died the very next night.
Yet, Jonah was angry though he had absolutely nothing to do with the life and death of the plant.
The prophet wanted to die over a plant whose entire lifespan was one day even though he had no right or claims upon the plant since it was God’s creation and He had every right to end its existence since He is the sovereign Creator.
The plant was a gift of God’s grace, which Jonah therefore, did not merit or deserve.
The Lord wants Jonah to understand that he has no business questioning or complaining about His decision to destroy the plant since Jonah has no merit with Him, nor did he create the plant.
Jonah 4:11, “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?” (NASU)
This question in verse 11 is an a fortiori argument from lesser to greater.
The lesser is Jonah’s concern about the little plant whereas the greater is the Lord’s concern for the people of Nineveh.
“Should I not have compassion on Nineveh?” is composed of the first person singular independent personal pronoun ǎnî (אֲנִי), “I” and the negative particle lō(ʾ) (לֹא) (low), “not” and the first person singular qal active imperfect form of the verb ḥûs (חוּס) (khoos), “should have compassion” and the preposition ʿǎl (אַל) (al), “on” and the feminine singular form of the proper noun nî∙newē(h) (נִינְוֵה) (nee-nev-ay), “Nineveh.”
The independent personal pronoun ǎnî, “I” refers of course to the Lord and is appended to the verb ḥûs, “had compassion” for emphasis and should be rendered “myself” emphasizing the Lord’s concern for the Ninevites who were created in His image in contrast to Jonah’s concern for an insignificant plant.
The verb ḥûs means “to show concern for, to be concerned about” something or someone, which in our context is the Lord’s concern for the Ninevites and the negative particle lō(ʾ) is a marker of emphatic negation.
Therefore, these two words are affirming the Lord’s concern for the Ninevites.
“The great city” refers to the enormous population of the greater Nineveh area.
“In which there are more than 120,000 persons” affirms the existence of 120,000 persons in the city of Nineveh and its surrounding districts.
“Who do not know the difference between their right and left hand” refers to the fact that Nineveh had 120,000 children who could not distinguish between what is right from what is wrong.
It by no means indicates that the Ninevites were morally innocent or not accountable for their actions since the Ninevites themselves acknowledge their guilt in Jonah 3:5 and 8.
It also does not express the fact that the Ninevites were ignorant of God since creation manifests the fact that there is a God.
Also, the inherent law that is basically the Ten Commandments resides in the soul of every human being without exception according to Romans 2:14-15.
The fact that they expressed their guilt before God and had nothing in writing from God like the Jews demonstrates that they were by no means ignorant of God’s law.
“As well as many animals” refers to domestic animals and emphasizes that they also are more important than the plant that Jonah was so concerned about.
The mention of domestic animals further emphasizes the stupidity and irrationality of Jonah’s position.
Jonah 4:11, “Indeed, should I myself without a doubt not have concern for Nineveh, that enormous city which there exists in her more than 120,000 persons who can by no means distinguish between their right from their life as well as many domestic animals?” (My translation)
The Lord had the first word in the book of Jonah and He has the last.
Since the Lord poses a rhetorical question to Jonah, we would expect that the final word would belong to Jonah.
However, this is not the case.
There are several reasons for the silence.
First of all, Jonah didn’t respond because he finally understood what God was telling him.
Another reason why Jonah does not respond to the Lord’s rhetorical question is that this question presents the message of the book.
Also, another reason for Jonah’s silence is that it confronts the reader as to their response.
It makes the reader reflect upon his attitude as to whether or not he holds the Lord’s viewpoint toward the human race or Jonah’s.
The silence to the Lord’s question invites a response by the reader.
In Jonah 4:10-11, the Lord makes His point with Jonah that He is sovereign, His policy with all the nations and not just Israel, is grace.