Jonah · chapter 4 of 4
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Jonah 4 shows Jonah angry that God spared Nineveh, confessing that this is why he fled: he knew the Lord is gracious and compassionate. God grows a plant that shades him and then withers it with a worm, and with that contrast asks whether he should not have compassion on a city of more than 120,000 people. The book ends with that open question.
The last chapter of Jonah reveals the book's real conflict. It is not the flight or the storm but the prophet's heart, which does not share God's compassion toward his enemies. The book ends without telling us how Jonah answered, and that open question is directed at the reader.
This displeased Jonah greatly, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said this is why he had fled to Tarshish: he knew the Lord is a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster. So he asked the Lord to take his life, for it was better for him to die than to live. The Lord asked whether he did well to be angry.
Jonah went out of the city and sat east of it, and made himself a booth there. He sat under its shade to see what would become of the city. The Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head and save him from his discomfort, and Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he was faint and asked to die.
God asked whether he did well to be angry about the plant, and Jonah said yes, angry enough to die. Then the Lord said that Jonah pitied the plant, for which he had not labored and which he had not made grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should he not 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? There the book ends.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Jonah confesses that he fled because he knew God is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The description of God he uses is a great confession of faith, but Jonah says it with resentment.
The Lord answers Jonah's anger with a calm question: does he do well to be angry? God does not shout at him but invites him to examine his own heart.
God makes a plant grow to shade Jonah, and the prophet is exceedingly glad. It is joy over a small comfort, while the rescue of thousands of people had made him angry.
The Lord concludes by asking whether he should not have compassion on Nineveh, with more than 120,000 people and many animals. The book ends with this unanswered question so that the reader decides whether to share God's heart.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: It displeased him greatly and he became angry. — Jonah 4:1
Answer: He knew God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. — Jonah 4:2
Answer: Whether he did well to be angry. — Jonah 4:4
Answer: A plant that grew up over him. — Jonah 4:6
Answer: A worm God appointed at dawn the next day. — Jonah 4:7
Answer: His compassion for Nineveh, with more than 120,000 people and much cattle. — Jonah 4:10-11
Jonah 4 is an uncomfortable mirror. We can know God well, know that he is merciful, and still resent that he is merciful to people we do not like or who have hurt us. In a small group you can ask whom we have decided, deep down, does not deserve mercy and how to see that person through God's eyes.
It also asks what hurts us more: the loss of a small comfort or the loss of people. Jonah grieves over a plant while a whole city is saved. Asking God for a heart like his, one that has compassion on people, is a prayer every church and every believer needs.
Jonah ends with a question from God that is left unanswered, because the answer belongs to the reader. The book shows a God whose mercy is greater than our prejudices and invites us to share it. The next book, Micah, announces judgment and hope for Israel and Judah.
The book ends with God's question and does not say how Jonah responded. Many readers see in that open ending an invitation for each person to answer. It is a way of speaking to everyone who, like Jonah, knows God but struggles to accept his compassion toward others.
It probably refers to people who had no knowledge of God's law or to small children who could not yet tell good from evil. Either way, it stresses that they are people in need of mercy and not simply enemies.
Because his care reaches all creation. The animals had already been part of the fast and the sackcloth in Jonah 3:7-8, and mentioning them reinforces that God's compassion is wide and that none of his creatures is indifferent to him.