‘But it displeased Jonah greatly, and he was angry.' Jonah was not at all pleased that God had had mercy on the Ninevites, indeed he was more than displeased he was very angry. The greatness of his anger is stressed by the repeating of the idea. But why was he so angry? There are a number of possib... [ Continue Reading ]
YHWH USES AN ILLUSTRATION IN ORDER TO DEMONSTRATE TO JONAH THE REASONABLENESS OF HIS MERCY (JONAH 4:1). The mercy of YHWH having been revealed in chapter 1 to the mariners, in chapter 2 to Jonah, and in chapter 3 to the Ninevites, His mercy is now underlined as God seeks to teach Jonah a lesson in m... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And he prayed to YHWH, and said, “I pray you, O YHWH, was not this what I said when I was yet in my own country? Therefore I rushed to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repent yourself of the evil. Therefore no... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And YHWH said, “Do you do well to be angry?” YHWH then asked him if he really thought that he was doing well by being angry. This is leading up to the main message of the book, that what is right is for the strong to have compassion on the weak, and it is thus right for the strong to be forgiving... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made for himself a shelter, and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city.' Perhaps Jonah had taken YHWH's words as signifying that maybe he was being too impatient when in fact YHWH h... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And YHWH God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, in order that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his evil situation.' The shelter had clearly failed to protect Jonah as the ship had failed to protect the mariners, and their own religion had failed to protect t... [ Continue Reading ]
‘But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, so that it withered.' However, next morning a worm ‘prepared by God' chewed away at the gourd with the result that it withered and died, thus providing no more shade. Jonah now had no protection from his evil situa... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And it came about, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat Jonah's head so that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” Furthermore when the sun arose He prepared a sultry east wind which incre... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the gourd?” And he said, “I do well to be angry, even to death.” God knew that the reason for Jonah's request was that he was angry that the gourd had been destroyed or because it had been removed from protecting him, and He therefore asked hi... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And YHWH said, “You have had regard for the gourd, for which you have not laboured, nor made it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night, and should not I have regard for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern betwe... [ Continue Reading ]