Jonah's Anger, and the Gourd

“But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray Thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil. Therefore now, 0 Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me: for it is better for me to die than to live. Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?” &c., etc. — Jonah iv. 1-11. “Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?” — Gen. iv. 6. “• Although the Jig-tree shall not blossom.” — Habak. iii. 17.

THIS chapter describes the effect produced on Jonah’s mind by the Lord’s mercy to penitent Nineveh, and the method taken by the Lord to rebuke and correct him.

When God saw the works of the Ninevites, that they turned from their evil ways, and when He repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them, and He did it not; this “displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.” A marvellous state of mind in a man of God contemplating a splendid instance of the Lord’s long-suffering — His mercy to them that repent, and His grace in blessing and prospering the preaching of His servant! It is, indeed, difficult to enter into Jonah’s state of mind sufficiently to do him justice as well as to condemn his error. But while his sin is here exposed for condemnation, let us do him, at least, this justice, — to bear in remembrance that it is exposed by himself. It is he himself who has put on record the story of his inexcusable frame of spirit. He has ingenuously recorded for all generations the feelings with which, at this painful crisis, he was exercised, concealing nothing, and nothing extenuating. He softens not the expressions which he felt were necessary to indicate the violence of his emotion.

The prophet, with his own pen, narrates that he was “displeased,” — nay, “displeased exceedingly,” — nay, farther, that “he was very angry.”

Let us not forget, therefore, that he has with much simplicity and frankness owned all his sin in this matter. He has “acknowledged his transgression: and his iniquity he has not hid.” All his heart he has laid bare and open. He was afraid lest he should be regarded as a false prophet; and while, by the Ninevites, in their softened and subdued frame of mind, this was not likely to occur, yet among the Israelites, in their wild and perverse rebelliousness, it was highly probable. The treatment which they’ were ever ready to mete out to their prophets, is too clearly implied in Christ’s upbraiding question, “Which of the prophets have not your fathers killed?” They would lie on the watch for anything that might be perverted into a handle against them and their commission; and Jonah, no doubt, anticipated wnth perfect agony the laughter and ridicule with which he should be received on his return, as having gone on a fool’s errand; threatening the greatest city in the world with destruction in a specified time, and returning without a hair of their heads being injured! He foresaw the utter weakening of his hands, — the destruction of his usefulness, — among his countrymen. The overthrow of Nineveh by Divine judgments, according to his proclamation, would most mightily have strengthened him on his return to his countrymen, enforcing the repentance which he should preach to them also; and although he could not, save most inhumanly, have rejoiced in the perdition of the great city, yet the favourable reaction that might have ensued among Israel, he had apparently begun to calculate upon. He expected to return with a terrible instance to quote of the truth implied in the psalmist’s question to the peculiar people, “He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not He correct” yov, .? But when this was taken out of his hands; and not only so, but the issue turned against him, — in the sense of being manifestly capable of being wrested by Israel to their own destruction, and to the painful questioning of His Divine commission as a prophet; Jonah’s heart despaired of his country; and the event — so infinitely blessed to Nineveh — he saw would be turned to the spiritual and eternal damage of his “kinsmen according to the flesh.” It was not his own honour merely, nor chiefly, nor indeed at all, that Jonah cared for. Anything so grovelling is not for a moment to be imagined in the case of a servant of God, so exercised, so true, so loyal, so ingenuous, and truthful as Jonah was. But the contempt likely to fall on himself as a prophet, he saw would fall on the honour of the Lord who had sent him; and the people who were dear to him as his owm countrymen, he saw would be confirmed in their mockings and perverseness; and so would ultimately incur the very destruction from which Nineveh had by timeous repentance delivered herself, and from which Israel, alarmed by Nineveh’s destruction, might have delivered herself, had the original denunciation taken effect. All his official influence in and over Israel, which the destruction of Nineveh might have greatly confirmed, he beholds suddenly scattered and destroyed. His fond hopes for his country he suddenly sees Tolighted. He was afraid, indeed, from the first, that it might be so. It was for this reason that he attempted from the first to evade the commission to Nineveh. Was not this his saying when he was yet in his country? Therefore he fled before unto Tarshish (ver. 2).

And mark here, and in confirmation of this explanation of his displeasure and anger, — mark with what emphasis he speaks of his country. “Was not this my saying while I was yet in my country?” “My country!” My own country! He is not merely pointing out the locality where he said this originally. He is indicating that his heart is full of thoughts about his “country;” about the bearing of this matter on his “country;” his “kinsmen according to the flesh, for whom his heart’s desire and prayer to God is, that they might be saved.” He is viewing it intensely in the light of its bearing upon his country; it is for his country’s sake that he is keenly agitated; it is in love to his own people that his emotions are stirred even beyond control. There is nothing selfish, worldly, mean, in this painful aberration of a godly man’s heart. It were easy to pour forth condemnations on him; but it is more difficult to emulate the strong love to God’s honour, and cause, and kingdom, and people, without which he could not have exhibited this unparalleled manifestation of character and temper. Assuredly he erred: he erred most grievously. Let no attempt be made to cover over the guilt of his procedure.

Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Still let no gross, and easy, and short-hand, and indiscrirainating denunciation be pronounced. It was manifestly in the ill- regulated and unbalanced force of principles and desires far from blame-worthy, that Jonah was hurried into his present sinful extremes of feeling. He erred not in lamenting the probable perversion of God’s mercy by the Israelites. It was no sin in Jonah to regret with his whole soul their probable wresting to their own destruction of this blessed event; their acceptance of it as a proof that Jonah had never been sent of God, that his pretensions now were proven false, and that his denunciations were only such as might safely be laughed to scorn. But he did err in not pouring his regrets and griefs in this matter into the bosom of God submissively. He did err greatly in not acquiescing in the Divine arrangement as righteous, and wise, and holy, and good, and best. He did err in not bringing all his own wisdom into subjection to the appointment of God, and placing his desires, with their relative hopes on the one hand, or their fears on the other, under the control and rein of the word and work of the Lord. Ought he not to have poured out his patriotic longings and spiritual love for Israel into the ear of the God of Israel? Ought he not to have bowed in repentance, and said, “Not my will, but Thine be done? “Ought he not to have rejoiced in the meantime in the deliverance of so very great ‘”a multitude of fellow-creatures, and trusted that the same God who had so unexpectedly given them repentance and salvation, could make even this event work, in its influence on Israel, in a very different direction from what the prophet feared — seeing that “with God all things are possible?” And instead of indulging in gloomy anticipations, ought he not joyfully to have celebrated the Divine power and mercy in crowning his ministry to the heathen city with such success, and implored, in quickening faith, a like blessing on his future labours in Israel? To grieve; to be “displeased;” was very inexcusable. But to be “exceedingly displeased;” to be “very angry;” angry with God; was lamentable sin!

Still this was the infirmity of a friend of God, and not the malice of an enemy. And that it was so, is very evident from the fact, that the prophet carried the whole matter to God in prayer.” And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray Thee,

O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, and slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil.”

Here Jonah seems to palliate, or rather justify, his flight, and to undo the repentance to which he had been already brought. He seems also to expostulate and remonstrate with God for sparing Nineveh. These are amazing instances of what the corruption of a believer may attain to, in its opposition to the will and work of God. But still the evidence that this is the corruption of a believer is conclusive, from the fact that Jonah carried the whole matter to God in the exercise of prayer. “He prayed unto the Lord, and said.” When his sorrow was stirred; while he mused painfully; while the Are of anxiety burned within him; he wisely resolved against “keeping silence.” He went with all his burden to the Lord; he opened up to Him all his grief. Even the wild tumultuous lustings of the flesh against the spirit, — he made the Lord cognisant of them all. He made God his counsellor; honestly and unreservedly he unbosomed himself to God; his whole case and his whole heart he laid open, even as they were, to Him. He had no secret from God. Even the injustice which his wild feelings did to God, — even that he did not conceal. Even those sinful emotions over which he had not yet obtained the mastery, he explains before the Lord, His very “inflrmity” he spreads out before Him; even though he seems to be forgetting “the years of the right hand of the Most High.”

Here is Jonah’s integrity; and here is Jonah’s safety.

1. Here is his integrity. He is no enemy of God; — he is a friend and child of God, notwithstanding the perplexity into which his feelings have fallen. He cannot rest in a state of distance from God. Wretched as he is, through the predominance of his own fears, and the complainings against God to which these fears lead him, he would be more wretched still were he to restrain prayer before God, shut up his soul from Him, and determinedly and consciously depart from Him by an evil heart of unbelief. Sick at heart, and overwhelmed with bitter despondency, he pours out his complaint unto the Lord; even though, through the temporary predominance of the flesh, it is a complaint against the Lord Himself. In every prayer of God’s children

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there is some mixture of sin. The mixture here is very conspicuous and very alarming. There is, however, a secret element of grace, a secret seed of faith and submission, — proved to be present by the confidence in God implied in making Him the referee and counsellor. When prayer is suppressed, duplicity is begun to reign. Iniquity is regarded in the heart; conscious sin is cherished and clung to; presumptuous iniquity has obtained dominion; and the soul is not upright; when God is shunned, and a cloak or mask of concealment drawn over the soul in His presence. But so long as all can yet be declared unto the Lord, even though it be your infirmity, tlierc integrity still reigns. And the Lord in infinite condescension will acknowledge it.

2. For, secondly, here was Jonah’s safety, as well as his integrity. But for this, he would, mentally and spiritually have been fleeing again from the Lord, even as formerly he attempted to flee to Tarshish. His danger formerly was in fleeing from the Lord. Agitated and alarmed, he fled froin the Lord. Agitated and alarmed now again, he flees to the Lord. This is the safety of his position now. He does not seek a refuge from God. He makes God his refuge. He tells Him the grounds of his alarm and agitation. He expostulates with God. He seeks to clear his case with God. And though there is excess and violence, and inexcusable haste and passion, still the Lord condescends to his prayer, stained though it is by such grievous infirmity.

He thus bore testimony to the reality of faith and grace that was in His servant; — and God is the best witness of His people’s estate. It was Jonah’s safety to call upon the Lord; for the Lord “hath not despised the prayer of the afflicted, nor hid His face when he hath cried:” nor is He ready to cast off or to reject our supplications because of their impurities and sins, provided we truly wait upon Him, and make Him the witness of all our desires, — the counsellor, and referee, and confidant in all that concerneth us.

Jonah had anticipated the sparing of Nineveh, provided they should repent. And he grounded this expectation on his knowledge of the character of God. “I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil.”

This is the uniform character assigned to God in the law, and the psalms, and the prophets. It is the memorial of God to all generations. It is the name, or the exhibition of character, by which He revealed Himself to Moses, and by which He desires in all ages to be known. “I knew that Thou art a gracious God;” — gratuitously benevolent; having a disposition of goodness; Fountain of actual mercy. Hence Thou art “slow to anger”; not speedily provoked, but long-suffering; being not willing that any should perish. Hence, also. Thou art “of great kindness,” abundant in goodness, and “repentest Thee of the evil.” Let it be carefully observed that all actual patience, kindness, mercy, and forgiveness are here traced up solely to the graciousness of God’s nature. It is in Himself alone that He linds reason for saving sinners. It is in His own nature exclusively that He finds ground and motive for bringing salvation. “Not for your sakes do I this, be it known unto you, O house of Israel, but for Mine own name’s sake.” In myself alone, I find the reason why I should ask you to return, and promise you a good reception when you do. And for this cause we ought in all our prayers to carry our appeal to the gracious disposition of God, as the only source and fountain of all our hopes. “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him may not perish, but have everlasting life.” “Of His own will begat He us by the word of His truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits from among His creatures.” “By grace are we saved “: “being justified freely by His grace.” Let us in prayer resign, therefore, the aid of everything save the grace of God. Let us ground our hopes alone on that, and on the righteousness of Christ which God in His grace has provided for us. Let us take all our encouragement in prayer from God only. Let His memorial and name be graven on our hearts for ever.

It was in accordance with this name, or memorial, or nature, or character, that God acted when He spared Nineveh; and however much His doing so might appear to Jonah adverse to the prospects of Israel, adverse to the prophet’s own usefulness, adverse to the promotion of God’s own glory, yet we may here learn that to exercise His mercy towards the truly penitent, God will — reverently speaking — run all hazard. Israel may biaspheme; and Israel may ridicule Jonah as a false prophet, and harden themselves aeainst His denunciations, remindinof him of the little harm that came on Nineveh, though he predicted a total and swift destruction. But God will not alter His memorial, nor resile from His gracious designs to the penitent, on that account. His name will be more honoured in the end; and in the meantime, if men will have it so, they may take occasion ta wrest His procedure to their own destruction; but the responsibility and the peril are their own. The legitimate use of God’s doings is very different; and it is hard for them to kick against the pricks. “The ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein.”

Thus, in general, the doctrine of free grace is frequently said to encourage men in sin; but we are not to modify the freeness of God’s offered mercy on pretence of taking care of the glory of God, and the maintenance of His law. This was substantially Jonah’s sin; — the sin of pretending to be more careful of God’s glory, and more qualified to advance it, than God Himself. It is a glorious fact that His thoughts are not as our thoughts; and we reduce them to a measure that would render them useless to ourselves, when we constrain them within the limits of our own judgment or capacity. God is able to vindicate His own procedure and all its principles; and He will do so without the aid of man’s wisdom. “The weakness of God is stronger than men; and the foolishness of God is wiser than men.”

But what sort of reasoning is this? “Therefore, now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me: for it is better for me to die than to live” (ver. 3). Most miserable inference; most painful exclamation! It is the exclamation of a believer, a saint, a man of God. But it is the cry of a soul far aside from its duty. Unable to guide either his mind or his ministry amidst the perplexity which the apparent vacillation or change of purpose on the part of God occasioned, Jonah prefers death to life. He prefers death to the apprehended dishonour of God and the destruction of His own usefulness as God’s prophet. Excessive though His grief is — uncontrolled though his feelings are — they are evidently the feelings and the grief of a godly man. An earthly-minded man were incapable of such emotions. Yet are they altogether indefensible and inexcusable. Our life is in the hands of God;

n and He can threaten the removal of it in a thousand ways, every one of them sufficient to cause a displeased prophet to repent of his rash desire. He had but escaped from a species of living death that had filled him with anguish, and extorted from him the most agonising cries for the Lord’s pity and deliverance: and how can he forget that God might again plunge him into the jaws of destruction, and “answer his prayer by terrible things in righteousness “!

Very different was the decision of Paul on the question of death, or life continued. He had “a desire to depart and be with Christ.” He felt that that was “far better.” Nevertheless, he saw that it was for the good of the Church that he should abide in the flesh. He was willing, therefore, to die or to live at the pleasure of the Lord. He lost and merged his own will in God’s; living or dying, he was the Lord’s. All the days of his appointed time would he wait patiently, till his change came. Unquestionably the chief element of Paul’s devotedness was in Jonah, though acting erroneously under a pressure which he could not bear, under a perplexity of feeling which he could not unravel. He fancied that it could not be serviceable for the Church that he should abide in the flesh. He saw, or thought he saw, all his usefulness destroyed. He judged according to his own wisdom, that to minister in the prophetic office in Israel, after the sparing of Nineveh, would henceforth be altogether unavailing; and the same consideration which reconciled Paul to live, induced Jonah, under a perverted imagination, to desire to die. But he erred in judging according to reason, to hunmn prospects and probabilities. He ought to have left all issues and results in the hand of God himself. His whole life, and all its serviceableness in the kingdom of the Lord, were in the Lord’s own disposal. And if circumstances in providence rendered his future prosecution of the duties of his office more difficult, more fruitless of good, more destitute of seeming results, ought he not to have said: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? Make a plain path before me, because of mine enemies. Lord, here am I: send me “?

But instead of this, he assumed the right of judging that the salvation of Nineveh would eclipse the honour of God, destroy the credit of his ministry, and harden the hearts of his countrymen. And rather than live to see such issues he would cry

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to be removed from the evil to come. “It is better for me to die than to live.”

The Lord reproves him in a twofold manner. First l)y a verbal and, secondly, by a symbolical rebuke.

I. First: — “Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?” How gracious! How condescending! How considerate! Feelling for the sad though sinful perplexity of His servant, the Lord does not break forth in punishment of his irritability, his petulance, his “anger” and “exceeding great displeasure.” He does not upbraid him for making his own narrow capacity the measure, by which to judge of the Divine will and the Divine procedure, in sparing that great city. He simply calls him to reflection. He points out to him his state of mind; “Doest thou well to be angry?” Thou art “angry “; Thou art morose; harsh in thy feelings, and uncontrolled in the expression of them; murmuring, complaining, angry at the good hand of God. Is this justifiable? “Doest thou well?” Hast thou ground for it? Thy grounds for joy and gladness are real; — a spared city; angels rejoicing over their repentance; thy God proved to be gracious, and merciful, and slow to anger, and of great kindness, repenting Him of the evil; thine own ministry eminently, marvellously, matchlessly successful. These are grounds for joy and gladness, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. These grounds of gratitude are plain and patent and present, immediate and sure and great. Thy grounds for displeasure, — are they not distant, future, imaginary, of thine own portending, at the best but doubtful, and such as events may negative and disappoint? Doest thou well, then, to be angry? Angry! angry at the good hand and good pleasure of the Lord!

11. Secondly: — The Lord resumes and continues this exyostulation, aided by a very significant and symbolical mode of tuition. He means to show to Jonah that the Lord’s heart was greatly set on Nineveh, wicked and provoking as it had been. He means to lead Jonah into sympathy with Himself concerning Nineveh. He means to show him how the Divine affections are twined around the human race as God’s own workmanship, capable of sharing His mercy, and tasting and knowing that He is gracious. And for

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this purpose He rears right suddenly, and soon removes, a little object for the prophet’s own affections to twine around.

And it happened thus. “So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city” (ver. 5).

There he sits! engrossed with the one solitary thought, luhat shall become of the city. Not an imagination of the thoughts of his heart can be spared from considering and contemplating to see what shall hecoine of the city. He takes time, indeed, to put a few rude branches together, forming a rural, rugged booth — a little arbour, rapidly extemporised; and he takes time for that, solely because it serves his purpose, and shelters him from the burning eastern sun, while he watches to see tvhat sltall become of the city. But the Lord is to bring into play some object on which the prophet’s tender affections may strongly rest. It must not be such as would thwart the stream of all his thoughts, and turn them aside from considering loltat shall become of the city. Anything so introduced to his notice now would prove oftensive and unwelcome; and would counteract the very purpose of the Lord in bringing it forward. Let it be something serviceable to him, while he sits and still watches to see what shall become of the city. Let a large-leafed, spreading plant ascend, and cover all his rustic and unsightly bower, leaving no crevice for the burning rays to pierce and beat upon the watcher’s weary frame. Let the palmcrist, ivy-like, thatch with sudden beauty and impervious foliage, and thereby altogether perfect, the prophet’s little booth. It is precisely what his strangely troubled heart will dearly welcome in its present engrossing exercise.

“And the Lord prepared a gourd,* and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his gi’ief.” And it wrought precisely as the Lord expected and designed. “So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd” (ver 6).

Ah! so had the living God, the God of love, been” exceeding

* See “Biblical Natural Science,” vol. ii., p. 540, and “Science and Christian Thought,” pp. 169-171, by John Duns, D.D., Professor of Natural Science in the New College, Edinburgh.

o-lad “over Nineveh’s repentance; the same God who, in the form of man, sat afterwards over a city that would not repent, and was “exceeding sorrowful,” shedding tears of matchless and unfathomable grief. By this beautiful device of the gourd, and Jonah’s exceeding gladness, the Lord is preparing Jonah, if not to be sflad in Nineveh’s salvation, at least to understand the Lord’s own gladness.

“But God prepared a worm, when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said. It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death “(verses 7-9).

So highly had he begun to value the gourd! So ill could he bear the want of it! So uncontrollable were his feelings when it withered! So deeply had his affections twined around it!

Who but must admire the Divine wisdom in turning off in this direction all the keen intensity of the prophet’s excited, morbid, powerful affections? The very emotions of anguish and anger with which his perplexed soul was formerly contemplating the deliverance of Nineveh, are now turned towards lamenting the destruction of his welcome, beloved, brief -lived gourd. And now the Lord argues with him: — If thine affections were twined around the gourd, because it pleased thy fancy and served thy wish, — wilt thou not allow mine to repose with satisfaction on the teeming multitudes, the workmanship of my hands, which throng the alarmed, the humbled, the obedient, the saved city? “Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night;” — this little shrub; in no sense thine own; neither planted, nor watered, nor cared for, nor pruned by thee; brieflived, too — passing hastily away in a night from the place that only for a day hath known it. And “should not I spare” immortal men; the workmanship of my hands; cultivated and cared for, and fed, and clothed, and dealt with variously in patience and in pity, because I am not willing that any should perish, but rather that they should come to repentance: — “Should 3o6 Conclusion. not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”

Is there anything in which I am, like Jonah, unreconciled to the will of God — His will in His Word; His procedure in providence? And when He expostulates kindly with me, — “Doest thou well to be angry?” — do I allow His condescending remonstrance to pass away unimproved? Let me beware. God’s purpose, though unwelcome to me is very dear to Him: it is after the counsel of His own will; it is according to the good pleasure of His will; and I must, if I am a child of God, be constrained to feel that it is so, and constrained to sympathise with Him, and aquiesce.

And He may teach me practically, as He taught Jonah. He may send me a welcome gift — a lovely, serviceable ivy plant — sudden, acceptable, gladsome gourd.

I become exceeding glad of my gourd. My heart entwines around it. This pleasing prospect; this budding hope; this successful movement; this dawn of charming friendship with the bright-hearted and the noble; this light of sunshine falling most unlooked for on my vexed and weary heart; this welcome visitant, the golden haired little one within my earthly home, crowing in arms, searching my eye for the kindling glance of joy and love, and dancing gleefully on finding it; — ah! in many a form my gourd may grow; and I am exceeding glad of my gourd. Even when I quarrel with God, I may be all the more glad of my gourd.

For what end may it have been planted? For what end may it have grown? To the end, perhaps, that it may wither, and droop, and die; and that my heart, untractable, may at last, by losing it, be taught to feel, that if the object which my poor foolish love fastens on be hard to part with, how infinitely wrong in me to desire God to abandon those purposes which His infinitely wise will hath cherished from eternity, and which He hath bound in with and wrapt around my destiny, at once to bless and train me — exercising my faith and patience, stripping me of all creature confidence that He may fill me with uncreated good, and rendering me one trophy more among the many thousands of the poor and needy whom angels have seen sitting not desolate even with every idol shattered, and whom angels have heard, through grace, exclaiming: — Though my flesh and my heart fail; though my house be not so with God: though the fig-tree shall not blossom; yet will I rejoice in the Lord; for “He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: this is all my salvation, and all my desire.”