Minor Prophets LIV: Petulant Prophet

Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the LORD God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.” But the LORD said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?” Jonah 4:5-11

God's has one final lesson for Jonah...the big sissy whiny boy.

We begin to get a sense of what is going to happen in verse 5-11 by what is said in v.4, ““Is it right for you to be angry?” God’s rhetorical question to Jonah which ends up coming across as a statement: He had no right to be angry. The Bible then launches into a new avenue of narrative. Jonah goes out and sat down at a place east of the city (probably to murmur and gripe). There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. The LORD God provided a leafy plant that gave shade for Jonah to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. God then provides a worm that kills the plant and exposes Jonah to the scorching day’s sun. Jonah gets woozy. Like the complainer he is he again wishes his own death. God reiterates a similar question to the first about Assyria, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

We then see the point of God’s “game” with a petulant Jonah. He cared about his own comfort and physical welfare but cared little or nothing for the spiritual welfare of an entire city of people. Both of these concerns amounted to nothing more that selfishness on both counts. Jonah was angered when things didn’t go his way. Angry enough to even die (to me this seems more as rhetoric than seriousness). Jonah is a chronic whiner and probably lived “crisis to crisis” and they were crises he caused himself or they were only in his head.

Regardless, God was showing Jonah that he had no reason to pout or be angry over Nineveh or the plant because Jonah did not give the life or sustain it…not even his own life. A plant of little value was grieved over by Jonah but not the potential loss of half a million souls lost in pagan culture. His values were distorted. Jonah looks like a lot of people right within the church. People more interested in others making sure they adhere to denominational issues rather than salvational ones.