Chapter 4

And Jonah is hopping mad at this result.  Jonah asks God to take his life, because that is better than seeing these evil people in Ninevah saved.  He really had something personal against them it seems.  God asks "Do you do well to be angry?", Jonah 4:4  That is a question for us all!

The booth, the plant.  Jonah is very hardheaded.  But the lesson is that if Jonah is angry that the plant died - the plant he didn't plant, didn't labor to maintain, and so on - why would God not rather save than destroy?

2022 - These verses:

"And the LORD said, "You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night." [Jon 4:10 ESV]

"And should not I 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?"" [Jon 4:11 ESV]

Jonah has mercy on a mere plant - he mourns its loss, because it gave him a little relief from the sun.  Jonah is angry at the loss of a bush.  Yet he is angry at God for sparing 120,000 walking talking people in Ninevah, who didn't know any better until Jonah got there and told them.  These will pray to God for many years.  He will receive their worship, and that is a better thing than destroying them.

2023 - In context of today's culture. Jonah might have been a racist.  Maybe that's exactly why God sent him.  He seems to hate Ninevah with an irrational hate...but I don't know enough about the time or the nations involved to be sure of that.  That kind of prejudicial thinking might explain Jonah's attitude about Ninevah.  He hated them as a people, to the point he would prefer that they be wiped out than saved by repentance.  He wanted them in hell.  We don't see many in the Bible that hate like this.

2024 - This verse:  1

1 And should not I 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?" [Jon 4:11 ESV]. 

Let it never be said that God saves only the brilliant.  These people in Ninevah were dumb as rocks, but God still chose to save them.  I would suggest that enough repented to forestall God's wrath, but that not everyone did.  Some would likely have continued right on as they were.  After all, it was a big place.  So God gave them time, that those who had seen the light might witness and preach and make converts, so that the city might be forever saved.  But from Nahum, we know that did not happen.  Ninevah went right back to her old ways, to evil instead of good, and as a result....

"Based on this account, it is clear that the siege of Nineveh came at the hands of the king of Akkad and the king of Media during the summer of 612 B.C. Three months later, the city fell. The king of Assyria died, and the city was plundered until September 14 when the invading army departed. By 605 B.C. the Assyrian Kingdom officially ended, and Babylonia was on the rise."  https://www.gotquestions.org/Nineveh-destroyed.html.  Jonah was there in about 760 BC.

First notes, 9/2/18

Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’

Jonah 2:4 NKJV

I read this sitting home on a Sunday morning after drinking too much wine last night to go to church.

Every  day we stray far enough, we sin enough, to earn a just death sentence  from God.  Any day we wake up shows His mercy and His forgiveness.

No matter what we've done, we can repent and He can forgive.

"...for  I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and  abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm."

Jonah 4:2 NKJV