Jonah: the Heart of Repentance
Return: the Minor Prophets – Jonah – Revd. Buffy Langdown
May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight Lord. Amen
I must confess that I really love the Book of Jonah, I think he might just be my favourite prophet. I like it because it's essentially about a person throwing a series of tantrums against God. God wants Jonah to preach judgement against the people in Nineveh, and Jonah throws a wobbly and runs the other way.
If you know anything about Ninevah, you can understand why Jonah ran. The Ninevites were truly terrible. They came and conquered by fear. They wanted the people to be afraid of them.
But Jonah, the son of Amittai, received a divine command from the Lord to go to Nineveh, a great city, and proclaim a message of judgment against it. Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was infamous for its wickedness and cruelty. It was a place filled with fear and dread, and Jonah understandably wanted nothing to do with it but not necessarily for the reason we might think.
Jonah’s reason for fleeing from the presence of the LORD. He knew that God would have shown mercy to Nineveh.
- for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.
The depth of the prophet’s embittered cry to God is almost laughable. After all, Jonah is expressing his anger over the very attributes of God that we sing praises about on Sunday mornings. This whole prayer just comes across like a child throwing a particularly senseless tantrum. And of course, Jonah’s answer to his great anger is equally laughable: just kill me now. Jonah is literally taking the stance that he would rather die than live serving such a good gracious, and loving God!
However, before we take our seat too high in judgment upon Jonah, let us give him credit for one aspect of his prayer: Jonah was not afraid to be honest before God. To be fair, there is a fine line between honesty and disrespect; however, as the Psalms show over and over, God wants us to be honest in our prayers. If we feel abandoned by God, we should tell Him so. If we are disciplined by God, we should ask Him to reveal our sin. we should not be hesitant to be honest with our God.
How glorious and gracious is God’s response to Jonah! Would God not be entirely justified in giving Jonah the death that he so desired? The LORD could have responded to Jonah with all the wrath and anger that Jonah longed to see poured out upon the Ninevites, but God refrained. Instead, the LORD simply asks Jonah if his anger is justified.
The words “Are you right to be angry?” captures the moment. Jonah had condemned God for not being angry (v. 2), but now God challenged Jonah for being angry. This is also true of how God deals with us. Like Jonah, we always deserve for God to turn upon us with wrath and judgment; however, He repeated responds with grace, love, and mercy instead.
Jonah offers no verbal reply to God’s question in verse four; instead, the prophet exits the city, builds a booth, and watches to see what is going to happen to the city of Nineveh. It seems to be that Jonah was hoping that God would change His mind once more. Perhaps Jonah hoped that the repentance of the Ninevites would be so fleeting that God would turn back once more, delivering the destruction that He had previously promised.
Nineveh is in the north of present-day Iraq; therefore, Jonah had great sense to build a shelter for himself to hide from the powerful Middle Eastern sun. Nevertheless, Jonah’s shelter was obviously inadequate at saving him from the heat. So, God appoints a plant to grow from the ground and cover his head. The expressed purpose of this plant was for sparing Jonah from the discomfort of the sun. God gave to Jonah a small, gift of grace, and it made
Jonah exceedingly glad. This is small act of physical comfort leads to the only occurrence of Jonah being happy.
Jonah’s moment of pleasure is quickly undone by this quick series of events that God orchestrates. Just as the LORD appointed the plant to shelter Jonah from the sun so does He beckon a worm and the wind to purpose. The worm kills the plant, and the scorching wind beat down upon the prophet until he becomes faint. The presence of this wind, combined with Jonah’s lack of shade from the sun, caused the prophet to once more ask God for death.
Jonah now has requested his own death twice now, and God responds similarly to last time. However, God now specifically asks if Jonah is justified in his anger concerning the plant, and Jonah offers a rebuttal this time, insisting that his anger is justified.
Have you noticed that throughout this chapter, we have seen a change in how the author refers to God. The chapter began with the author referring to God as the LORD. The LORD is God’s personal and holy name. So, throughout the book, God is referred to as the LORD (or Yahweh) whenever He is dealing with Jonah, but He is called God (or Elohim) whenever He is dealing with the Ninevites. However, as the LORD appointed the plant and wind, He is called God. However, now as God brings home the message of this book, He is once more called the LORD. The difference between these two names is subtle but worth our notice. Do have a look if you have time this week.
The LORD now calls into question Jonah’s pity for the plant that God had appointed. God is very intentional in reminding Jonah that the prophet did not labour for the plant or make it grow. The plant simply appeared without warning one night, and God destroyed it the following night. The plant was for all practical purposes nothing about which to be concerned. It was no great miracle of God to grow the plant nor to destroy it. However, Jonah showed great concern and pity for the plant. In fact, Jonah’s pity for the plant can be translated as compassion. Jonah had great compassion for this small and insignificant work of God.
If Jonah was able to have such a deep compassion for a simple plant, God reasons that He is completely justified for having compassion upon the city of Nineveh. The compassion of God seeps through His wording of this question. In the second verse of chapter one, God described Nineveh as a great city whose wickedness had come up into His presence. However, now God calls them a great city with 120,000 people “who do not know their right hand from their left.” By speaking this way, God is implying that the Ninevites were ignorant of spiritual matters. Though ignorance is not a warrant for the compassion of God in and of itself, the LORD is using it as a point of reasoning with Jonah. The child-like ignorance of the Ninevites only emphasized their humanity, and even though Nineveh was an evil city, its inhabitants were still image-bearers of God. Regardless of the depravity of their sin, people are still more valuable than plants. Jonah’s values were severely out of place.
- “and also many animals” This is one of the strangest phrases in the entire book. It is easy for us to understand why God would have compassion upon 120,000 people because, after all, they are people. They are humans that were created in the image of God, but cattle are not image-bearers. Thus, why would animals be the final thing that God mentions in this book?
Though I like the thought of caring for all of God’s creation, I do not think that God is necessarily making that case here in Jonah. Instead, I would argue that God is pointing out the prophet’s ridiculously mindset. I believe that God’s intention for this phrase is kind of like God saying, “You cared deeply for the plant, and so don’t you think that I have the right to care deeply for 120,000 people that are completely blind spiritually? But if you don’t care the people like I do, maybe you will care about their animals.”
Ultimately, Jonah wanted God to destroy the city of Nineveh because he hated them. They were notorious for their evil and brutality and were a direct threat to the kingdom of Israel. However, God wanted to show Jonah that no people are too far from His sovereign reach or love. As bearers of His image, the LORD had compassion upon the Ninevites, even though they were a barbaric people.
The little book of Jonah serves as a poignant reminder of the power of repentance, humility, and faith in God’s unfailing love and mercy. It teaches us that even in our darkest moments, we can turn to God and find hope and deliverance.
As we reflect on Jonah’s story, let’s examine our own lives. Are there areas where we’re trying to run from God’s call? Are we resisting his will out of fear or pride? Are there areas where we need to turn back to God in repentance and faith? Are we facing challenges or struggles that seem impossible or overwhelming? Let’s take heart in knowing that God hears our prayers, even from the depths of despair, and that salvation ultimately comes from Him.
Jonah leaves us with an unanswered question that is meant to challenge our concept of compassion and its recipients. It is a question of who is worthy of the love of God. Of course, we learn from the rest of Scripture that the answer is no one. Not one person has ever been deserving of God’s compassion, not Jonah, not the Ninevites, and not us today. Every person would be like the people of Nineveh, not knowing their right hand from their left, unless the LORD intervened and brought us His grace. This is the glory and work of Jesus Christ. Though none of us deserved the love of God, the LORD became a human, lived the sinless life that we were supposed to live, died the death that we were meant to die as punishment for our sin, resurrected to life to conquer sin and death, and ascended to the Father to serve as our high priest. Because of that marvellous grace of God, we must long to have compassion on the compassionless, just as the Father did with Nineveh. The heart of Jonah selfishly accepted the grace of God yet refused to show it to others. The heart of God, however, looks upon the sinful world with pity and compassion, longing that people would turn to Him in repentance so that He can show them grace instead of wrath.
May the LORD ever make us more like Himself. Amen