Jonah 3:1 And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,
Jonah 3:2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
We are not told how much time elapsed before God commissioned Jonah the second time, but I assume it was immediately. God had a specific purpose for Jonah. God had chosen him to take His message to the people of Nineveh.
Why did it have to be Jonah? Why does he choose some to preach, others to teach, others to lead, others to work with their hands, etc. We may not understand these things now, but the important point is that God has a plan and purpose for each one of us as His servant. There is someone, or maybe lots of someones, for whom we have been chosen to be God’s representative in some type of ministry or ministries. We should never belittle or resent that opportunity to serve Him. We should just desire to be clay in His hands to accomplish His purpose.
Isaiah 64:8 “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”
Jonah 3:3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
Jonah 3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
This time Jonah immediately gets up and goes to Nineveh in obedience to God. Nineveh was so large that it took three days to travel through it. As Jonah begins his journey through the city, he cries out the message of God—“In 40 days Nineveh is going to be overthrown.” I thought the Hebrew for this word was quite interesting considering the response of the people; it includes “to turn about or over; by implication, to change, overturn, return, pervert…be converted…” God knows the end from the beginning; He knew how the people of Nineveh would respond, and the Spirit inspired the word that reflected that knowledge. As they heard the declaration, they took it to mean that they would be destroyed/conquered—which was the intended impact of the message. As a result, many people were converted.
Jonah 3:5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
What was the result of Jonah’s obedience to preach God’s message? The people of Nineveh believed Almighty God—all of the people from the poorest to the richest, from the least respected to the most honored. As evidence of the sincerity of their belief, they declared a fast and put on sackcloth, a rough, coarse material that was used to carry feed for the animals and was worn as a sign of great grief, distress, or penitence.
Guzik: “The word “repentance” isn’t in this passage; but repentance isn’t really a word, it is something you do – and these people did repentance. One can have repentance without the word itself being spoken, and one can say the word “repentance” and never truly repent.”
Jonah 3:6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
Jonah 3:7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
Jonah 3:8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
Jonah 3:9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
When word came to the King of Nineveh, he got off his throne, took off his robe of authority, clothed himself in sackcloth and sat in the ashes (reminiscent of Job). He sent a proclamation throughout the city proclaiming and calling for the people to wear sackcloth. He also encouraged the people to cry out loudly to God—for mercy seems to be implied. The king acknowledges that evil dominates their society and that violence is the rule, not the exception, and asks the people to repent of their evil practices. The king realizes that God could choose to show mercy and spare their lives.
Oh, if only the leaders of America would lead the people to respond to God’s call today!
Jonah 3:10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
God saw their works, their actions. (A good place to reiterate that our actions prove our faith.) They turned from their evil ways; this implies that they began doing the things that were pleasing to God. After seeing the response of repentance, God decided not to destroy the city.
This is just the response that Jonah had expected and did not want to happen; he had no love for these people who were in his mind savages. He wasn’t looking at them through the eyes of the LORD. God is clear in the scripture that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but would rather they repent.
Ezekiel 33:11 “Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live….”
2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Jonah 4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
Jonah 4:2 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.
Now we find out that although Jonah obeyed God, he did so out of duty and not out of love. In fact, he was very angry that Nineveh had repented and been spared.
Now we find out why Jonah had run away from God the first time. He knew that God was—
gracious (kind, looking on man with pity and mercy)
merciful (compassionate, unwilling to give pain or punish)
slow to anger (patient, long-suffering)
having great kindness (ready to show grace, tenderness, generosity, and compassion in abundance)
Jonah knew that God would respond to repentance by deciding not to destroy the city. Jonah remembered the words from the Torah:
Exodus 34:6-7 “And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.”
Spurgeon: “There are some men who leave off preaching because they do not succeed; but here was one who was ready to give up because he did succeed. It is strange that such a good man as Jonah was should fall into such a foolish state of mind; but God still has a great many unwise children. You can find one if you look in the right place; I mean, in a looking-glass.”
Courson: “Mercy imitates God and irritates Satan. If you want to be like God, be merciful. Be forgiving. Be slow to anger, slow to criticize, slow to find fault.”
Constable quoting Wiersbe: “The heart of every problem is the problem of the heart, and that’s where Jonah’s problems were to be found.”
Jonah 4:3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
Jonah became petty and childish as he continued to talk to God. He begs God to kill him; he would rather die than live and see the people of Nineveh live in righteousness before God.
Jonah 4:4 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?
God is so patient and understanding. He knew the reputation of the Assyrians and how evil they were to those they had conquered. They were known to skin people alive, to cut off appendages, and to stack a mound of heads in a conquered city to warn the people not to even think of rebelling.
God dealt with Jonah’s anger with wisdom and patience, causing him to examine himself. He asked Jonah a question, “Does it make you happy or make you feel better to be angry?”
Jonah’s response reminds me of how the Pharisees responded to Jesus when He performed miracles on the Sabbath. They weren’t at all happy for the people who were healed; they were angry that the LORD was not following the traditions of men that they took such pride in following.
Jonah 4:5 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.
Jonah went out of the city and built a booth or hut on the east side to sit in the shade and waited to see what would happen next.
Courson: “Here is a guaranteed recipe for depression: Do what Jonah did and distance yourself from people. Here are ten steps to overcoming depression: Step 1 - Do something good for someone else. Step 2 - Repeat Step 1 ten times.”
Jonah 4:6 And the LORD God 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 grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
“gourd” – JFB describes this gourd as the “castor-oil plant, commonly called ‘palm-christ’ (palma-christi ). It grows from eight to ten feet high. Only one leaf grows on a branch, but that leaf being often more than a foot large, the collective leaves give good shelter from the heat. It grows rapidly, and fades as suddenly when injured.”
God caused a gourd to grow up and provide extra shade for Jonah in an effort to comfort Jonah. Jonah was cheered up and comforted by the gourd.
Spurgeon: "Those who are angry with God show the littleness of their minds. ‘Little things please little minds;' so a gourd made Jonah glad.”
Jonah 4:7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
Jonah 4:8 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.
When the sun rose the next day, the heat dried up the gourd. Then God sent a quiet, hot east wind; the Hebrew indicated a “sirocco” which Webster defines as “an oppressive, relaxing wind from the desert.” The heat from the sun was relentless and Jonah covered himself (from the word fainted); he was so miserable he wanted to die.
Jonah 4:9 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.
Again, God spoke to Jonah. The same Hebrew word is used for “angry,” but this time I think it makes more sense to say “grieved” (another one of the choices according to the Hebrew). He asked Jonah if he was grieved at losing the gourd. Jonah basically said, “Yes, I’m sorry the gourd withered, so sorry that I wish I were dead.”
Jonah 4:10 Then said the LORD, 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:
Jonah 4:11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
God then used the circumstances to teach Jonah. He pointed out to Jonah that he had pity on the gourd; he had wanted the gourd spared even though Jonah had invested absolutely nothing of himself in that gourd. God, the Creator, on the other hand, had at least 120,000 people or children (depending on how you interpret “that cannot discern…left hand”) of His creation, living in the city of Nineveh, let alone the cattle.
The obvious implication—Aren’t these people more deserving of your pity and sorrow than a gourd?
Our tendency is to focus on self. I think one of the biggest lessons in the story of Jonah is that we need to learn to look at the world through God’s eyes. The only way we can even attempt to do that is by knowing God and understanding Who He Is. The only way we can attain that type of knowledge is through intimate fellowship with Him through the ministry of His Spirit in our hearts through His word and through worship and prayer. I just can’t emphasize enough the importance of immersing oneself in the Word of God. That is the whole motivation behind my sharing my journey through the scripture with others on the web.
Again, I am reminded of a song, “Looking Through His Eyes,” by Mike Otto.
Let me see this world, dear LORD, as though I were looking through Your eyes.
A world of men who don’t want you, LORD, but a world for which You died.
Let me kneel with You in the garden, blur my eyes with tears of agony.
For if once I could see this world the way You see, I just know I’d serve You more faithfully.
Let me see this world, dear LORD, Through Your eyes when men mocked your holy name.
When they beat You and spat upon you, LORD, let me love them, as you loved them—just the same.
Let me stand high above my petty problems, and grieve for men hell-bound eternally.
For if once I could see this world the way You see, I just know I’d serve You more faithfully.
A friend of mine, Scott McClintock, had some thought-provoking comparisons of Jonah and the Church from God’s perspective:
My (God’s) church is just like Jonah. I have given My church its marching orders, and it has refused to move because of its prejudices, traditions, and man-made doctrines. It truly has become the Church of Laodicea.
My church, in its self-centeredness, is running from Me and is now asleep in the bottom of the ship.
I will wake My church up with the storm of My judgment.
When My church dies to self, then it will walk in My way; and My glory will be seen, My power will be experienced and a great harvest of souls will take place.
JFB = Jamieson, Fausset & Brown