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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Jonah 4:1 - 4:4
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Why should Jonah have been so displeased and vexed, and rendered even weary of life, by an event which one would think fitted to inspire thankfulness and joy into every well-constituted mind? “Because,” says Calvin, expressing the general view of commentators, “he was unwilling to appear as a vain and lying prophet.” And Dr Adam Clarke, whetting the matter a little more sharply upon poor Jonah, says, “He had more respect to his high sense of his own honour, than he had to the goodness and mercy of God. He appeared to care little whether 620,000 persons were destroyed or not, so he might not pass for a deceiver, or one that denounced a falsity.” This, indeed, is the view that very naturally suggests itself on a somewhat hasty and superficial consideration of the subject; and yet there is something about the circumstances of Jonah, something even in the very account given of his vexation, which can scarcely fail to beget a conviction of there being a still deeper ground for the painful feelings that agitated his mind. For, if Jonah was so greatly to blame here, if his own credit with the world stood so high in his esteem, that he would rather have seen the largest city on the earth buried in ruins, than that he should be exposed to the taunt from thoughtless and inconsiderate persons (for such alone in the circumstances could express it) of having spoken what had not literally taken place, he must have belonged, we shall not say to the lowest class of saints, but to the worst specimens of humanity; he must have had the breast of a demon, rather than of a man. And such Dr Clarke not obscurely insinuates was the case, when he asks, “Who but he who is of a fiendish nature will be grieved because God’s mercy triumphs over judgment?”
But this is plainly to give a darker view of Jonah’s character and conduct than the circumstances of the case warrant, or than is borne out by the later allusions of scripture respecting him. Had such been really the ground of Jonah’s uneasiness he would have deserved the severest rebuke and chastisement, especially considering what he had already suffered from warring against the mind and purposes of God. And yet the Lord does no more than mildly expostulate with him, and, by a course of treatment much more remarkable for its gentleness and condescension than for its severity, tries to convince him of his mistake. Not only so; but, when we come down to New Testament times, we find such honourable mention made of Jonah, and such a close resemblance drawn by our Lord himself between his own mission as a prophet and that of Jonah’s, that we cannot rest with satisfaction in the view suggested above. We cannot believe such marked and honourable reference would have been made to him, if he had been the selfish, perverse, unreasonable creature he is represented to have been; but are rather driven to the conviction, that deeper views and less discreditable feelings gave the tone to his behaviour here, than such as a hasty glance might naturally dispose one to imagine.
Besides, viewing the matter even on the lowest ground, and with reference to the prophet’s repute in the world, it must surely have appeared to any one but the most depraved or childish being, a far more ennobling distinction to have been, under God, the reformer of a great people and the saviour of their city, than simply to have been known as the herald who had truly announced its doom. Though what he proclaimed had not literally taken place, his preaching was still the instrumental cause of saving the city from ruin; and if carnal ambition had wrought in his bosom—if worldly honour, in reality, was the jewel so dear to him—it seems hard to understand why he should have wished an opposite result, at least so passionately wished it as to have longed for death because he had been disappointed in the object of his desire.
But what reason have we to suppose that Jonah’s vexation and concern turned at all upon the point of his own veracity, and, as connected with that, his reputation in the world? This is nowhere expressed, nor even hinted at in the text, and is but an inference hastily and unwarrantably drawn, from there being apparently no other motive at hand to account for such keen dissatisfaction and pungent sorrow in the prophet’s bosom. It is carefully to be noted, however, that in his address to God not only is no stress laid upon the failure of the prediction, but no mention whatever is made of it; the exercise of the divine clemency, and the saving of Nineveh from destruction, is the whole that is brought into view. So much had the thought of this weighed upon the prophet’s feelings, weighed even as a depressing load upon the energies of his mind, that he alleges it now as the main reason why he had at first shunned the charge committed to him, and fled to Tarshish. But the charge then given, it will be remembered, did not require Jonah to announce the destruction of Nineveh; it simply required him to cry against the Ninevites, because their sins were crying for vengeance in the ear of God. This would certainly have betokened that they were in danger of the divine judgments; but it would not have placed Jonah in a position in which he run any risk of having his veracity impeached. It was only on the second commission being given that the word put into his mouth took the definite form of a proclamation, that the city should be overthrown in forty days. Yet, in the expression he now gave to his feelings, he appears to have entirely overleapt this new turn of affairs, and throws himself back upon the original ground of dissatisfaction—he is vexed and chagrined for no other “reason, so far as we can judge, than that there was here a new exercise of the divine forbearance, and a city spared that had deserved to go to perdition. This precisely is the point we have to account for: Why should such a manifestation of the divine goodness have sunk so heavily upon the soul of this man of God? why, when apparently gaining, beyond all reasonable expectation, the great end for which he had come to exercise in Nineveh the calling of a prophet, should he have regarded the very success of his mission as taking from him all that was worth living for?
It is manifest, from the simple stating of the question, that Jonah must have viewed his mission to Nineveh, not as an ultimate thing, but as occupying the relation of means to an end—as connected with some other object of pre-eminent importance, to which he thought it should have been made altogether subservient. If Nineveh alone had been concerned, he could not but have rejoiced in the result actually obtained; but there was an ulterior and higher object in his eye, on which it seemed to tell so unfavourably, that sorrow the most pungent filled his heart. And to learn what this object was, we have no need to travel into the regions of conjecture; we have only to think of his calling as a prophet in Israel, and to suppose him bent on the attainment of its great end, the spiritual and temporal good of the people—like every true prophet, finding in that the thing for which he lived and breathed. This we are not only warranted, but bound, to regard as the paramount consideration in Jonah’s mind; and he must somehow have come to regard the destruction of Nineveh as fitted to act most powerfully in promoting it, and the preservation of Nineveh most disastrously in hindering it. How should he have thought thus?
We must bear in mind, while we inquire into the matter, that the book which contains the record of Jonah’s relation to Nineveh, possesses for the Church somewhat of the nature of a parable; what it reports is to be regarded as an acted lesson—an instruction from God under the cover of a history. Like every thing of this description, it has a deeper meaning than meets the eye at first; it requires to be thought upon and pondered by the people of God, otherwise they are sure to fail in catching its true design, and to miss the important truths with which it is fraught. This is evident from the use our Lord makes of it, gathering, as he does, from this history of Jonah and his work at Nineveh, a voice that reached even to the men of his own generation, and discovering in it a sign which called for their especial notice and regard. How much more must the things it records, when known as current transactions, have been a sign to the generation itself in Israel, among whom the prophet lived and laboured! And how much did it concern them to listen to the voice which spake through these events for their instruction and warning, and to make themselves acquainted with its fullest import!
The people of that generation, as we before saw, were in the last stages of degeneracy, and trembling on the brink of ruin. All efforts had hitherto failed to recover them from idolatry and corruption; and the Lord, before finally abandoning them to their fate, sought once more to move them from their course, by working upon them through feelings of jealousy and shame. For this purpose he stept out of the usual tenor of his way, and did the marvellous work in Nineveh we have already discoursed of—exhibiting there the example of a people, who repented at the preaching merely of one prophet and on the deliverance of one message—and were thereby saved from impending ruin. What God really meant to teach the people of Israel by this example, was the inexcusable character of their own impenitence if they should still continue to persevere in it, and the inevitable certainty of the destruction which in that case must alight upon them. Repenting Nineveh had proved herself more deserving of the divine favour than backsliding and apostate Israel; the children of the covenant had not only sunk to a level with the heathen, but in comparison of this particular people had fallen visibly below them: therefore the outward relations also must be changed—Israel go down, the heathen rise to distinction.
Now, it is surely not unreasonable to suppose, that when Jonah saw how bent the Lord was on sending him to Nineveh, and what a wonder had been wrought in his own experience to have a work of God accomplished there, he might have come to understand that the work was intended to have an important bearing on the kingdom of Israel; while yet it is more than probable, from having his eye intent only upon one great point, that he might misapprehend the precise kind of bearing which the Lord chiefly intended it to have. Living in the days of the second Jeroboam, when a new tide of prosperity had been constantly flowing in upon the kingdom of Israel, and had given rise to an almost universal dissoluteness and profligacy, he had the mortification, not only to labour long comparatively in vain, but also to witness a growing declension among the people, who thought they could afford, amid the fulness of their sufficiency, to slight his admonitions and despise his warnings. In such painful circumstances, how could he avoid sighing for some remarkable suspension of the forbearance and goodness of God, which they were so shamefully abusing? some salutary visitation of judgment which might startle them from their false security, and convince them effectually that destruction was certain to overtake the transgressors? Oh! where—we can conceive him to have exclaimed—where is the Lord God of Elijah? Where is the arm of might that in his days caused its thunders to be heard by the deadest heart, and with terrible things in righteousness arrested the people when they were rushing onward to the gulf of ruin? The awful retributions of justice which were then inflicted, are too long past to be remembered now; overflowing prosperity has filled the hearts of the people with madness; and if the Lord does not speedily avenge his cause by some new displays of severity, all will soon be irretrievably lost.
Thus we can easily understand how Jonah might feel discouraged and oppressed most of all by the thought of the Lord’s clemency and goodness—how this might even hang as a deadening load upon his mind, when the commission was first given him to go to Nineveh, leading him to regard the work of reform assigned to him there as a hopeless undertaking; and how he might despair of any thing effectual being done in the cause of God, unless there were first given a striking example of severity. We can also easily understand how readily he would imagine, when he actually stood within the precincts of Nineveh, and had received the command to proclaim its downfal in forty days, that now at last he was to obtain that very example of severity which he had conceived to be so needful—that the Lord was indeed going to vindicate the honour of his name upon wicked transgressors, by making even proud Nineveh, like Sodom and Gomorrah, a monument of ruin—and that, from witnessing this awful display of judgment, he would go back to resume his labours among his own people, with such an argument as he never had before, and could never expect to have again, to persuade their return from sin to the love and service of God.
Such then, being, as we have every reason to believe, the state of Jonah’s mind, it requires no stretch of imagination to conceive what a grievous disappointment it would be for him to see Nineveh still spared, and the very weapon wrested out of his hand by which he had hoped to prevail with his thoughtless and rebellious countrymen. It was not that he was a man of a proud humour, or a merciless disposition, and could have looked with fiendish delight on the overthrow of that great city; but that he loved his own people so intensely, and was so firmly persuaded that an act of severity was required to arouse them from their false security—it was this, which caused his bosom to burn with vexation when he found Nineveh was still to be spared. For how could he return again to speak to his degenerate countrymen? What hope could he any longer have of labouring with success among them? How certainly would they look to the outward result merely of the case, and take new courage to go on in their sins by this new manifestation of the mercy and forbearance of God? Instead of having reached a higher vantage-ground, from which to urge their return to God, he felt as if a signal discouragement had been thrown in his way;’ and it seemed now, that nothing more remained for him to say or to do—it were even better for him to die than to live.
Jonah’s state of mind on this occasion appears to have been very similar to that of Elijah, at the memorable period when he fled from the face of Jezebel into the wilderness. After long waiting for some decisive turning-point in the grand controversy that was then proceeding between Jehovah and Baal, he had at last found what he sought; in the presence of all Israel the fire of heaven had come down and consumed the Lord’s sacrifice on Carmel, so that the hearts of the people seemed to be at once turned back again to Jehovah, and with one consent they rose up and slew the prophets of Baal. In the exultation of the moment Elijah thought the conflict was now ended; Jehovah had given the most striking display of his presence and glory that could reasonably be expected, and apparently with triumphant success. But when he heard that the immediate effect on Jezebel was only to rouse her enmity into greater fury, and that she had vowed to be revenged on him by the shedding of his blood, the disappointment was too great even for that iron-nerved prophet to bear with equanimity; and in the recoil of feeling which arose from seeing such hopes and efforts vanishing in fruitlessness, he besought the Lord to take away his life. He had spent his last arrow, and it proved unsuccessful—why should he live any longer on the earth? Such precisely seems to have been Jonah’s feeling. After long labouring in vain, and enduring much faintness of spirit on account of the prevailing heedlessness and profligacy, he had been brought to the very verge of an event which promised, if it had occurred, to operate with mighty power upon the hearts of the people, and bring, as it were, a new element of life into the corrupting mass—and all suddenly failed! he found himself again where he was, and with prospects even worse than before; so that life was no longer desirable.
In the case of neither of these prophets was this state of feeling right. It was the offspring of infirmity, such as naturally arose from partial views of the purposes of God, and hasty judgments respecting his procedure; but still it was the infirmity of noble minds—minds consumed with zeal for the glory of God and the spiritual good of men, and feeling as if life for them had ceased to be a boon, when the high ends for which they mainly held it appeared to be no longer attainable. Such a state of feeling is indeed too lofty, it moves in too elevated a region of spiritual being, to be properly sympathized with by the common run even of religious persons. But they can sympathize with it who have known what it is to have had their hearts set upon the doing of some great work for the welfare of their fellow-men, and have seen a cloud of chilling disappointment coming between them and the object of their beneficent labours. Especially can they sympathize with it who have dedicated themselves with their whole heart to the work of the ministry, and have known in their own experience the crushing effect of labours defeated of their design, and hopes most fondly cherished becoming for ever shipwrecked—they can understand how the men of God, who, against fearful odds and in evil times, had to maintain the cause of righteousness, might experience, when the conflict went sore against them, such a sinking of soul as would lead them to prefer death rather than life; and God himself, who knows our frame, can also understand and sympathize with it. Hence his method of dealing with the infirmity in the instances referred to, is so remarkable for its tenderness and condescension; while we see him throwing no cloak over it, on the one hand, we hear him bringing against it no severe reproach or heavy condemnation on the other; he graciously stoops to press the fainting spirit to his bosom, and, like an affectionate parent, plies it with such gentle and timely correctives as are fitted to restore it to healthfulness and vigour.
It is well, indeed, for persons of a soft and easy sentimentalism to denounce such moods of soul in heaven’s nobler witnesses for the truth, as wild outbursts of passion or the workings of a gloomy fanaticism; and to reserve their sympathy for those who can coolly wait upon the tides of mercy, and, with evil only appearing, can still please themselves with the hope that all may come right at the last. Theirs is a cheap philanthropy. They know nothing of that vicarious benevolence which identifies itself with the objects of its regard, and makes their interests and dangers its own. But wherever the spirit of this higher benevolence breathes, men feel that they have to do with stern realities when handling the burden of sin and the woes of retribution; there is a deathlike earnestness and severity in their struggle with evil; their very life and happiness is bound up with the issue. Hence, so long as the hope of success animates their bosom, there is nothing in labour or suffering they will not readily undergo; and if, when that hope fails them, their hand should forget its skill to work, their heart become faint, life itself cease to be desirable, they but prove themselves to be still compassed about with human infirmity; they have not reached the matchless virtue which no discouragement can overpower. But never surely can men be fitter objects of tenderness and pity than when thus broken and oppressed in spirit; and never can railing accusation be more grievously misplaced than when directed against them in such a time of nature’s weakness and misgiving.
Let us learn, however, even from the failures of such giant warriors in the service of God. Elijah and Jonah both erred from taking too limited and partial a view of God’s power and purposes, though by looking in somewhat different directions. Elijah had seen a display of God’s severity; but was disappointed and grieved because the spiritual result had not sprung from it so immediately and to such an extent as he had expected. He did not yet know, though he came in process of time to learn, how deep a work of reformation had already commenced, and how much he might still be enabled to do to help it forward, not so much by weapons of terror, as by the “still small voice” of counsel, admonition, and encouragement, uttered from house to house among the thousands of Israel. Jonah again erred, because, not being permitted to see a display of severity, he thought the only measure was withheld which could effectually promote the interests of godliness, and nothing remained for him but to witness anew, and on a still larger scale than before, the wanton abuse of God’s mercy and forbearance. He did not yet know that the Lord had important purposes to serve by this example of mercy to the penitent, such as could not have been accomplished by an example of severity on the unbelieving and profligate. He did not know this; but he should in faith and patience have waited for the development of God’s purposes, believing that there were important purposes to be developed, only lying beyond the ken of his present apprehension. Indeed, he was too outward in his view—he looked too little to the repentance of Nineveh—perhaps was at too little pains to make himself acquainted with its earnest and extensive character—fixed his eye too exclusively on the mere external movements of providence; and with his soul bent only on one great end, took no thought how the result actually obtained might be made to tell on other ends still more important, and how it might serve beyond any other plan to display the manifold wisdom of God. Could Jonah have foreseen the place those transactions at Nineveh were to hold in the history of the world, and the use to be made of them by the incarnate Word himself, how readily would he have acquiesced in what was actually done! How cheerfully would he have exclaimed, “He hath done all things well; he is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working!”
The lesson for us, then, is, that God’s way is still the best; for he sees the end from the beginning, and directs all with infinite skill and unerring wisdom. If we could alter in any particular the plan of Providence, it would not be for the better, but for the worse. And though there are trials at times meeting us in the path of duty, for the present painful to be borne, yet it is at once our duty and our wisdom to take all patiently. In due time we shall reap, if we faint not; and as God’s will must prevail, there is no burden which impatience will not aggravate, no labour or affliction which, through patience, may not become a blessing.