Jonah 4:1 - Sermon Bible Commentary

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Jonah 1-4

Jonah buried and risen a type of Christ.

I. More than once in the course of our Lord's ministry, among different persons and for different objects, He makes use of the similitude of the prophet's burial and resurrection. When the Jews asked for a sign He refused it, (i) because it was presumptuous to ask it; (ii) because they were blind to actual signs already given and constantly existing before their eyes; (iii) because the very demand was a proof of deep ungodliness, and the concession of it would have been a premium on religious disloyalty and impiety. No sign should be given them except the sign of the prophet Jonah, the very opposite to what they sought. They asked it from above. It should be from below. They asked that it might be glorious. It should be, according to the carnal judgment, ignominious. It should be from a dark sea of trouble, not from a firmament of brightness. It should be tempest, sorrow, death, burial; not sunshine, victory, enthronement.

II. Such we understand to be the meaning of our Lord's language in the comparison between Himself and Jonah. It is a comparison resting chiefly on the resemblance in humiliation that of Jonah and that of Jesus. The general resemblance is apparent to anyone. Jonah was in the heart of the sea; Jesus was in the heart of the earth. Jonah was in the "belly of hell," or the grave, or Hades; Jesus was actually traversing, living, in the invisible world, and acquiring thus His right to hold the keys. Jonah was there in punishment of his sin; Jesus (Himself sinless) was slain and consigned to the darksome grave by the sins of the world, which He bore and expiated on the Cross. Jonah was three days and three nights in his living grave; Jesus was the same time dead and buried. Jonah was restored to light and life; Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God, with power, by the resurrection from the dead."

A. Raleigh, The Story of Jonah,p. 169.

Related Commentaries of Jonah 4:1

Jonah 4:1-11

1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

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.

3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

4 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?

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.

6 And the LORD God prepared a gourd,a 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.

7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.

8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehementb 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.

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.

10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pityc 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:

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?