Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry.
Anger reproved
Jonah’s anger was not justifiable; for it rose high against God, and quarrelled with the dispensations of His providence and grace. A man is known by his temper, as much as by his speech and behaviour. The temper of Jonah was peculiar. He was a man of some goodness. He was a man of prayer and a prophet; yet his piety was greatly defective, and his virtues were tarnished with much imperfection. His history exhibits a sad picture of pettishness, fretfulness, and impatience.
I. The circumstances of the case, and the temper of the prophet under them. Jonah was displeased exceedingly because God had accepted the repentance of Nineveh; that He exercised mercy, and turned away His wrath from that numerous people. We cannot acquit him of much that was wrong on this occasion. He was off his guard. He was greatly influenced by a proud and rebellious spirit. Henry observes of his prayer,--It is a very awkward prayer. Indeed, what could we expect from a man agitated with such a temper? How unhallowed is the petition, “Now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me.” We cannot but notice the long-suffering goodness of God, the tenderness of Divine compassion, in the expostulation with Jonah.
II. The temper of the prophet was extremely censurable. Is anger, then, in no case allowable? It may be directed against sin, in ourselves or in others. It was not allowable in Jonah. Every emotion of displeasure with the dispensations of God is extremely censurable; for--
1. Each of them is just.
2. Most of them are merciful.
3. All of them work together for good.
Then, “in your patience possess ye your souls.” Self-possession is a great and most desirable attainment. (T. Kidd.)
Jonah’s vexation
With what strange feelings of disappointment must every one rise from the perusal of this chapter! For Jonah fails again under his disappointment. What was it that displeased Jonah? The salvation of the sinners of Nineveh who repented. The grace of God manifested in the salvation of Nineveh. With the Divine purposes of grace he had no sympathy. He was displeased because he was not a minister of wrath to sinners. But how does he give vent to his displeasure? In prayer to God. He upbraids God for being a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, and of great compassion, and for having resolved to manifest this grace of His character in the salvation of this great city. For what does he pray? For death to himself, unless God would give up Nineveh and its inhabitants to death and destruction. This is the thing which he says in his heart’s desire and prayer before God. Jonah even seems to say that he has not repented of going to Tarshish, but rather, in his present mood repents of returning and going to Nineveh, after he received the second call. What is this but to say that he repents of his repentance? Every feeling was sacrificed to resentment at the non-fulfilment of his prophecy. If forty days passed and Nineveh were not overthrown, what would men say of Jonah and his prophecies? He would have sacrificed Nineveh to a point of honour, to a feeling of pride or vanity, to a thought of personal interest or aggrandisement, to public opinion, or national bigotry and sectarian spite. Such is selfishness when it stands up barefaced to proclaim itself in all its nakedness before God. Now admire the forbearance of God. All He said in answer to this prayer of mixed pride and petulance was, “Doest thou well to be angry?” God is not angry, though Jonah is angry. But a rebuke is not the less severe that it is administered in a spirit of mild and gentle love; and such surely is the spirit in which God deals with Jonah’s conscience; not answering the fool according to his folly. With this question, like an arrow stuck in his spirit, God leaves the angry man to himself. Jonah gave no answer. Anger is sullen, and sullenness is silent. He went out to the east of the city, made a booth to shelter himself from the sun, and over this a large-leafed gourd quickly grew. Jonah began to be better pleased. The next day the gourd withered, and Jonah was exposed and distressed. Then God asked His question again, “Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?” Now Jonah’s vexation rises; he justifies his anger, and says to God that he has good cause to be offended, and even weary of life. Then God interpreted the sudden withering of the gourd. Out of his own mouth Jonah was judged He was pitiful towards a gourd, and complained of God’s being pitiful towards myriads of immortal souls. God silences all cavil respecting His present work of providence; He sets at rest all controversy respecting His purpose of grace to sinners, like the men of Nineveh, by an appeal to Jonah’s own conscience. And Jonah is speechless. Learn --
1. That in the end God’s purpose of grace in the salvation of sinners will be justified.
2. Want of sympathy with God’s purpose of grace and salvation to sinners is a common sin.
3. This want of sympathy betrays itself, in selfishness like Jonah’s, in self-seeking, self-pleasing, self-indulgence.
4. God is still rebuking this sin of selfishness, or want of sympathy, as He rebuked Jonah here, both in His Word, and in His providence. (N. Paisley.)
Jonah and the passions
This chapter presents the weakness of human nature; the illusion of the passions; the bad effects that flow from the want of self-government. Here is a prophet, an advocate of righteousness, and a denouncer of the judgments of heaven, fallen into rather disgraceful circumstances, forgetting the dignity of his office, and losing the command of himself; discomposed and agitated by passion. And what was the cause? His work seemed to be a failure, and he would rather see that populous city laid in ashes, than that the least imputation should fall upon his own prophetic character. To him came the expostulating voice of God: “Doest thou well to be angry?” The mild rebuke was ineffective. Then came the appeal, “Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?” Stung with rage, and overcome by his passion, the prophet replied, “I do well to be angry, even unto death.” Angry? With whom? With God, the Father of mercies. For what? For pardoning a vast multitude, all humbled in dust and ashes before Him, Could a small personal interest plead against the voice of nature, and harden this prophet’s heart against every sentiment of humanity? It is the nature of the passions to concentre our views in one glowing point, and thus cause us to overlook whatever might allay their fervour. Hence the undoubting confidence with which the impassioned mind insists upon its own rectitude, and even glories in the violence of its emotions. Nor is it the angry and revengeful only; the voluptuous, the ambitious, and distempered minds of every description all find specious arguments to reconcile the indulgence of their own will, and their personal gratification, with the general good; at least, to palliate, if they cannot altogether justify, their conduct, from the inevitable pressure of events and peculiarity of situation. We cannot but be astonished at the height to which Jonah’s mind was inflamed--at the degree in which his feelings were exasperated. How weak is man! When clouded with passion, his boasted reason, instead of disentangling the perplexity of his affairs, or impelling him to act wisely and virtuously, often serves only to aggravate his misery, and to justify him in his perverseness. During this temporary insanity all things upon which the eye is fixed appear enlarged and gigantic. Into what extravagancies, what miseries, what crimes are men precipitated for want of learning and practising the art of self-government. How greatly ought we to be upon our guard, not only against the violence, but against the illusion of the passions! It is certainly in our power, by the vigorous exercise of our mental faculties, to reduce the objects which are magnified and distorted by the magic of passion to their natural shape and just dimension. Change of scene will often help us in this self-mastery, and time has a quieting power. Devout and regular attendance on the duties of religion will greatly favour and shorten the process, and render our passage through the tempestuous region of the passions not only safe but salutary. Let the considerations which reason and religion present induce calmness of spirit, and “give rest to our souls.” The shortness of life, the emptiness of worldly pleasures, the approach of eternity. Within the hallowed round of religion all is peace. (P. Houghton.)
Jonah, the petulant man
I. The reason of Jonah’s petulance. Why was Jonah angry? The highest and noblest success of preaching is in its constructive and saving effects, not in its destructive results. But Jonah thought otherwise. To him destruction meant success, but salvation he thought failure.
II. The resort. Whither did he flee in his petulant fit? “Unto the Lord.” Can a man in a passion pray? Jonah’s prayer was a perverted privilege. He made it the medium of access to God for self-vindication and Divine vituperation. This is the first attempt at excusing himself for going to Tarshish. The greatness of God’s mercy was his present grievance. Jonah’s prayer closed with--
III. A request. It was as unreasonable as it was unjustifiable. Self-will prompted it, and peevishness uttered it. “My reputation as a truth-speaking prophet will be slain, therefore I prefer being slain myself.” What cowards disappointed expectations make us.
IV. Petulance divinely questioned. The question has a sting which enters deeply into Jonah’s soul. Physicians probe wounds before they heal them. Temper is the shadow of the tempter.
V. Petulance in retirement. Temper generally seeks solitude when its tide is ebbing. Sulks like to mope by themselves in seclusion.
VI. Petulance subjecting Jonah to inconveniences. Petulance is the parent of manifold discomforts--physical, mental, social, moral, ecclesiastical. It is the multiplier of life’s sorrows, the inventor of ghostly troubles, the despotic subjector to manifold inconveniences.
VII. Petulance under divine symbolic correction. The gourd is to be the means of physical amelioration, and then the medium of symbolic spiritual correction. Jonah learned this lesson. If the perishing of a mere gourd was a source of great grief to him, how infinitely more painful to God would be the destruction of multitudes of intelligent beings. (J. O. Keen, D. D.)
The recurrence of old sins after repentance
When Jonah saw that the threatened ruin came not,--“it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.” Jonah lived and served God under the old covenant, which spoke chiefly of Divine judgements, and comparatively little of Divine mercy. Moreover, he patriotically dreaded the growing power of the enemies of his race. He was moved, even to anger, at the sight of God’s mercy to the sinner. Though in this troubled condition, Jonah could pray, and complain to God. God dealt tenderly with him. God even withholds any reproof or censure. He but seeks to teach His servant by a sign, such as might personally touch his heart. The gourd sprung up. The gourd withered. Then God pleaded with His servant, bidding him to think how, if he were grieved for the plant, how much more God must desire to spare the great city. Let us take home a solemn warning. How striking it is that even in a prophet’s soul the same dispositions he had renounced when he returned to God could rise up again, and overcome him! Yet this is what we are all liable to. Old temptations, old passions, rise up again, and sometimes with even stronger force, because of having been long kept back. Repentance really is a state to be continued and persevered in. Contrition is a power that is to penetrate the soul, to make it and to keep it tender and soft; and this cannot be at once. Remember our Lord’s words, “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” To cease from a penitent state of mind till sin is wholly vanquished is for a soldier in some dangerous country to lay down his arms and sleep, forgetful of the danger of a night attack. Why did Jonah become angry? Because he had not]earned what he might have learned of the character of God. What ever may be the ordering of the mysterious destiny that besets us, is it not a creature’s true condition to adapt his purposes and his feelings to the purposes of his Creator? (T. T. Carter.)
Uses of anger
There is an anger that is sinful, and there is an anger which is not sinful. The difference lies not so much in the character or even the degree of the emotion, but rather in the motive which rouses it and the object towards which it is directed. Jonah’s anger was that of a mortified vanity and a wounded self-love; it was the anger of bodily discomfort and an insubordinate will; the anger of a most irrational jealousy, of an utterly selfish and heartless pride. Sometimes we read of anger in our Lord Jesus Christ. There we see it having place in the heart of absolute love and goodness, where selfishness is a name unknown, and where yet the very fire which warms and illuminates is a fire also of consuming fierceness towards the evil which will not have it for its good. The maxim “Be ye angry and sin not” has a voice for all of us. Anger need not be sin, but in human hearts it always borders upon it. Anger cherished and fostered is a sin at once. Being angry without sinning is an important point in Christian ethics.
1. There is a feeling to which we give the name of moral indignation. We thus distinguish it from other kinds of anger, more or less selfish and self-asserting, such as anger at an inconvenience, at a slight, at a disappointment, or even at a providence. Of this kind are all those broodings over the superior advantage or happiness of other ranks or other people, over the circumstances of the station or the education or the success in life, over the events which make a home dreary, or over the natural temperament which makes a heart gloomy, or over the peculiar predispositions and tendencies which make it doubly difficult to be good,--all of which, when thoroughly sifted, are a “replying against God.” Moral indignation is characterised chiefly by this, that it is quite unselfish. It is the feeling that rises in the breast of a man on seeing the ill-treatment of an animal, a child, or a woman. To stand by and see these things without remonstrance or without interference is no forbearance: it is cowardice, it is unmanliness, it is sin. In such cases to be angry is a virtue. It is a higher exercise of the same virtuous indignation, to feel where it does not see--where it only reflects and meditates upon the misery and the wickedness and the living death which hangs so heavily and so hopelessly upon the world.
2. There is place also for anger, not only in the contemplation of wrong, but in the personal experience of temptation. There is aa indignation, even a resentment, even a rage and fury, which may be employed without offence to the Gospel, in repelling assaults upon our peace and virtue. “Be ye angry and sin not” has often been exemplified, in its truth and power, in the experience of the man, young or old, who would none of the tempter’s enticements, or of the companionship of the profligate.
3. There is a place for moral indignation in connection with the great personal tempter. (C. J. Vaughan, D. D.)