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.
Ver. 9. Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?] What? so soon blown up for a thing of nothing.? Tantaene animis coelestibus irae? (Eneid. lib. i.).
“ Diine hunc ardorem mentibus indunt
Euryale? an sua cuique deus fit dira libido? ”
Knew not Jonah that to be angry without a cause was to be in danger of the judgment? Matthew 5:22 , that it was a mortal sin, and not venial, as Papists falsely conclude from the text; which sets not forth a different punishment of rash anger, but a diverse degree of punishment? that it is the murder of the heart, as our Saviour there shows, and the fountain of the murder both of the tongue and of the hand? will he be like the foolish bee, who loseth her life to get revenge? See Trapp on " Jon 4:4 "
And he said] Before he said nothing when reproved for his rash anger, John 4:4, and that was best. Now he chats against God, laying the reins on the neck of his unruly passions and running riot. Who can understand his errors? and who can tell how often a servant of God may fall into a foul sin, if strongly inclined thereto by nature, or violently tempted by Satan and his instruments? Of Judah indeed it is expressly noted, that he knew his daughter-in-law Tamar again no more, Genesis 38:26. But what shall we say to Lot's double incest? to Samson's going down again to Gaza, Jdg 16:1 ? to Abraham's twice denying his wife? to John's twice adoring the angel, Revelation 19:10; Rev 22:8 ? "Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall": and let God's people see that there be no way of wickedness found in them, that they allow not, wallow not in this guzzle: since hereby they lose not their ius haereditarium, but yet their ius aptitudinale, not their title, but yet their fitness to God's kingdom; and, perhaps, their fulness of reward there, 2 John 1:8 .
And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death] A fearful outburst! Resist passion at the first rising up; else who knows whither it may transport us? Passions, saith one, like heavy bodies down steep hills, once in motion move themselves; and know no ground but the bottom. Jonah (saith another upon this text) slights admonition, riseth up in an animosity against it to a desperate degree of anger; such wild beasts are furious passions when we give them the reins. Thus he, Surely as the lion beateth himself with his own tail, and as sullen birds in a cage beat themselves to death, so could Jonah in this rage find in his heart to do and he shames not to tell God as much. It was therefore no ill wish of him that desired God to deliver him from that naughty man himself (Domino libera me a malo homine meipso), from headlong and headstrong passions, which may not only dissweeten a man's life, but shorten it. The Emperor Nerva died of a fever contracted by anger. Valentinian by an irruption of blood. Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, in a rage against his cupbearer, fell presently into a palsy, whereof he died. What disease Jonah died of I know not: but this I know, that in his heat he did and said enough here in this text to have made Almighty God resolve, as he did once against those muttering rebels in the wilderness, "As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you," Numbers 14:28. Thou shalt surely die, Jonah; out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, &c. But God chose rather to glorify himself in Jonah's salvation than in his deserved destruction. Dat igitur poenitentiam, et postea indulgentiam (as that father prayed), he therefore first giveth him repentance, and then pardon, as appeareth partly by his recording these passages, and so shaming himself, as it were, before all the world; and partly also by his closing up his prophecy with silence; not striving with God for the last word, as Peter did with Christ, and would needs carry it, till the events of things confuted him, and he was glad to seek a corner to cry in, Matthew 26:35; Matthew 26:75 .