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INTRODUCTION TO JONAH 4 This chapter gives us an account of Jonah's displeasure at the repentance of the Ninevites, and at the Lord's showing mercy unto them, Jon 4:1; the angry prayer of Jonah upon it, Jon 4:2; the Lord's gentle reproof of him for it, Jon 4:4; his conduct upon that, Jon 4:5; the gourd prepared for him; its rise, usefulness, and destruction, which raised different passions in Jonah, Jon 4:6; the improvement the Lord made of this to rebuke Jonah, for his displicency at the mercy he showed to the Ninevites, and to convict him of his folly, Jon 4:9.

And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city?.... See Jon 1:2; what is such a gourd or plant to that? wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons; or twelve myriads; that is, twelve times ten thousand, or a hundred and twenty thousand; meaning not all the inhabitants of Nineveh; for then it would not have appeared to be so great a city; but infants only, as next described: that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; do not know one from another; cannot distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong; are not come to years of maturity and discretion; and therefore there were room and reason for pity and sparing mercy; especially since they had not been guilty of actual transgressions, at least not very manifest; and yet must have perished with their parents had Nineveh been overthrown. The number of infants in this city is a proof of the greatness of it, though not so as to render the account incredible; for, admitting these to be a fifth part of its inhabitants, as they usually are of any place, as Bochart (e) observes, it makes the number of its inhabitants to be but six or seven hundred thousand; and as many there were in Seleucia and Thebes, as Pliny (f) relates of the one, and Tacitus (g) of the other: and also much cattle; and these more valuable than goods, as animals are preferable to, and more useful than, vegetables; and yet these must have perished in the common calamity. Jarchi understands by these grown up persons, whose knowledge is like the beasts that know not their Creator. No answer being returned, it may be reasonably supposed Jonah, was convinced of his sin and folly; and, to show his repentance for it, penned this, narrative, which records his infirmities and weaknesses, for the good of the church, and the instruction of saints in succeeding ages. (e) Phaleg. l. 4. c. 20. p. 253. (f) Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 26. (g) Annal. l. 2. c. 60. Next: Micah Introduction

On the following day the Book of Jonah was read according to custom, after the completion of which I began this discourse. A book has been read, brethren, in which it is foretold that sinners shall be converted. Their acceptance takes place because that which is to happen is looked forward to at present. I added that the just man had been willing even to incur blame, in order not to see or denounce the destruction of the city. And because the sentence was mournful he was also saddened that the gourd had withered up. God too said to the prophet: "Art thou sad because of the gourd?" and Jonah answered: "I am sad." And the Lord then said, that if he grieved that the gourd was withered, how much should He Himself care for the salvation of so many people. And therefore that He had put away the destruction which had been prepared for the whole city.

We read of Eli the priest that he became displeasing to God on account of the sins of his children. And we are told that a man may not be made a bishop if his sons are loose and disorderly. It is written of the woman that “she shall be saved in childbearing, if she continues in faith and charity and holiness with chastity.” If then parents are responsible for their children when these are of ripe age and independent, how much more must they be responsible for them when, still unweaned and weak, they cannot, in the Lord’s words, “discern between their right hand and their left,” when, that is to say, they cannot yet distinguish good from evil?

"Then said the LORD, You have had pity on the gourd, for the which you have not laboured, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: 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?" LXX: 'and the Lord said, 'you wanted to keep safe a gourd which has done you no wickedness, that you have not cared for, which was born in one night and died in one night. But should I not spare Nineveh the great city in which live over three thousand people who are unknowing of their right and their left, and an equal number of cattle?' It is too difficult to explain how according to tropology this is said to the Son of man: 'you worry for a gourd that has done you no harm, that you did not plant' [John 1:3], since all has been done by him and with him absent nothing has been done. This is why someone interpreting this passage and wanting to resolve the question which he asked himself, fell into blasphemy. For, if we look at the text of the Gospel, which says, "why do you call me good? Nothing is good except God himself." [Mk. 10:18] He interprets the Father as good and places the Son one place lower, in a comparison with one who is perfectly and completely good. And he has not seen that this opinion made him fall into the heresy of Marcion, who proposes a God that is uniquely good, with another for judging and for creating, rather than the opinion of Arius who proposed a superior Father and an inferior Son yet admits the Son as creator. We must be indulgent therefore for that which we are about to say, and our attempts ought to be encouraged with good criticism and prayer, rather than declaimed by an argumentative audience. Criticism and declamation are easy for those who are most ignorant, but one must be learned and know the labours of workers to stretch out ones hand to those weaker or to show the way to those who are lost. Our Lord and Saviour did not work for Israel as for the people of the gentiles. In this instance Israel declares in faith, "Look these many years do I serve you, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, you have killed for him the fatted calf." [Lk. 15:29-32] And in spite of all he is not reprimanded by the Father, but he says to him kindly, "Son, you art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found." The fat calf has been slaughtered for the people of the gentiles, and its precious blood has been spread about, about which Paul to the Hebrews (9 and 10) explains in great detail. And David in the psalm says, "the brother does not redeem, man will redeem" [Ps. 48:8]. Christ decided that this people would be great and he died so that they might live; he went down to the underworld so that this people might rise up to heaven. For Israel there is no comparable toil. This is why he is jealous of his young brother, seeing that after having spent his fortune on his prostitutes and pimps, he receives the ring and the robe and recovers his former dignity. The phrase 'which was born in one night' can be applied to the time just before the arrival of Christ, who was the light of the world [John 8:12;9:5], about which is said, "the night has passed, and the day is near" [Rom. 13:12]. And this people died in one night when the sun of righteousness [Mal. 4:2] set for them, and they lost the word of God. The city of Nineveh which is great and very beautiful, prefigures the Church in which there is a greater number of inhabitants than the ten tribes of Israel: this is what the rest of the twelve baskets in the desert represent [Mat. 14:20; Mk. 6:43; Lk. 9:17; John 6:13]. "they do not know the difference between their right and their left", either on account of their innocence and their simplicity (to show first childhood and let it be known what the number of those is who have reached an older age, when the very young are so numerous), or even, (because the city was great, and "in a great house there are not only golden and silver objects but also some made of wood and pottery" [2. Tim. 2:20]) because there was a great crowd that needed to repent and was ignorant of the difference between good and bad, between their right and left. And there is a great number of animals and of men who do not possess the faculty of reason and who can be compared to mad animals to whom they are similar. [Ps. 48:21.]

And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, in which dwell more than twelve myriads of people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle? For these things are somehow indistinguishable among those who are still infants, to whom it was fitting, even before others, to grant kindness, having sinned in nothing. For one who does not yet know his own hands, with what faults could he be charged? And if he names also the cattle and deems them worthy of being spared, this too is from love of goodness. For if "a righteous man has mercy on the souls of his cattle," and this is to his praise, what is surprising, if the Creator of all things himself bestows sparing and pity upon these as well?

When, at one time, God had been offended by the sins of the Ninevites, he was appeased by the crying and wailing of children. For though we read that the whole people wept, yet the lot of innocence of the little ones merited the greatest mercy. God said to Jonah, “You are greatly grieved over the vine.” And a little later, “Should I not spare Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120, persons, who know not their left hand from their right hand?” He thereby declared that because of the purity of the innocent ones, he was also sparing the faults of the guilty ones.

For the good are understood by the right hand, bad by the left.

Jonah, dreading to be thought a false prophet, repines at God's mercy in sparing the Ninevites, whose destruction he seems to have expected, from his retiring to a place without the city about the close of the forty days. But how does he glorify that mercy which he intends to blame! And what an amiable posture does he give of the compassion of God! Jon 4:1-5. This attribute of the Deity is still farther illustrated by his tenderness and condescension to the prophet himself, who, with all his prophetic gifts, had much of human infirmity, Jon 4:6-11.

And should not I spare Nineveh - In Jon 4:10 it is said, thou hast had pity on the gourd, אתה חסת attah Chasta; and here the Lord uses the same word, ואני לא אחוס veani lo Achus, "And shall not I have pity upon Nineveh?" How much is the city better than the shrub? But besides this there are in it one hundred and twenty thousand persons! And shall I destroy them, rather than thy shade should be withered or thy word apparently fail? And besides, these persons are young, and have not offended, (for they knew not the difference between their right hand and their left), and should not I feel more pity for those innocents than thou dost for the fine flowering plant which is withered in a night, being itself exceedingly short-lived? Add to all this, they have now turned from those sins which induced me to denounce judgment against them. And should I destroy them who are now fasting and afflicting their souls; and, covered with sackcloth, are lying in the dust before me, bewailing their offenses and supplicating for mercy? Learn, then, from this, that it is the incorrigibly wicked on whom my judgments must fall and against whom they are threatened. And know, that to that man will I look who is of a broken and contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word. Even the dumb beasts are objects of my compassion; I will spare them for the sake of their penitent owners; and remember with the rest, That the Lord careth for oxen. The great number of cattle to which reference is here made were for the support of the inhabitants; and probably at this time the Ninevites gathered in their cattle from the champaign pasture, expecting that some foe coming to besiege them might seize upon them for their forage, while they within might suffer the lack of all things. No doubt that ancient Nineveh was like ancient Babylon, of which Quintus Curtius says the buildings were not close to the walls, there being the space of an acre left between them; and in several parts there were within the walls portions of cultivated land, that, if besieged, they might have provisions to sustain the inhabitants. And I suppose this to be true of all large ancient cities. They were rather cantons or districts than cities such as now are, only all the different inhabitants had joined together to wall in the districts for the sake of mutual defense. This last expostulation of God, it is to be hoped, produced its proper effect on the mind of this irritable prophet; and that he was fully convinced that in this, as in all other cases, God had done all things well. From this short prophecy many useful lessons may be derived. The Ninevites were on the verge of destruction, but on their repentance were respited. They did not, however, continue under the influence of good resolutions. They relapsed, and about one hundred and fifty years afterwards, the Prophet Nahum was sent to predict the miraculous discomfiture of the Assyrian king under Sennacherib, an event which took place about 710 b.c., and also the total destruction of Nineveh by Cyaxares and his allies which happened about 606 b.c. Several of the ancients, by allegorizing this book, have made Jonah declare the divinity, humanity, death, and resurrection of Christ. These points may be found in the Gospel history, their true repository; but fancy can find them any where it pleases to seek them; but he who seeks not for them will never find them here. Jonah was a type of the resurrection of Christ; nothing farther seems revealed in this prophet relative to the mysteries of Christianity. In conclusion: while I have done the best I could to illustrate the very difficult prophet through whose work the reader has just passed, I do not pretend to say I have removed every difficulty. I am satisfied only of one thing, that I have conscientiously endeavored to do it, and believe that I have generally succeeded; but am still fearful that several are left behind, which, though they may be accounted for from the briefness of the narrative of a great transaction, in which so many surprising particulars are included, yet, for general apprehension, might appear to have required a more distinct and circumstantial statement. I have only to add, that as several of the facts are evidently miraculous, and by the prophet stated as such, others may be probably of the same kind. On this ground all difficulty is removed; for God can do what he pleases. As his power is unlimited, it can meet with no impossibilities. He who gave the commission to Jonah to go and preach to the Ninevites, and prepared the great fish to swallow the disobedient prophet, could maintain his life for three days and three nights in the belly of this marine monster; and cause it to eject him at the termination of the appointed time, on any sea-coast he might choose; and afterwards the Divine power could carry the deeply contrite and now faithful prophet over the intervening distance between that and Nineveh, be that distance greater or less. Whatever, therefore, cannot be accounted for on mere natural principles in this book, may be referred to this supernatural agency; and this, on the ostensible principle of the prophecy itself, is at once a mode of interpretation as easy as it is rational. God gave the commission; he raised the storm, he prepared the fish which swallowed the prophet; he caused it to cast him forth on the dry land; he gave him a fresh commission, carried him to the place of his destination, and miraculously produced the sheltering gourd, that came to perfection in a night and withered in a night. This God therefore performed the other facts for which we cannot naturally account, as he did those already specified. This concession, for the admission of which both common sense and reason plead, at once solves all the real or seeming difficulties to be found in the Book of the Prophet Jonah.

JONAH FRETS AT GOD'S MERCY TO NINEVEH: IS REPROVED BY THE TYPE OF A GOURD. () angry--literally, "hot," probably, with grief or vexation, rather than anger [FAIRBAIRN]. How sad the contrast between God's feeling on the repentance of Nineveh towards Him, and Jonah's feeling on the repentance of God towards Nineveh. Strange in one who was himself a monument of mercy on his repentance! We all, like him, need the lesson taught in the parable of the unforgiving, though forgiven, debtor (). Jonah was grieved because Nineveh's preservation, after his denunciation, made him seem a false prophet [CALVIN]. But it would make Jonah a demon, not a man, to have preferred the destruction of six hundred thousand men rather than that his prophecy should be set aside through God's mercy triumphing over judgment. And God in that case would have severely chastised, whereas he only expostulates mildly with him, and by a mode of dealing, at once gentle and condescending, tries to show him his error. Moreover, Jonah himself, in apologizing for his vexation, does not mention the failure of his prediction as the cause: but solely the thought of God's slowness to anger. This was what led him to flee to Tarshish at his first commission; not the likelihood then of his prediction being falsified; for in fact his commission then was not to foretell Nineveh's downfall, but simply to "cry against" Nineveh's "wickedness" as having "come up before God." Jonah could hardly have been so vexed for the letter of his prediction failing, when the end of his commission had virtually been gained in leading Nineveh to repentance. This then cannot have been regarded by Jonah as the ultimate end of his commission. If Nineveh had been the prominent object with him, he would have rejoiced at the result of his mission. But Israel was the prominent aim of Jonah, as a prophet of the elect people. Probably then he regarded the destruction of Nineveh as fitted to be an example of God's judgment at last suspending His long forbearance so as to startle Israel from its desperate degeneracy, heightened by its new prosperity under Jeroboam II at that very time, in a way that all other means had failed to do. Jonah, despairing of anything effectual being done for God in Israel, unless there were first given a striking example of severity, thought when he proclaimed the downfall of Nineveh in forty days, that now at last God is about to give such an example; so when this means of awakening Israel was set aside by God's mercy on Nineveh's repentance, he was bitterly disappointed, not from pride or mercilessness, but from hopelessness as to anything being possible for the reformation of Israel, now that his cherished hope is baffled. But GOD'S plan was to teach Israel, by the example of Nineveh, how inexcusable is their own impenitence, and how inevitable their ruin if they persevere. Repenting Nineveh has proved herself more worthy of God's favor than apostate Israel; the children of the covenant have not only fallen down to, but actually below, the level of a heathen people; Israel, therefore, must go down, and the heathen rise above her. Jonah did not know the important lessons of hope to the penitent, and condemnation to those amidst outward privileges impenitent, which Nineveh's preservation on repentance was to have for aftertimes, and to all ages. He could not foresee that Messiah Himself was thus to apply that history. A lesson to us that if we could in any particular alter the plan of Providence, it would not be for the better, but for the worse [FAIRBAIRN].

that cannot discern between their right hand and their left--children under three of four years old (). Six score thousand of these, allowing them to be a fifth of the whole, would give a total population of six hundred thousand. much cattle--God cares even for the brute creatures, of which man takes little account. These in wonderful powers and in utility are far above the shrub which Jonah is so concerned about. Yet Jonah is reckless as to their destruction and that of innocent children. The abruptness of the close of the book is more strikingly suggestive than if the thought had been followed out in detail. Next: Micah Introduction