Jonah 4:9

And God said to Jonah, dost thou well to be angry for the gourd?.... Or, "art thou very angry for it?" as the Targum: no mention is made of the blustering wind and scorching sun, because the gourd or

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. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? - (note, Jonah 4:4).

Doest thou well to be angry? see . For the gourd: God adds this to the same question before proposed, that Jonah might be his own judge, and at once condemn his own passions, justify God’ s patience and mercy, and submit himself with satisfaction in that God had spared Nineveh. And he, Jonah, said; passionately answers for himself: whereas he was silent, , now he is out of all patience, and quarrels highly against God, who had spared Nineveh, which Jonah thought should have been consumed as Sodom, or as the old world; but he feels in himself a heat almost as devouring as he wished to the Ninevites; thus unexpectedly crossed he flies out against God himself. I do well to be angry, even unto death; if in the violence of this passion I should die, (as we know some have,) yet I were not to blame: thus he tacitly chargeth God with hardly using Jonah, and breaking his heart, though he had come a long journey to deliver a message he would fain have been excused from. So exorbitant and unreasonable is Jonah’ s anger.

Jonah 4:9 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.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? And he said] Before he said nothing when reproved for his rash anger, Jonah 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, Judges 16:1? to Abraham’ s twice denying his wife? to John’ s twice adoring the angel, Revelation 19:10; Revelation 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.

(9) Doest thou well . . .?—See Note to Jonah 4:4. Jonah was really hurt at the loss of his shade, not sorry for the destruction of the gourd. But it is very true to nature that the moment a worthier excuse is suggested, he accepts it, without perceiving that by so doing he prepared the way for his own condemnation. The lesson is to all who would sacrifice the cause of humanity to some professional or theological difficulty.

Verse 9. I do well to be angry, even unto death.] Many persons suppose that the gifts of prophecy and working miracles are the highest that can be conferred on man; but they are widely mistaken, for the gifts change not the heart. Jonah had the gift of prophecy, but had not received that grace which destroys the old man and creates the soul anew in Christ Jesus. This is the love of which St. Paul speaks, which if a man have not, though he had the gift of prophecy, and could miraculously remove mountains, yet in the sight of God, and for any good himself might reap from it, it would be as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. Jonah was a prophet, and yet had all his old bad tempers about him, in a shameful predominancy. Balaam was of the same kind. So we find that God gave the gift of prophecy even to graceless men. But many of the prophets were sanctified in their nature before their call to the prophetic office, and were the most excellent of men.

9. even unto death] “Art thou rightly angry for the palmchrist? I am rightly angry, (and that) unto death:” i. e. “my anger is so great that it well-nigh kills me, and even in that excess it is justified by the circumstances.” In like manner it is said of Samson that “his soul was vexed unto death” by the urgency of Delilah (Judges 16:16), and our Lord exclaims in the garden, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38), where Alford observes, “Our Lord’s soul was crushed down even to death by the weight of that anguish which lay upon Him—and that literally—so that He (as regards His humanity) would have died, had not strength (bodily strength upholding His human frame) been ministered from on high by an angel, Luke 22:43.” The question in its more general form, “Doest thou well to be angry?” (Jonah 4:4) is here narrowed to a single issue, “Doest thou well to be angry for the palmchrist?” And Jonah, in his unreasoning irritation, accepts and answers it on that single issue, and thus unwrittingly prepares the way for the unanswerable argument which follows.

Doest thou well to be angry? - o “See again how Almighty God, out of His boundless lovingkindness, with the yearning tenderness of a father, almost disporteth with the guileless souls of the saints!

9. God again deals very patiently with Jonah. He addresses him as in Jonah 4:4 : “Doest thou well to be angry?” To which the prophet replies that he has every reason to be exceedingly angry, even so