The unhappy prophet

What is up with Jonah?

Once he finally accepts The Lord's call to go to Ninevah, calls them to repent, and sees arguably one of the biggest acts of corporate repentance in the Bible, he's...<checks notes> unhappy?

I bet most ministers would be delighted to see the same results. And yet Jonah is furious.

“Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. ³ Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” — Jonah 4:2-3 (NIV)

Yes, Jonah was upset that people had listened to his prophecy and changed their ways. And worse still, The Lord had accepted their repentance.

It can't have helped that it was the Ninivites.

They were beyond bad. Not only did they worship foreign gods, but they were brutal to the places they captured and took over.

I'm sure Jonah would much rather have had Nahum's oracles of woe for Ninevah which eventually came true, but that wasn't his calling.

Jonah's moment of gladness

The one moment Jonah seems glad in the whole book is when he is in the belly of the great fish. His prayer is one of assurance that the Lord will deliver him despite his circumstances.

It's quite amazing really. Sure preaching an oracle of doom to your worst enemies IS scary and I can certainly understand someone wanting justice upon their enemies, but now he really is in trouble, and he is glad?

I've heard one scholar wonder if he's actually glad to be dead. As though now the ninivites will finally get their justice. The fact that he then goes to Ninivah to deliver the Word of the Lord suggests it's unlikely, but it may be that he finally gives in. After all, he only goes on one day's journey into the three-day large city.

The older brother

In the end, it is Jonah, the unhappy prophet, who is the one who needs to return to God. And that's despite being the one who delivers the Word of the Lord.

It's a bit like the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. He hadn't wasted his father's money, he had stayed — and didn't go after his brother as we might expect a brother to —, and yet his relationship was in ruins at the end.

What are we supposed to take away from Jonah?

At the end of the last year, I wrote an essay on the message of Jonah.

I spent a lot of time trying to get to grips with its big message and how the themes relate to and build on each other. I started with what I thought was the clear and obvious conclusion of the letter.

The Lord is a God of steadfast love who holds out hope and redemption for even the worst people.

It seems easy as it flows through the book, it's what Jonah says about God

I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. — Jonah 4:2 (NIV)

And God confirms and redescribes it right at the end.

And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?” — Jonah 4:11 (NIV)

while true, there are two other points I fear we need to bewary of.

1. Jonah didn't want the ninvites to be saved.
2. Jonah is less repentent and more alienated from God at the end.

Grace can be more offensive to the more respectable and religious than the worst of sinners.

Let's not be resentful of God's grace.