4 And Jehovah said, Doest thou well to be angry?
is it not lawful for me to do what I will in my own affairs? Is thine eye evil because *I* am good?
And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, unto death.
O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me.
So that, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for man's wrath does not work God's righteousness.
And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his staff smote the rock twice, and much water came out, and the assembly drank, and their beasts. And Jehovah said to Moses and to Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to hallow me before the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land that I have given them.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jonah 4
Commentary on Jonah 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
We read, with a great deal of pleasure, in the close of the foregoing chapter, concerning the repentance of Nineveh; but in this chapter we read, with a great deal of uneasiness, concerning the sin of Jonah; and, as there is joy in heaven and earth for the conversion of sinners, so there is grief for the follies and infirmities of saints. In all the book of God we scarcely find a "servant of the Lord' (and such a one we are sure Jonah was, for the scripture calls him so) so very much out of temper as he is here, so very peevish and provoking to God himself. In the first chapter we had him fleeing from the face of God; but here we have him, in effect, flying in the face of God; and, which is more grieving to us, there we had an account of his repentance and return to God; but here, though no doubt he did repent, yet, as in Solomon's case, no account is left us of his recovering himself; but, while we read with wonder of his perverseness, we read with no less wonder of God's tenderness towards him, by which it appeared that he had not cast him off. Here is,
Man's badness and God's goodness serve here for a foil to each other, that the former may appear the more exceedingly sinful and the latter the more exceedingly gracious.
Jon 4:1-4
See here,
Jon 4:5-11
Jonah persists here in his discontent; for the beginning of strife both with God and man is as the letting forth of waters, the breach grows wider and wider, and, when passion gets head, bad is made worse; it should therefore be silenced and suppressed at first. We have here,
Let us therefore own that we do ill, that we do very ill, to be angry for the gourd; and let us under such events quiet ourselves as a child that is weaned from his mother.