5 And Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city.
And Abraham rose early in the morning [and went] to the place where he had stood before Jehovah; and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo, a smoke went up from the land as the smoke of a furnace.
Behold, these say unto me, Where is the word of Jehovah? let it then come! But as for me, I have not hastened from being a shepherd in following thee, neither have I desired the fatal day, thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was before thy face.
And as he drew near, seeing the city, he wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, even at least in this thy day, the things that are for thy peace: but now they are hid from thine eyes; for days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall make a palisaded mound about thee, and shall close thee around, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children in thee; and shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone: because thou knewest not the season of thy visitation.
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.