| “And Jonah began to enter into the city … and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown … So the people of Nineveh believed God … and put on sackcloth” (Jonah 3:4-5). |
| “And God saw their works … and God repented of the evil, that He had said He would do unto them” (Jonah 3:10). |
| “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said … I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil” (Jonah 4:1-2). |
| If you read the 3rd and 4th chapters of Jonah, you will see that once again the Lord commanded Jonah to go and give a warning to Nineveh, and this time he went. He took that long journey to Nineveh, and told them that in forty days God was going to overthrow (destroy) the city. Even though they were a heathen nation, they believed that Jonah’s message was from the Lord, and humbled themselves. Wearing sackcloth (a kind of coarse itchy cloth used to make sacks, possibly for carrying vegetables or grain) was a sign of repentance, and it is mentioned in this connection a number of times in the Old Testament. When the Lord saw their repentance, He did not bring judgment down on them, as He had said He would. |
| All this made Jonah very angry, for he really wanted to see them come under God’s judgment. Jonah did not want to see the Lord show any mercy or grace to these people! Yet if we think about this for a moment, Jonah himself had just been shown mercy and grace, after refusing to obey the Lord. He had been saved from drowning in the sea, and was then vomited out of the fish’s belly on dry land. Yet here he is, angry because God was showing mercy and grace to Nineveh! |
| Before you and I condemn Jonah too strongly, let us remember that we sometimes do the same. We who are Christians have been forgiven much, yet sometimes we are unwilling to forgive others for something they have done. Like Jonah, we often need to learn more of the grace of God. |
| I believe that Jonah eventually learned his lesson, for God used a big gourd to teach him something, as he sat outside the city of Nineveh. You can read about this in Jonah, chapter 4. Finally, it is almost certain that Jonah wrote the book of Jonah, and he could not have written it unless he had learned what God wanted to teach him. |
