God’s Shout

Jonah 4:5-11

⁵ Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. ⁶ Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. ⁷ But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. ⁸ When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” ⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” ¹⁰ And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. ¹¹ And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

So, Jonah pouts like a petulant child. And while God doesn’t exactly punish Jonah for his temper tantrum, He graciously provides an excellent object lesson for Jonah’s instruction. After asking the rhetorical question of “Do you do well to be angry?” the Lord sends a plant that grows to such a size that it is able to provide Jonah respite from the hot sun. The text doesn’t identify this plant (because that really is an insignificant detail) but most believe it may have been a castor-oil plant based on description and the region of the world this story takes place. And it made Jonah happy. The salvation of an entire city full of people doesn’t please him, but a big plant soothes his anger – a little bit.

There is nothing wrong with Jonah rejoicing over the plant Yahweh provided to protect him from the searing sun. However, Jonah should have rejoiced far more greatly over the repentance and salvation of the people of Nineveh. Instead, this prophet rejoices only when Yahweh saves him personally (chapter 2) and when Yahweh provides for his own personal comfort (4:6). This reveals Jonah’s self-centeredness.

Lessing, R. R. (2007). Jonah (p. 380). St. Louis, MO: CPH.

But God didn’t send the plant for Jonah’s comfort. He sent the plant as a lesson for Jonah, for after spending the day in the shade, God sends a worm to attack the plant and thus Jonah’s source of comfort is taken from him. God follows that insult with a “scorching east wind” that puts Jonah in misery yet again. (I say misery yet again, harkening back to his three days spent inside of the great fish.)

In other OT passages, Yahweh uses an “east wind” to judge, annihilate, and destroy. This clearly implies that Jonah is now under Yahweh’s judgment. Yahweh caused an east wind to blow locusts that devoured the crops of Egypt (Ex 10:13). A “fierce east wind” parted the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21), through which Israel was saved but in which the Egyptians perished. By means of an “east wind,” Yahweh shatters Tarshish ships (Psalm 48:8) and the ships of Tyre (Ezekiel 27:26) and desiccates vegetation so that it dies (Ezekiel 17:10; 19:12; cf. Hosea 13:15). The kind of east wind that brings judgment to Jonah is well-known in the Near East as the sirocco, Hamsin, or Sharav. Like the Santa Ana winds of southern California, it is a dry wind from the desert that dissipates any moisture and the will to act by humans and animals. It is the arid furnace-like blast of heat that parches the body by evaporating its perspiration. When this wind blows today in the Near East, it is not unusual for the temperatures to reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity to get as low as two percent. The wind is capable of blocking out the sun with the dust that it raises. The force of the wind alone can frequently become destructive. It blows every fall and spring during the transitions between the rainy and dry seasons.

Lessing, R. R. (2007). Jonah (p. 382). St. Louis, MO: CPH.

Now let’s pull this apart a little bit. In 4:5 we find Jonah remaining silent in the face of God’s question as to Jonah’s right to his anger – just as he remained silent when called to go to Nineveh in the first place! That immature retreat into silence is Jonah’s defense mechanisms kicking into action. As we can see, that is a waste of time. Now he sits at the top of the hill awaiting Nineveh’s fate, but the story is no longer about Nineveh, it is about Jonah and the character changes that need to be made in God’s prophet.

Through the use of a plant, God shows Jonah who is actually in charge. Jonah’s anger has no impact on God’s righteous decisions. While Jonah basks in his rage, God deals with his physical comfort, which seems to get our attention every time. Just as God had provided a great fish to save Jonah’s life, He now provides a great plant to bring Jonah some respite from the sun. Then God provides a “great, hot wind” which probably blows down the weak shelter Jonah had built for himself and finally, God provides a worm to destroy Jonah’s only source of shade. Could God’s voice grow any louder?

And there it is. How loud does the voice of God need to be before we actually hear Him? C.S. Lewis said, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” All of us tend to play deaf when God speaks, but Jonah’s story stands forever as an incredible example of who we become when we are trying to avoid God’s message to us. We will hide, we will run, we will grow angry. But God loves us enough to persist. Remember that – God loves you enough to persist! These few brief chapters containing a truly intricate story are filled with God’s grace, mercy, forgiveness, and unrelenting love. That love is what sent Jesus to the cross for our stubborn, hard hearts. And that Love is what will return for us on The Last Day.