Jonah's Anger

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This change of plans made Jonah very angry, and he cried out unto the Lord, "This is exactly what I thought would happen, this is why I ran away, I knew you were a gracious God, I knew if they would repent you would cancel your plans to destroy them." "Now, kill me Lord, I would rather be dead than alive when nothing that I said happens to them."

Then Jonah went out on the east side of the city and sat sulking. He made a shelter out of leaves and sat waiting to see if anything would happen to the city. The heat of the day destroyed his shelter and the Lord caused a vine to grow quickly to give him shade for which Jonah was grateful, but God caused a worm to eat the stem of the vine and the next morning the vine withered away and died. Then God ordered a hot east wind to blow and the sun beat down upon Jonah until he wished he were dead. Jonah was angry at the worm for killing the vine that had given him shelter and the Lord said to Jonah, "You feel sorry for yourself because your shelter was destroyed, that for which you did no work to get, why shouldn't I feel sorry for the great city of Nineveh with its 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left? Nineveh was saved but it was short lived. A hundred and twenty five years later, (612 B.C.) after all that had been saved had died, the city was destroyed by the Medes.

If Jonah is a prophecy and not history, then you may be interested in how this story is interpreted. Jonah represents Israel. Nineveh represents paganism. The stormy sea represents world politics. The ship represents diplomacy. The crew represents the neighboring nations. The storm represents the disturbance when Babylon took over the Assyrian power. Each item in the story has a parallel in Jewish history. Israel was reluctant to save the Gentile, as Jonah was reluctant to save Nineveh. Jonah's three-day stay in the belly of the fish is symbolic to Jesus' stay in the grave.

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