Jonah 4:8-11 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on the head of Jonah… It would be difficult to say whether the tokens of God's holy justice, or of His abounding mercy, be the more numerous in the Scriptures. But all doubt is dispelled the moment that we understand the Gospel of our salvation. We can no longer question the loving-kindness of the Lord, when we see what has been done that sinners might have hope. But God's mercy had strangely distempered the mind of the prophet. He complained like one defrauded of his due. And that complaint led only to misery. What made others happy only fomented Jonah's grief. Sunrise brought no joy to him; the wind parched him, and withered the gourd; he was smitten with faintness by the eastern sun; he became weary of existence; he prayed that he might die. 1. The longer a sinner continues in his sin, the more wretched does he become. Jonah was obviously sinking deeper from hour to hour. 2. Suffering and sin are inseparably linked by the appointment of the holy God. It is the sinner himself who brings sorrow on the sinner. 3. God in holy sovereignty may punish sin by sin. When His creatures go astray His restraining grace is sometimes withheld, and then sin follows sin in rapid succession, until the wanderer at last perhaps stands appalled at his own iniquity, or else is proved to be hopelessly degenerate. See in Jonah's case how transgression followed transgression, lie is offended at the mercy of God to Nineveh. He refuses to acknowledge his waywardness, — he would rather die. Then he withdraws from all intercourse with those whom God had in mercy spared; their proximity was a source of pain to Jonah. Then he pines for death; then he tries to justify his waywardness, and comes at last to declare that he did right in sinning. It is thus that sin deludes the very conscience, darkens the understanding, and enslaves the will. Blinded by passion, resolute in self-defence, determined to acknowledge no fault, but to vindicate all that he had done, Jonah makes a confession which justifies the ways of God with Nineveh. If the prophet lamented the loss of the gourd, and pitied it when it perished, surely much more might the compassionate One pity the city which had repented. (W. K. Tweedie.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. |
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