Jonah Under the Vine

A great city has just been saved. Thousands of people are alive who expected to die. Somewhere, people are surely celebrating. But on a hillside outside the walls, one man sits alone in the heat. And he is angry. Very, very angry.

You may know the first part of Jonah's story. God told the prophet Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, a powerful and cruel enemy of Israel, and warn them. Jonah ran the other way, onto a ship. There was a storm, and he was thrown overboard, and swallowed by a great fish. After three days the fish spat him onto dry land, and God gave him a second chance. This time Jonah went. He walked into Nineveh and announced: forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown. And to everyone's amazement, the whole city believed God. From the king down, they fasted, put on sackcloth and turned from their violence. And God saw it, and had mercy, and did not destroy them. That's where chapter four begins.

“But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.” And now Jonah finally admits why he ran away in the first place. He prays, and it's more of a complaint. Lord, isn't this exactly what I said back home? That's why I ran to Tarshish. “I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.” I knew you would forgive them! Jonah is upset that God is too kind, to the wrong people. He is so upset he says, Now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. And God answers with one quiet question. “Doest thou well to be angry?” Is it right for you to be this angry? Jonah doesn't answer.

Instead he stomps out of the city, to the east side, and builds himself a little shelter. He sits in its shade, waiting to see what will happen to Nineveh. Maybe God will still destroy it. Then God does something kind. He makes a leafy plant spring up over Jonah, giving shade over his head, to ease his misery. And Jonah, for the first time in this whole chapter, is happy. Very happy, the Bible says, about the plant. But at dawn the next day God sends a worm. It chews the plant, and the plant withers. Then, as the sun rises, God sends a scorching east wind off the desert. The sun beats down on Jonah's head until he feels faint, and once again he wishes he could die. It is better for me to die than to live, he says.

And God asks again. “Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?” Is it right to be angry about the plant? And Jonah snaps back: Yes. I'm angry enough to die. Then God says the last words of the book. You cared about this plant. You didn't plant it, or water it, or make it grow. It came up in a night and died in a night. “And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?” A hundred and twenty thousand people who did not know right from wrong, and all their animals too. If you feel sorry for a plant, shouldn't I care about them? And there the book ends, with God's question hanging in the air. We never hear Jonah's answer. Perhaps because the question is for us too.

No one knows exactly what plant this was. The Hebrew word, qiqayon, may mean the castor-oil plant, which grows fast and has large, shady leaves. Translators have argued over it for centuries. Around the year four hundred, Augustine wrote a letter to Jerome, who had translated it as ivy instead of the familiar gourd. Augustine reported that in one North African town, the new word caused an uproar in church.

You'll find this story in Jonah chapter four. A prophet who was angry that God was merciful, and a God who patiently asked him why. So here is a question to carry with you. Is there anyone you find it hard to want God to be kind to? What would God say to you about them?