On How to Think about Enemies, Part 6: Jonah v. God

Part 1: Introduction  | Part 2: Jonah, for the First Time | Part 3: Exemplary Pagans | Part 4: A Psalm | Part 5: More Exemplary Pagans  

Jonah’s story closes with a second conversation with God (the first being chapter 2). It begins by showing us Jonah’s heart, and it ends by showing us God’s heart. The contrast is instructive for our thesis. 

Jonah’s Heart 

The chapter starts with the word “but.” Following God’s forgiveness of the repentant people of Nineveh at the closing of the previous chapter (Jon 3.10), Jonah is deeply unhappy. God is pleased; the prophet is displeased. He wanted to deliver the message of judgment, but he did not want the evil ones to be forgiven. 

And now we learn why he sailed for Tarshish—the ends of the earth—when God first commissioned him: 

O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil (Jon 4.2). 

“I knew you’d do this!” he rants. “I knew you were just the sort of person who would forgive them!” 

How did he know that? He knew it because that is how God has revealed himself throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, beginning with Moses at Sinai (Ex 34.6-7) and continuing through Israel’s entrance into the Promised Land, and the Psalms, and on the return from Babylon, and (after Jonah) in the prophet Joel. Here Jonah is essentially quoting God’s words to Moses some seven centuries earlier. 

And Jonah didn’t want that. 

And this despite the fact that he had just been delivered from a destruction (Jon 2.10) that he completely deserved (Jon 1.12). Grace for me, he thinks, but not for thee. Because I hate you. You’re my enemy. I’d rather die than see grace come to you (Jon 4.3). 

As at the very beginning of his story, Jonah’s will is at cross purposes with God’s. 

Some prophet. 

God’s Heart 

God asks Jonah a simple question—“Are you doing right?” (Jon 4.4), and then the conversation pauses while God gives the rebellious, blindly angry prophet an object lesson. 

This is the Mesopotamian desert. It’s barren, except just along the banks of the Tigris River, and it’s really, really hot. Jonah hikes up a hillside for a good view of the city, in desperate hope that God will nuke the Assyrians just as he did the Sodomites. He builds some kind of rudimentary shelter for shade from the sun—using whatever materials he can find in this desert—and he waits (Jon 4.5). 

And God, the Teacher, causes a vine to grow up in just a day, a vine with good-sized leaves to give Jonah further protection from the sun (Jon 4.6). 

Aaahhh. Thank you, Lord. You are so kind. 

But the next day the vine withers and dies. And then a hot, dry desert wind, like a scirocco, arises and just saps the life out of everything, especially Jonah (Jon 4.8). Now he’s thirsty; he has sand in his throat and in his eyes and in his ears and he’s more miserable than he’s ever been, and on top of everything, the sandstorm is so thick that he won’t be able to see anything even if God does destroy Nineveh. 

And now the conversation resumes. 

You feel bad about the vine, do you? An insensate, transitory vine? (Jon 4.9-10). 

What about all these people, who do live and feel and suffer? Including 120,000 children, too young to know left from right? (Jon 4.11). 

What about the children, indeed. 

And here the story ends. 

We don’t know how Jonah answers, or whether he answers. We don’t know how or whether the conversation continues—is this a rhetorical question that God tosses over his shoulder as he strides, so to speak, out of Jonah’s life forever? 

We know that at some later time Jonah writes the story down, or he tells it to someone else who writes it down, and that the account finds its way into the Israelite literary corpus and eventually the Hebrew Scripture. That gives us some hope that the old bigot came to his senses; perhaps he realized that at core, he too was an Assyrian. Or, as pastor and hymnwriter Chris Anderson has preached, “I am the Samaritan woman.” 

But leaving the speculation aside, what do we learn from this prophet about how to think about our enemies? 

Our first principle:  

God loves our enemies just as much as he loves us. 

Perhaps that’s why he tells us to love our enemies (Mt 5.44), and also to be like him (1P 1.16). 

If you want your enemies destroyed, you’re doing it wrong. 

If you would be pleased to see them judged, you’re doing it wrong. 

Next time, we’ll begin our look at Nahum. 

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash