Useful Bible Studies > Jonah Commentary > chapter 4
The Book of Jonah ends in an impressive and sudden manner. In the last verse, God appeals to Jonah. Jonah has expressed his anger against some of God’s decisions (Jonah 3:10 to 4:1). So, Jonah imagines himself to know what God should do. For that reason, God asks Jonah whether God has acted in the right manner. It is as if God is asking him to be the judge of God’s own actions (compare Isaiah 5:3-4).
However, before Jonah can answer, God urges him to remember the great love of God. God tells him about 120,000 people in Nineveh. For Jonah, that is a vast crowd; but God knows each one of them personally (Matthew 10:29).
God describes them like little children; they do not know the difference between their right hand and their left hand (compare Isaiah 7:15-16). Perhaps however God does not mean the children: he might mean that very many of the adults behave like children. So many people do wicked things foolishly, and not on purpose. They are just following their own desires, ambitions, feelings and emotions. Nobody has taught them how to please God, so instead they choose to please themselves. God cares about them. He very much wants to save them from their wrong behaviour.
Then God reminds Jonah about his (God’s) love for the animals. Jonah loved a plant, so he should respect God’s love for the animals. Those animals would suffer too if God permitted some great trouble to destroy the city.
So, now Jonah must decide whether God was right to forgive Nineveh’s people and to save their city. God urges him to make his decision.
Jonah, however, is silent (compare Job 40:3-5). He can give no answer to God. Of course God is perfect and right in all that he does (Deuteronomy 32:4). So instead, Jonah carefully records what God has said to him. That is his humble duty as a prophet (holy man) and a servant of the one true God.
© 2024 Keith Simons
This book is in EasyEnglish Level B (2800 words), which was developed by Wycliffe Associates (UK).
May 2024
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© 2024, Keith Simons.