Jonah 4 (KJV) - Bible Truth Library

sixscore.It is generally calculated that the young children of any place are a fifth of the inhabitants, and consequently the whole population of Nineveh would amount to about 600,000; which is very inferior to that of London and Paris, though they occupy not one quarter of the ground.

In eastern cities there are large vacant spaces for gardens and pasturages, so that there might be very "much cattle."that cannot.

Deut. 1:39• ³⁹Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it. (Deut. 1:39)

and also.

Psa. 36:6• ⁶Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O Lord, thou preservest man and beast. (Psa. 36:6)

;

Psa. 104:14,27‑28• ¹⁴He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
²⁷These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.
²⁸That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. (Psa. 104:14,27‑28)

;

Psa. 145:8‑9,15‑16• ⁸The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.
⁹The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
¹⁵The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.
¹⁶Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. (Psa. 145:8‑9,15‑16)

• Another might conceivably have told of his mission to Nineveh and its amazing results; but who but himself could have told of his conversation aboard ship, or who could have given the very words of his prayer to Jehovah in the fish's belly, and of his peevish complaints afterward, and the gracious remonstrances of God with him? In some later period in his life, when he had learned his lesson, Jonah was guided by the Holy Spirit to write his most interesting story, which reflects the deepest discredit upon the prophet himself, while containing the most wholesome instruction for all who seek to witness for God in any age. Surely no more frank confession of grievous faults was ever published! (“Jonah and His Book” by W.W. Fereday)

• The book thus closes abruptly. Jonah was left to answer the challenge as best he could, and the reader of today is left to answer it for himself. The God whom we know—blessedly revealed to us in Christ—could do no otherwise than spare a repentant city. But this did not suit the surly preacher. His personal dignity was at stake (at least so he judged), and he would prefer Nineveh to be destroyed, with its immense population of old and young, rather than his words should fall to the ground. He had pity on the gourd, a creature of a day, because it was of advantage to himself, but there was no pity in his heart for hundreds of thousands of precious souls. If Jonah wrote his book in later life, as seems probable, surely he blushed with shame as he penned its concluding chapter under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (“On the East Side of the City” by W.W. Fereday)

• Jonah 4:11 is not quite as John 3:16. In the latter passage we hear the voice of the Son of God speaking on earth; but in the former it is the Creator who is speaking. (“The Companionate Creator” by W.W. Fereday)

• It is terribly possible to become formal and stereotyped in our service, and thus to serve out of harmony with the One who has sent us. Let us seek to keep near the heart of the God of infinite compassion. (“The Companionate Creator” by W.W. Fereday)

• This is God’s controversy with Jonah at the end. He would refuse God the right of showing mercy to His helpless creatures, and insist upon His rigorous execution of the sentence upon the Gentile world without even leaving space for repentance. (“Jonah 3” by J.N. Darby)

• Most touching and beautiful is the last verse of this book, in which God displays this force, this supreme necessity, of His love; which (although the threatenings of His justice are heard, and must needs be heard and even executed if man continues in rebellion) abides in the repose of that perfect goodness which nothing can alter, and which seizes the opportunity of displaying itself, whenever man allows Him, so to speak, to bless him--the repose of a perfection that nothing can escape, that observes everything, in order to act according to its own undisturbed nature--the repose of God Himself, essential to His perfection, on which depends all our blessing and all our peace. (“Jonah 4” by J.N. Darby)

• Yes, God even thinks of and feels for the cattle. What surer or more evident sign of greatness than to be able to take in what we consider petty along with what is to us boundless in magnitude? (“Jonah 4” by W. Kelly)

• He who prepared the fish prepared the palma-christ {castor bean plant} and the worm and the vehement east wind. All things serve not His might only, but His gracious purposes. It is as characteristic of our prophet as of all scripture to state calmly every incident just as it was, all under God’s hand, the least as truly as the greatest, and this too not to his own credit, but to the praise of mercy so infinitely above the thoughts of man. (“Jonah 4” by W. Kelly)

• But God is as wise as He is good; and the prophet’s grief over the perishing palma-christi is made a reproof to his own rash spirit, and a justification from his own mouth for the mercy of God to the men of Nineveh. (“Jonah 4” by W. Kelly)

• If Jonah himself wrote this little book that bears his name, we may easily understand and appreciate the absence of the title prophet in this book. We can also understand and appreciate the fact that God takes care that another writer puts upon him that honorable title that his own hand would not take. The Lord Jesus Himself delights to honor Jonah with this title. (See Matt. 12:39, etc.) (“Jonah 1: Jonah Rebels” by G.C. Willis)

• What a picture it is! Jonah “exceeding glad” of the gourd because it added to his own comfort, but utterly unconscious of the joy in heaven over a whole city that had repented: and even exceedingly displeased, and very angry, because it had done so and thus been saved from destruction! Jonah was far more deeply concerned with the fate of the gourd than he was with perhaps a million or more never-dying souls who had just turned to the living and true God. What a lesson for us today! How many of us are far more deeply concerned over our gourds and our flowers, our houses and our business, our motors and our radios, than we are with the millions of perishing, yet never-dying, souls all about us. (“Jonah 4: Jonah Is Very Angry” by G.C. Willis)

• What a lesson this is to us as we see the vast numbers of the heathen, those utterly without God in the world. For each of these individually God has a tender care, on the ground that He has labored for them, He has made them to grow. It is truly His hand that provides them day by day with their daily bread, though they have never learned to acknowledge Him as “Father.” May the Lord help us to look on them with His own thoughts, and love them with a little of that wondrous love told out with such ringing eloquence in those words so familiar to us all: “God so loved the world!” (“Jonah 4: Jonah Is Very Angry” by G.C. Willis)

J. N. Darby Translation

and I, should not I have pity on Nineveh, the great city, wherein are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

W. Kelly Translation

and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?