Jonah

Whereas prophets such as Ezekiel and Hosea were called upon to live out their prophecies, in Jonah we have one whose very life is the sign itself (Matt. 12:3939But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: (Matthew 12:39)). The message that Jonah was to carry was simple enough: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me” (Jonah 1:22Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. (Jonah 1:2)). Nineveh, however, was the capital of Assyria, Israel’s enemy, and before that message was preached, Jonah had to pass through the very depths of the ocean. There he acknowledges, “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:99But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. (Jonah 2:9)).
Though Jonah fulfilled his mission to preach to Nineveh, his pride could not accept God’s mercy to the Gentile. Jonah’s reputation was at stake; the thing he feared had come about—the judgment he had preached of had not transpired (Jonah 4:2, 32And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, 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. 3Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. (Jonah 4:2‑3)). Likewise, man in his great pride rejects the grace of God; he would have His justice (especially when it concerns another—though it condemns him also) but not His grace. We see this with the elder brother in the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:3030But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. (Luke 15:30)).
God in mercy prepares a gourd to protect Jonah from the terrible heat (Jonah 4:66And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. (Jonah 4:6)); but the gourd must be removed. Jonah must learn the ways of God’s action in grace—so it will be with Israel, and so it must be with each one of us. The very existence of this book and its unflattering account of the author are proof to us of the lesson learned.
The life of Jonah is a prophetic picture of Israel. It is the history of the unfaithful witness and God’s governmental dealings with them. Israel proved unfaithful to the testimony of God toward this world and has been temporarily set aside.