Jonah 4 Chapter Introduction

Structure and Formatting

Jonah continues the narrative and brings the book to an unusual conclusion, ending it with a question from God. This emphasizes that the book is not really about Jonah. It is about God’s desire to be merciful to everyone, whether Jew or Gentile. (See: mercy)

Religious and Cultural Concepts in This Chapter

Prophecy delayed

According to the law of Moses, a prophet must prophesy what Yahweh tells him to prophesy, and his words must come true. If that did not happen, the penalty was death, because that unfulfilled prophecy shows that the man was not a real prophet. But when Jonah told the city of Nineveh that it was going to be destroyed in 40 days, it did not happen at that time. This is because God reserves the right to be merciful. (See: prophet and lawofmoses)

Jonah’s anger

When God did not destroy Nineveh, Jonah was angry with God because Jonah hated the people of Nineveh. They were enemies of Israel. But God wanted Jonah and the readers of this book to learn that God loves all people.

Characteristics of God

In verse 2, Jonah attributes a series of characteristics to God. A Jewish reader of this book would recognize this as the description that God used about himself when speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai (See Exodus 34:6–7).

God’s grace

When Jonah went outside the city, he got very hot; God graciously provided some relief through the plant. God was trying to teach Jonah that he is a merciful God through this object lesson. (See: grace)

Translation Issues in This Chapter

Rhetorical questions

In this chapter, Jonah uses a rhetorical question to show how angry he is at Yahweh. Yahweh then uses a series of three rhetorical questions to teach Jonah about the attitude that he should have. If your language would not use rhetorical questions for these purposes, then use a more natural form. (See: figs-rquestion)

Translation Issues in This Chapter

Evil

The Hebrew word translated as “evil” in the ULT is very broad, including moral evil, physical evil, and everything that is bad. God never does moral evil. In verse 1, the author says that Jonah considered God’s act of mercy in sparing the people of Nineveh to be evil. In verse 2, Jonah describes God as “relenting from evil.” In verse 6, Jonah’s situation and attitude are described as evil. This is after the actions of the Ninevites are described as evil in 1:2, 3:8, and 3:10, and the situation of the sailors in 1:7. The ULT translates the word as “evil” in each place to show the irony that the author wants to convey by using the same Hebrew word for each different bad thing in the book and for one good thing—God’s mercy on Nineveh (from Jonah’s perspective). If your language would not use the same word for both moral and physical evil, you will want to use different words for each of them.