He prayed to the Lord. (Jonah 4:2, NIV)
Jonah’s prayer is a complaint against God—not just about what God does, but about who God is: “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (4:2).
These words were regularly repeated by God’s people as an expression of praise. But Jonah turns it back to God as a complaint because he feels that God is too slow in dealing with evil. The people of Nineveh were wicked, and they would return to their evil ways, even if they repented for a time. Jonah was sure of this… and he was right!
The Ninevites that had repented were soon replaced by a generation who returned to the old ways of violence and torture. It was this next generation that later destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel with great brutality (see the book of Nahum). All of this could have been avoided, if only God had destroyed Nineveh. Jonah saw this coming and it made him mad!
Haven’t you ever wondered about God’s strange providence in ordering the world? Think of how much evil and suffering the world could have been spared if God had wiped out Hitler, or Stalin, or Bin Laden when they were young.
Yet God lets them live! Why? Because God is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love (4:2), and that is Jonah’s complaint. When he thought about all the violence and wickedness in the world, and how slow God is to judge, it made him angry!
Is Jonah 4:2 an expression of praise or complaint for you today? Why?
