Do You Hate Those God Loves? (Jonah 1-4)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Have you ever put your life at risk for someone you disliked?

In a dog-eat-dog world, this kind of thinking is foreign to many, and it certainly felt foreign to the prophet Jonah. While some view Jonah’s story, particularly the part where he was swallowed by a great fish, as a non-historical account, “The majority of scholars now reject as unlikely the possibility that the book of Jonah is either allegory or midrash.”^[1] “A reference to ‘Jonah son of Amittai’ in 2Ki 14:25 places the setting for the book of Jonah between 790 and 760 BC. Jonah therefore serves in the generation just before Amos and Hosea, at the beginning of classical prophecy in Israel.”^[2]

As the story goes, God commands Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn its people of impending judgment. Jonah attempts to flee to Tarshish (which was in the opposite direction) by sea but is swallowed by a great fish after being thrown overboard during a storm. After three days, the fish releases him, and Jonah finally goes to Nineveh, delivering God's message. The Ninevites repent, and God spares the city.

This brings us to the most important part of the Jonah narrative. When we arrive at Chapter 4, we see Jonah resents God’s redemptive plan. Verse 1 says, “Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious.” Why is he displeased? The following two verses are astonishing and reveal the real reason Jonah fled to Tarshish. It wasn’t just out of fear. It was out of hate.

Verse 2-3 says Jonah ² “prayed to the Lord, ‘Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. ³ And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’” In other words, he’s angry with God because God is consistent with who he has always been, leaving Douglas Stuart to comment:

By including in the story Jonah’s admission of the fact that he had fled from God because he knew God was compassionate, the narrator effectively silences all speculation about Jonah’s motives. Regardless of any other religious or political notions Jonah may have had, it is evident that he hated the fact that Yahweh was truly consistent in being merciful and patient—that is, consistent among the nations as well as within Israel. “What is God really like?” is thus a more important question in this book than the question “What was Jonah really like?” ^[3]

Jonah loved the idea of God’s grace when it applied to him, but he resented it when it was applied to those he despised. Stuart writes, “Jonah wanted discriminatory limits on God’s grace. But he knew all along, as all Israelites and Christians should know, that God will be bound by no such limits.”^[4]

Even though Jonah would have known God’s grand plan was for his chosen people to be a blessing to all nations, he felt some people were so wicked that they were beyond this plan. Some might say Jonah had good reason to feel this way. After all, the Assyrians, particularly those in Greater Nineveh, were known for their extreme cruelty and brutality, especially during their military campaigns. Still, God loved them. Still, he wanted to redeem them.

The same holds true today. In an age where tribalism and political differences tend to pit one people group against another, the story of Jonah is a stark reminder that God’s love for those we despise is just as great as his love for us. To join in union with him, we must shift our nationalistic and tribalistic thinking to his kingdom perspective.