Chapter 4:
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Introduction 1 2 3 4 Obadiah Micah
Jonah 4
Jonah's
selfishness and care for his reputation as a prophet
The God of grace has
compassion on the works of His hands, when they humble
themselves before Him and tremble at the hearing of His
righteous judgments. But Jonah, instead of caring for
them, thinks only of his own reputation as a prophet.
Wretched heart of man, so unable to rise up to the
goodness of God! If Jonah had been nearer to God, he
would have known that this was truly the God whom he
proclaimed, whom he had learnt to love by knowing Him. He
would have been able to say, Now, indeed, the Ninevites
know the God whose testimony I gloried in bearing, and
they will be happy. But Jonah thought only of himself;
and the horrid selfishness of his heart hides from him
the God of grace, faithful to His love for His helpless
creatures. Chapter 4: 2 exhibits the spirit of Jonah in
all its deformity. The grace of God is insupportable to
the pride of man. His justice is all very well: man can
invest himself with it for his own glory; for man loves
vengeance which is allied with the power that executes
it. God must proclaim His justice. He does not save in
sin. He makes man know his sin, in order to reconcile him
to Himself, in order that his restoration may be
real—may be that of his heart and of his conscience
with God. But it is to make Himself known in pardoning
him.
God's grace and
compassion on Jonah as on others: His kindness to those
who need it
But God is above all the
wretched evil of man, and He treats even Jonah with
kindness, yet making him feel, at the same time, that He
will not renounce His grace, His nature, to satisfy the
frowardness of man's heart. He relieves the suffering of
Jonah, disappointed at the non-fulfilment of his words;
and the selfishness of Jonah's heart delights in this
relief. He almost forgets the vengeance he had desired,
in his satisfaction at being sheltered from the burning
heat of the sun. Having gone out of Nineveh, and seated
himself apart that he might see what would become of this
city whose repentance vexed his evil heart, he rejoiced,
in the midst of his anger, at the gourd which God
prepared for him. But what a testimony to the utter
iniquity of the flesh! The repentance of the sinner, his
return to God, irritates the heart. It is really this;
for the city is spared on account of its repentance. Will
God smite one who returns to Him in humiliation for his
sins? He who does not know the heart of man could not
understand the application of such a word as
"Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity." We see it
here in the case of a prophet. There is the same
thing—having
also the same application,
and the same patient grace on God's part—in the case
of the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son.
But if man is content with that which relieves his own
distress, and is even angry in his selfishness when that
which relieved him is destroyed, shall not God spare the
works of His hand and have compassion on that which, in
His goodness, He has created? Assuredly He will not
listen to the man who would silence His kindness towards
those who need it. 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.
The subject of the
book—God's government of men on earth: the tender
mercies of the Creator God
It is well to remark here,
that the subject of this book is not the judgment of the
secrets of all hearts in the great day, but the
government of God with respect to men on the earth. This
is the case, moreover, with all the prophets. We may
observe, also, that God reveals Himself in this book as
God the Creator—Elohim. We know that even the
creatures still groan under the effects of our sin; and
they share also the kindness and the compassions of God.
His tender mercies are over them. Not a sparrow falls to
the ground without Him. The day will come when the curse
shall be removed, and they shall enjoy the liberty of the
glory of the children of God, set free from bondage and
corruption. If God becomes our Father, He takes also the
character of Jehovah, who will judge Israel, and who will
accomplish His promises and His purposes with respect to
them in spite of the whole world. He never ceases to be
the Creator God. He does not lay aside one of His
characters in order to assume another, any more than He
confounds them together; for they reveal His nature, and
what He is.
What the existence
of the book proves
It is sweet, after all, to
see Jonah's docility in the end to the voice of God,
manifested by the existence of this book, in which the
Spirit uses him to exhibit what is in the heart of man,
as the vessel of God's testimony, and (in contrast with
the prophet, who honestly confesses all his faults) the
kindness of God, to which Jonah could not elevate
himself, and to which he could not submit.
The two ways in
which Jonah's history is used in the New Testament
We may remark, that the
case of Jonah is used in the New Testament in two ways,
which must not be confounded together: as a testimony in
the world, by the word of God—a service with which
the Lord compares His own: and afterwards as in the belly
of the fish—a circumstance used by the Lord as a
figure of the time during which He lay in the grave.
Jonah, by his preaching, was a sign to the Ninevites,
even as the Lord was to the Jews, harder of hearing and
of heart than those pagans who were afar from God. Jonah
was also (in that which happened to him in consequence of
his refusal to bear testimony) a type of that which
befell Jesus when He bore the penalty of the people's
sin, and when, being raised from the dead, He became the
testimony of grace, and at the same time the occasion of
judgment to those who had rejected Him. We have seen in
his history that Jonah is a remarkable moral figure of
Israel—at least of Israel's conduct.
Chapter 4:
| Calvin
| Darby
| Geneva
| Gill
| Jamieson Faussett Brown
| Matthew Henry
| Matthew Henry Concise
| Wesley
| Index
| Bible Gateway |
Introduction 1 2 3 4 Obadiah Micah
This version of Darby's Synopsis of the Old Testament is a derivative of an electronic version, Copyright 1995 by L. Hodgett. Used by permission. The files of the Synopsis found on this site may not be reproduced without permission from L. J. L. Hodgett, Stem Publishing. A special thanks to L. J. L. Hodgett and Stem Publishing for permission to create and post this version of Darby's Synopsis of the Old Testament.
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
Job
Psalm
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Acts
Romans
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1 Thessalonians
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1 Timothy
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Titus
Philemon
Hebrews
James
1 Peter
2 Peter
1 John
2 John
3 John
Jude
Revelation
