“O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country?… I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”
Jonah 4:2
Let’s begin by noting something that Jonah did right. “He prayed to the LORD” (4:2). In chapter 1, Jonah was unhappy with God, and he ran from the Lord. In chapter 4, Jonah was unhappy with God, and he prayed to the Lord. That’s progress.
But Jonah’s prayer is a complaint against God—not just about what God does, but about who God is! “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” He is quoting one of the great statements of the character of God. It comes from Exodus 34:6-7, and it was regularly repeated among God’s people as an expression of praise.
But Jonah turns it back to God as a complaint: “God is too slow in dealing with evil.” The people of Nineveh were wicked, and they would return to evil even if they stopped for a time. Jonah was sure of this, and he was right!
A later generation of Ninevites destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel with great brutality. The book of Nahum lays out the excruciating evil that could have been avoided, if only God had destroyed Nineveh. Jonah saw this coming, and God’s mercy made him mad!
Haven’t you wondered about God’s strange providence in ordering the world? Think of the evil and suffering that could have been spared if God had wiped out Hitler or Stalin or Bin Laden early in life. Yet He let them live! Why?
Reflect on the ways God has been gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love in your own life.
