Jon 4:2 | KingComments | STEP | This prayer of Jonah is very different from what he prayed in the fish. This time it is a complaint. It is not a prayer in accordance with God, it is a wrong prayer (cf. ). He accuses God of being how He is and because of His actions. Herein lies the pride of Jonah. He thinks he could govern the world better than God. He tells God what occupied him all this time about God and that this was the reason for his runaway. He seems to hold it up to God in a way that he tells Him something He didn’t know. Jonah reveals himself here. He, and this applies to man in general, cannot bear the grace God grants others as long as he still considers himself important. The person who is filled with his own importance is merciless and cruel. Not only does he begrudge others compassion, but he grants them that they perish. Jonah here is reminiscent of the eldest son in Luke 15. He is that son’s spiritual twin brother ( ). Jonah reproaches God that He is as He really is and that He does not correspond to how Jonah thinks He should be. The characteristic shown by Jonah here is more common among religious people than we sometimes suspect. It explains why those who boast of their devotion to Scripture maintain doctrines that clearly contradict what God has revealed of Himself. An example of this is sectarianism. Jonah differs from the slave about whom the Lord Jesus speaks in a parable, who found his Lord a hard master and therefore did not go to work ( ). But there is also a similarity and that is that in both cases reproaches are made to the Lord because He does not correspond to the natural taste of His servant.

‏ Jonah 4:2

The Second Prayer of Jonah

This prayer of Jonah is very different from what he prayed in the fish. This time it is a complaint. It is not a prayer in accordance with God, it is a wrong prayer (cf. Jam 4:3). He accuses God of being how He is and because of His actions. Herein lies the pride of Jonah. He thinks he could govern the world better than God. He tells God what occupied him all this time about God and that this was the reason for his runaway. He seems to hold it up to God in a way that he tells Him something He didn’t know.

Jonah reveals himself here. He, and this applies to man in general, cannot bear the grace God grants others as long as he still considers himself important. The person who is filled with his own importance is merciless and cruel. Not only does he begrudge others compassion, but he grants them that they perish.

Jonah here is reminiscent of the eldest son in Luke 15. He is that son’s spiritual twin brother (Lk 15:28-30). Jonah reproaches God that He is as He really is and that He does not correspond to how Jonah thinks He should be. The characteristic shown by Jonah here is more common among religious people than we sometimes suspect. It explains why those who boast of their devotion to Scripture maintain doctrines that clearly contradict what God has revealed of Himself. An example of this is sectarianism.

Jonah differs from the slave about whom the Lord Jesus speaks in a parable, who found his Lord a hard master and therefore did not go to work (Mt 25:24). But there is also a similarity and that is that in both cases reproaches are made to the Lord because He does not correspond to the natural taste of His servant.