Ver. 1. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly] Mirabilis homo profecto fuit Ionas, saith Winckelman here, as strange a man was Jonah of an honest man as you shall lightly hear of. Well might David caution, Psalms 37:8, “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. A fretful man is easily drawn to evil. David was (once at least) displeased at God’s dealing, which was no whit for his credit or comfort, 2 Samuel 6:8. Discontented he was, not at God’s lenity, as Jonah, but at God’s severity against Uzziah, and that all the people’s joy should be dashed and damped with such a sad and sudden disaster. How much better minded was he when dumb, not once opening his mouth, because God did it, Psalms 39:9. The Greeks give this rule, Either say nothing, or say that which is better than nothing, η σιγαν η κρεισσονα σιγης λεγειν. “O that you would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom,” said Job to his friends, Job 13:5. Silence sometimes comes to be a virtue; and never more than when a man is causelessly displeased. Prima semper irarum tela maledicta sunt, saith Sallust. Angry people are apt to let fly, to mutter and mutiny against God and man, as here. Reason should say to choler that which the nurse saith to the child, Weep not, and you shall have it. But either it doth not, or if it do, yet the ear (which tasteth words, as the mouth doth meat) is oft so filled with gall (some creatures have fel in aure gall in gold) that nothing can relish with it. See Exodus 6:9. If Moses’ anger was pure, free from guile and gall, Exodus 32:19, yet Jonah’s was not so. It is surely very difficult to kindle and keep quick this fire without all smoke of sin. Be angry and sin not is, saith one, the easiest charge, under the hardest condition that can be. Men, for the most part, know not what they do in their anger; this raiseth such a smoke. Put fire to wet straw and filthy stuff, and it will smoke and smutch you quickly; yea, scorch you and scald you, when once it breaks out. Leviticus 13:5, we read of a leprosy breaking out of a burning: seldom do passions burn but there is a leprosy breaking out of that burning. It blistereth out at the lips: hence the Hebrews have but one and the same word for anger and foaming at the mouth, Ketseph, spuma, Hosea 10:7 Es 1:18 Zec 1:2. They have also a proverb, that a man’s disposition is much discovered, bechos, bechis, becagnab, by his cup, by his purse, and by his passion, at which time, and in which cases, “A fool uttereth all his mind,” Proverbs 29:11 (all his wrath, say the Seventy, θυμον), and that suddenly, rashly, as the Hebrew intimateth; but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards, Proverbs 29:11 (רתפ a fool, and םאתפ suddenly, rashly, are from the same root. De sera numin, vindict.). Ahasuerus, when he felt himself enraged against Haman, walked into his garden, Esther 7:7. And Plutarch tells of one Archytas, that, displeased with his servants for their sloth, he fled from them, saying, Valete quoniam vobis irascor, I will leave you, for that I am angry with you. The very first insurrections of inordinate passions are to be crushed, the first smoke of them to be smothered, which else will fume up into the head, and gather into so thick a cloud, as we shall lose the sight of ourselves and what is best to be done. Cease, therefore, from rash anger, and stint strife betime. “The beginning of it,” saith Solomon, “is as when one letteth out water; therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with,” Proverbs 17:14. Storms rise out of little gusts, and the highest winds are at first but a small vapour. Had Jonah stopped or stepped back when he felt himself first stirred, he had not so shamefully overshot himself, nor heaped up so many sins, as he did in the following intercourse with Almighty God. He was naturally hot and hasty, and so were those two brethren, the sons of thunder; they had quick and hot spirits, Luke 9:54,55. Now, where there is much untowardness of nature there grace is the more easily overborne: sour wines need much sweetening. God’s best children, though ingrafted into the true vine, yet carry they about them a relish of the old stock still. It is thought by very good divines, that Jonah, feeling his own weakness in giving place to anger, thought to strive against it, and so addressed himself to prayer, Jonah 4:2; but transported by his passions of grief and rash anger, while by prayer he thought to have overcome them, they overcame him and his prayer too. So true is that of the apostle, “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God,” James 1:20.
Ver. 2. And he prayed unto the Lord] i.e. He thought to have done so, but by the deceitfulness of his own heart he quarrelled with God, and instead of wrestling with him, as Jacob, he wrangled with him. The words seem to be rather a brawl than a prayer, which should ever proceed from a sedate and settled spirit, and hold conformity with the will of God. Could Jonah be in case to pray, when he had neither right conceptions of God nor a heart of mercy to men, but that millions of people must perish rather than he be held a false prophet? Say there were something in it of zeal for God’s glory, which he thought would suffer, as if God were either mutable or impotent; say that there were in this outburst something of affection to God’s people, who had then no greater enemy to fear than these Ninevites, whom therefore Jonah would have had destroyed, according to his prediction; yet cannot he be excused for falling so foul upon God, and upbraiding him with that which is his greatest glory, Exodus 33:18,19 34:6,7. The truth is, nothing makes a man eccentric in his motions so much as headstrong passions and private respects. He that brings these into God’s presence shall do him but little good service. The soul is then only well carried when neither so becalmed that it moves not when it should, nor yet tossed with tempests to move disorderly, as did Jonah here, and Job, in that peevish prayer of his, Job 6:8,9. See also Jeremiah 20:7,8. I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, &c.] That is, my thought: for whether he worded it thus with God till now it appeareth not; but God heareth the language of men’s hearts, and their silence to him is a speaking evidence. When I was yet in my country?] And had Jonah so soon forgotten what God had done for him since he came thence? Oh, what a grave is oblivion! and what a strange passage is that (and yet how common!) “Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. They soon forgot his works; they waited not for his counsel.” (Psalms 106:12,13) Jonah did not surely wait for God’s counsel, but anticipated it. ldcirco anteverti, saith he in the next words (therefore I fled before), and thought he had said well, spoke very good reasoning. It is the property of lust and passion so to blear the understanding of a man that he shall think he hath reason to be mad, and that there is great sense in sinning. Dogs in a chase bark at their own masters; so do people in their passions let fly at their best friends. “They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth,” Psalms 73:9. Jonah in his heat here justifieth his former flight, which he had so sorely smarted for, et quasi quidam Aristarchus, he taketh upon him to censure God for his superabundant goodness, which is above all praise. For I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, &c.] This he knew to be God’s name, Exodus 34:6,7, but withal he should have remembered what was the last letter in that name, viz. that he will by no means clear the guilty. See Nahum 1:2,8. The same fire hath burning heat and cheerful light. Gracious is the Lord, but yet righteous, saith David, Psalms 116:5, his mercy goes ever bounded by his truth. This Jonah should have considered; and therefore trembled thus to have upbraided God with that mercy by which himself subsisted, and but for which he had been long since in hell, for his tergiversation and peevishness. But “mercy rejoiceth against judgment,” James 2:13, and runneth as a spring, without ceasing. It is not like those pools about Jerusalem that might be dried up with the tramplings of horse and horsemen. “The grace of God was exceeding abundant,” 1 Timothy 1:14. It hath abounded to flowing over (υπερ επλεονασε) as the sea doth above the largest rocks. See this in the present instance. Jonah addeth sin to sin, and doth enough to undo himself for ever: so that a man would wonder how God could forbear killing him, as he had like to have done Moses when he met him in the inn. But he is God, and not man; he contents himself to admonish Jonah for his fault, as a friend and familiar, velut cum eo colludens, jesting with him, as it were, and, by an outward sign, showing him how grievously he had offended. Concerning these attributes of God here recited, [See Trapp on “Joe 2:13”] and say, with Austin, Laudent alii pietatem: Dei ego misericordiam. Let no spider suck poison out of this sweetest flower: nor out of a blind zeal make ill use of it, as Jonah doth, for a cloak of his rebellion, lest abused mercy turn into fury.