Learning from Jonah

"Should I not have compassion?"

I wrote yesterday about the book of Job, a challenging book in the Bible where the LORD uses the suffering of Job to teach us so many things about the ways of God and Satan, the sovereignty of God, and the futility of questioning God. My reflection yesterday was about the words of Elihu, one of Job’s friends, who was the only one not to get rebuked by God in the end for the words he said about Him. Elihu gave a timely warning for our current age, “Judgment and justice take hold of you. Beware that wrath does not entice you to scoffing” (Job 36:17b-18a).

This morning I read a story about a physician who took to scoffing on social media about the Texas floods, wishing harm to those who did not share her political views. This is one of the bewildering characteristics of our current age, that people are willing to go so far as to assert that those who disagree politically are not even worthy of life. A contrast struck me in my timely reading of the book of the prophet Jonah.

God told Jonah to go to the wicked city of Nineveh and warn them they were at risk of destruction. Even though Jonah claimed to “fear the LORD God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land,” he disobeyed and tried to flee from the presence of the LORD. We should all take heed to this impossibility. He took a ship, and the LORD caused a great storm so that the ship was about to break up. The crew cast lots to see who was responsible, and the lot fell to Jonah. They asked him what to do, and he told them to throw him into the sea so that it would become calm.

The crew of the ship had respect for Jonah’s life, even though he had caused them hardship and near calamity. They did not initially do as Jonah told them, but as the storm worsened, they prayed to the LORD in whom they did not yet believe: “We earnestly pray, O LORD, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for You, O LORD, have done as You have pleased.” These men did not know or fear the LORD, but they knew a fact with which we struggle: the LORD does what He pleases. The entire book of Job speaks to our struggle with this fact.

The next part of the story is also familiar. Jonah does get thrown into the sea, which then becomes calm. He gets swallowed by a whale, and is in its stomach for three days and nights. He prays to the LORD, and the whale vomits him up on dry land. And then he obeys the LORD, going to Nineveh to warn them about their wickedness. His message is simple (“Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown”), but the people’s reaction is quick and dramatic: “the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.” Even the king issued a proclamation for a fast, saying, “let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.”

The ways of God confuse us, but He longs to be merciful: “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.”

Jonah, a follower of God, did not want God to be merciful. He admitted the reason for his disobedience: “I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.” Jonah quoted God’s very first description of Himself, to Moses, in Exodus 34:6-7: “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

God rebuked Jonah for his lack of compassion, saying, “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?” When we are tempted to question the ways of God, we have to go back to the truth of who He is: “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin.” While we focus on the calamities of this life, God focuses on His desire for us to be with Him for eternity. He has compassion on those we do not. He loves mercy, and told us through His Son Jesus, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

Proverbs 11:17 says, “The merciful man does himself good, But the cruel man does himself harm.” As far as we know, Jonah did not repent of his lack of compassion. May we not be guilty of the same.