--- title: "Jonah 4 - Study King James Bible with barnes notes on the whole bible" description: "Read Jonah 4 with barnes notes on the whole bible commentary. 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I" image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg" url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah/4" --- [ Read](/kjv/jonah/4)[ Commentary](/study/jonah/4)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/jonah/4) Audio 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, *was* not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou *art* a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for *it is* better for me to die than to live. 4 ¶ Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?* 5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. 6 And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made *it* to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.** 7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. 8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, *It is* better for me to die than to live.* 9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, *even* unto death.** 10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:** 11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and *also* much cattle? [Jonah 3](/study/jonah/3) [Micah 1](/study/micah/1) ## Commentary To verse 1 **And Jonah was displeased exceedingly -**It was an untempered zeal. The prophet himself records it as such, and how he was reproved for it. He would, like many of us, govern God’s world better than God Himself. Short-sighted and presumptuous! Yet not more short-sighted than those who, in fact, quarrel with God’s Providence, the existence of evil, the baffling of good, “the prison walls of obstacles and trials,” in what we would do for God’s glory. What is all discontent, but anger with God? The marvel is that the rebel was a prophet ! “What he desired was not unjust in itself, that the Ninevites should be punished for their past sins, and that the sentence of God pronounced against them should not be recalled, although they repented. For so the judge hangs the robber for theft, however he repent.” He sinned, in that he disputed with God. Let him cast the first stone, who never rejoiced at any overthrow of the enemies of his country, nor was glad, in a common warfare, that they lost as many soldiers as we. As if God had not instruments enough at His will! Or as if He needed the Assyrians to punish Israel, or the one nation, whose armies are the terror of Europe, to punish us, so that if they should perish, Israel should therefore have escaped, though it persevered in sin, or we! **And he was very angry -**, or, may be, “very grieved.” The word expresses also the emotion of burning grief, as when Samuel was grieved at the rejection of Saul, or David at “the breach upon Uzzah” [2Sa 6:8](/kjv/2sa/6/8); [1 Chronicles 13:11](/kjv/1-chronicles/13/11). Either way, he was displeased with what God did. Yet so Samuel and David took God’s doings to heart; but Samuel and David were grieved at God’s judgments; Jonah, at what to the Ninevites was mercy, only in regard to his own people it seemed to involve judgment. Scripture says that he was displeased, because the Ninevites were spared; but not, why this displeased him. It has been thought, that it was jealousy for God’s glory among the pagan, as though the Ninevites would think that God in whose Name he spake had no certain knowledge of things to come; and so that his fault was mistrust in God’s wisdom or power to vindicate His own honor. But it seems more likely, that it was a mistaken patriotism, which idolized the well being of his own and God’s people, and desired that its enemy, the appointed instrument of its chastisement, should be itself destroyed. Scripture being silent about it, we cannot know certainly. Jonah, under God’s inspiration, relates that God pronounced him wrong. Having incurred God’s reproof, he was careless about men’s judgment, and left his own character open to the harsh judgments of people; teaching us a holy indifference to man’s opinion, and, in our ignorance, carefulness not to judge unkindly. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com","name":"Real Bible Believers","description":"RBB","publisher":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/search?q={search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah/4#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","width":672,"height":448,"caption":"Real Bible Believers"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah/4#webpage","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah/4","name":"Jonah 4 - Study King James Bible with barnes notes on the whole bible","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah/4#primaryimage"},"author":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"description":"Read Jonah 4 with barnes notes on the whole bible commentary. 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah/4#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah/4"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah/4#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","name":"Home"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","name":"Study Bible"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible","name":"barnes notes on the whole bible"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah","name":"Jonah"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah/4","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/jonah/4","name":"4"}}]},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","width":512,"height":512},"logo":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo"},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/RBiblebeliever","https://www.facebook.com/RBibleBelievers"]}]} ```