Theology in a Booth: God's Appointed Discomforts Text: Jonah 4:5-8
Introduction: The Sulking Prophet
The book of Jonah is a masterclass in divine irony. It is a missionary tract aimed squarely at the hard heart of a rebellious believer. We have seen a pagan crew on a ship repent with more sincerity than the prophet. We have seen a great fish obey God with more precision than the prophet. We have seen the entire bloody, wicked, pagan city of Nineveh, from the king on his throne to the beasts in their stalls, repent in sackcloth and ashes at a truncated, five-word sermon. Everybody in this book fears and honors God except for God's man. And now, in this final chapter, God brings His wayward son to the woodshed. But this is no ordinary discipline. God is a master teacher, and His lesson plan for Jonah involves a booth, a plant, a worm, and a scorching east wind.
Jonah's problem is not a lack of theological information. He knows God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Jon. 4:2). That is precisely his complaint. His theology is orthodox, but his heart is rotten. He has a tribal, parochial view of God's mercy. He wants God's grace for Israel, but God's fire for everyone else. And when God shows the Ninevites the very mercy Jonah himself received in the belly of the fish, the prophet is incensed. His reputation as a hard-nosed prophet of doom is ruined, and worse, his enemies are now God's forgiven children. So he stomps out of the city, builds a pathetic little lean-to, and sits down to watch. He is hoping against hope that the repentance won't stick, and that God will come to His senses and rain down the promised destruction after all.
It is in this context of a spiritual temper tantrum that God orchestrates a series of events to expose the profound selfishness and misplaced affections of Jonah's heart. God is about to ask Jonah a question that echoes down to us: "Do you do well to be angry?" But before He asks, He provides a living illustration. He is going to teach Jonah about the nature of true compassion by first giving him a trivial comfort, and then taking it away. This is not God being cruel; this is God being a surgeon. He must cut to heal.
The Text
Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of the city. And there he made a booth for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. So Yahweh God appointed a plant, and it came up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his miserable evil. And Jonah was extremely glad about the plant. But God appointed a worm at thebreaking of dawn the next day, and it struck the plant, and it dried up. Then it happened that as the sun rose up, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun struck down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and asked with all his soul to die and said, “Death is better to me than life.”
(Jonah 4:5-8 LSB)
The Prophet's Perch (v. 5)
We begin with Jonah's self-imposed exile.
"Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of the city. And there he made a booth for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city." (Jonah 4:5)
Jonah is disengaged. He has done his job, technically, and now he is washing his hands of the whole affair. He goes "out from the city" and puts some distance between himself and those newly-forgiven pagans. He finds a spot "east of the city," likely on a hill, to get a good view. He is not there to rejoice with those who rejoice. He is there as a spectator, hoping for a cataclysm. He is like a man who sets a fire and then sits back to watch it burn, only he is disappointed that the fire department showed up and put it out.
He makes a "booth" for himself. The word is sukkah, the same word used for the temporary shelters built during the Feast of Tabernacles to remind Israel of their wilderness wanderings and God's provision. The irony is thick. Jonah builds a memorial to God's past faithfulness while stewing in anger over God's present faithfulness to the Ninevites. He is using the symbols of redemption to nurse a grudge against the Redeemer.
He sits there "until he could see what would happen in the city." The forty days are not up yet. There is still a chance, in his mind, that this whole repentance thing is a sham and God will nuke them anyway. This is the posture of a bitter and unbelieving heart. He doubts God's word of mercy just as he initially fled from God's word of judgment. He is consistent in his rebellion. He trusts his own sour disposition more than he trusts the revealed character of God.
God's Appointed Comfort (v. 6)
While Jonah is sitting in his self-pity, God intervenes with a small, unearned mercy.
"So Yahweh God appointed a plant, and it came up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his miserable evil. And Jonah was extremely glad about the plant." (Jonah 4:6 LSB)
Notice the verb: Yahweh God "appointed" a plant. The Hebrew is manah, the same word used when God appointed the great fish. This is not a random act of nature. God is the absolute sovereign over every molecule in His universe. He can command a fish, and He can command a plant. The fish obeyed. The plant obeys. Creation is orderly; it is the prophet who is in revolt. God causes this plant to grow, likely at a miraculous rate, to provide shade for Jonah's head.
The purpose is stated clearly: "to deliver him from his miserable evil." The Hebrew word for "miserable evil" (ra'ah) is the same word used for the wickedness of Nineveh and the calamity God turned from. God is delivering Jonah from his physical discomfort, which was a manifestation of his spiritual sickness. God is being kind to an unkind man. This is common grace, the sun that shines and the rain that falls on the just and the unjust. God is giving Jonah a taste of the very grace that he resents God giving to Nineveh.
And how does Jonah react? "Jonah was extremely glad about the plant." The Hebrew says he rejoiced with a great rejoicing. This is the first time in the entire book we see Jonah happy. He wasn't happy about his commission. He wasn't happy about his deliverance from the fish. He certainly wasn't happy about the salvation of 120,000 souls. But a gourd vine? This makes his day. His affections are entirely disordered. He has massive joy over a minor physical comfort and massive anger over a massive spiritual victory. This exposes the core of his sin: he is utterly self-absorbed. His world revolves around his personal comfort, not God's glory or the salvation of men.
God's Appointed Deconstruction (v. 7-8a)
No sooner has God provided the comfort than He appoints its destruction. The lesson is not over.
"But God appointed a worm at the breaking of dawn the next day, and it struck the plant, and it dried up. Then it happened that as the sun rose up, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun struck down on Jonah’s head..." (Jonah 4:7-8a LSB)
Again, God "appointed" a worm. God is sovereign over the great things, like nations and whales, and He is sovereign over the small things, like gourd vines and worms. There are no maverick molecules. This worm is on a divine mission. It arrives at dawn, strikes the plant at its root, and the source of Jonah's great joy withers and dies as quickly as it came.
Then, God triples down on the lesson. He "appointed a scorching east wind." This is the sirocco, a hot, oppressive wind from the desert that is physically and psychologically draining. As if that weren't enough, "the sun struck down on Jonah's head." The shade is gone, and now the heat is intensified. God is systematically removing Jonah's creature comforts. He gave, and now He is taking away. He is a good Father who knows that sometimes the only way to get our attention is to make us profoundly uncomfortable.
The Prophet's Despair (v. 8b)
Jonah's reaction to this divinely appointed discomfort is telling. It is a complete collapse.
"...so that he became faint and asked with all his soul to die and said, 'Death is better to me than life.'" (Jonah 4:8b LSB)
He becomes faint. He is physically overcome. But his physical state is just a picture of his spiritual state. His response is not to repent, or to ask God for strength. No, he despairs. He "asked with all his soul to die." This is the second time he has done this. He wanted to die because God saved Nineveh, and now he wants to die because his favorite plant died. The man's priorities are breathtakingly out of order.
His cry, "Death is better to me than life," is the cri de coeur of the utterly self-centered man. His happiness was tethered to a plant. When the plant is gone, his will to live is gone. He has made an idol out of a creature comfort, and when God removes the idol, he has nothing left. This is the endpoint of all idolatry. When you place your ultimate hope and joy in anything other than God, its eventual removal will lead you to despair. Your god will be shown to be a thing of nothing, and you will be left with that same nothing.
Conclusion: The Divine Object Lesson
This whole episode, this divinely orchestrated melodrama with the plant, the worm, and the wind, is a setup. God has masterfully cornered His prophet. He has exposed the petty, selfish root of Jonah's anger. Jonah is filled with rage and despair over the death of a plant he did not create, did not labor for, and which existed for only a day. He loved a gourd vine more than he loved people made in the image of God.
God is about to spring the trap in the next verse: "You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"
The lesson for us is sharp and clear. We must constantly be on guard against the Jonah that lives in our own hearts. We are all tempted to get "extremely glad" about our creature comforts, our gourd vines, our stock portfolios, our reputations, our political victories. And we are tempted to be indifferent or even hostile to the advance of God's mercy to our enemies. We want God to bless our tribe and curse that other tribe.
But God's mercy is wild and sovereign. It is not constrained by our petty bigotries. And He will often use "appointed" discomforts in our lives, a worm at the root of our comfort, a scorching east wind, to reveal our idolatries. He will make us uncomfortable to ask us the great question: What are you angry about? What do you truly love? Is it this temporary, withering thing? Or is it the glory of a merciful God and the salvation of the lost?
When God removes one of your comforts, do not despair like Jonah. See it for what it is: a divine appointment. It is a severe mercy, an invitation from your loving Father to examine your heart, to repent of your idols, and to align your passions with His. He is teaching you to grieve what He grieves and to rejoice in what He rejoices in, the salvation of sinners, from Nineveh to your own neighborhood.