Context at a Glance
Author:Traditional Attribution
Topic:jonah Chapter 4 Study
This chapter provides a foundational look at the theological themes of jonah, analyzed across multiple historic translations for maximum scholarly depth.
Jonah 4
New Revised Standard Version
1But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.
2He prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.
3And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."
4And the LORD said, "Is it right for you to be angry?"
5Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.
6The LORD God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush.
7But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered.
8When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
9But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die."
10Then the LORD said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night.
11And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?" MICAH
1858MICAH Introduction The prophet Micah, active during the late eighth century BCE, was among the earliest of the Minor Prophets. According to 1.1, Micah prophesied in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, whose reigns spanned 759-687 BCE. Possible allusions to the fall of Samaria (1.6) and the campaign of Sennacherib (1.10-16) place the prophet in the final quarter of the eighth century BCE. As such he was a younger contemporary of Isaiah of Jerusalem. The characteristics of the era in which Micah spoke were similar to those seen in Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah 1-39. Biblical accounts of this era are
1Kings 16-19 and Isaiah 3637. The prophetic scroll known as Micah may have material from later periods (e.g., 4.10 speaks of the Babylonian Exile; 7.11 seems to reflect the postexilic period). Some suggest that chs 1-3 form the oldest core of the book; it is characterized by the judgmental tone for which Micah was most famous (Jer 26.18). Micah offered a theological interpretation of the dizzying events near the end of the eighth century; the fall of Samaria, the expansion of Jerusalem fueled by emigrants from the north, and the international situation made unstable by an aggressive superpower, Assyria. Micah, from a small town southwest of Jerusalem, Moresheth-gath, had a populist message. He expressed disdain for the corruptions and pretensions of the Jerusalem establishment and its leaders. In an era of urbanization, he championed the traditions of early Israel (3.9-10; 6.35). Micah condemned religious practice untethered from ethical performance (6.6-8). While Amos and Hosea condemned the high places, provincial shrines where the proper worship of the Lord was diluted by illicit elements, Micah called Jerusalem itself a high place (1.5) and announced its destruction (3.12), for which he was long remembered (Jer 26.18). At MICAH
1859the same time, Micah never lost faith in the future. The middle section of the book, chs 4-5, contains images of a restored and glorious Zion to which the nations make pilgrimage, and of an ideal king (5.2-5). In the organization of the Book of Twelve, Micah follows Jonah, an arrangement apparently based on chronology since, according to
2Kings 14.25, Jonah also lived in the eighth century. Micah is connected to the book of Nahum, which follows, by catchword; compare the final section of Micah (7.18-19) with the initial unit of Nahum (1.1-3). The book may be divided in three sections: chs 1-3; 4-5; 6-7. Chs 1-3 mainly consist of oracles of judgment; chs 4-5 of oracles of hope. The final section, chs 6-7, begins with judgment and moves to hope. We do not know whether this alternation between judgment and hope conforms to some pattern in Micah's preaching or is an organizing device of later editors.