Hot Days and Wormy Nights

Jonah 4:5-11

When I was 7 or 8 years old, I caught a tadpole. I put the tadpole in a foot tub so that I could watch it grow and mature into a frog. I checked it daily. I even changed out the water with fresh pond water from time to time. That little tadpole went from looking like a minnow to growing legs. It was starting to look more like a frog when suddenly one day it was dead. I was so upset. Later I found out that my brother had dropped a rock on it when he was looking at it. I went from upset to angry. Can you imagine that? I was angry over a baby frog. Jonah had a similar experience at the end of his time in Nineveh, but his anger was over a plant.

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So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city. 6 And the LORD God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant. 7 But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered. 8 And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

9 Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”

10 But the LORD said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?

Jonah 4:5-11

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Jonah was hot. God provided a plant to shade Jonah and Jonah appreciated it. Then God had a worm eat the plant in the night and it died. The next day the sun beat down on Jonah and he was so angry that he prayed God would kill him. I cannot say that I have ever been that attached to a plant. I wasn’t even that attached to the tadpole I mentioned in the introduction. As strange as it may seem, God knew exactly what Jonah needed to teach him a lesson.

God asked Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” Jonah’s response was yes, “It is right for be to be angry, even to death”. Jonah honestly felt like the plant being taken from him was worth him dying. I believe Jonah was still dealing with depression. That being said, God wanted to show Jonah that he was being irrational and ungodly. Today, we have people in our world that get more upset over trees being cut down, than they do over people dying in the world. People get more upset over fish dying than babies being murdered by the tens of thousands each year. There are even some of these who profess to know Jesus as their Savior. I’m not questioning their salvation, but I am questioning the priorities of their heart. That is exactly what God was doing with Jonah.

The Ancient city of Nineveh is modern day Mosul, Iraq. It is the second largest city in Iraq today and is the capital of the Nineveh Governate according to wikipidia.com. In 2021 it had a population of 3.7 million people. That is equivalent to Los Angeles, California. During the War on Terror, it was the location of some intense fighting. How easy it was for some of us, not in the fight, to say that we should just drop a bomb on those cities and be done with the fighting. I wonder if God was not trying to say to us, “Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their right and their left—and much livestock?” Not much has changed in the last 2,800 years. People still desire judgement on their enemies, but we want mercy from God for ourselves. We want the preservation of the things we feel benefit us, but do not mind that men, women, and children could go to Hell if we got our emotionally charged ways whenever someone offends us.

I want to note one final thing. There is a place for people to pity animals being killed senselessly. God took pity on the city of Nineveh primarily for the people, but He mentions the livestock also. God created this world. He made man in His image. He placed man in the world to tend to the world. It started with the garden and continued after the flood (Genesis 9:1-17). We should value human life because people have souls that will spend eternity in Heaven or Hell. No plant or animal should be prioritized above a human soul. This does not mean that plants and animals do not have value. They are part of God’s creation, and we should care for them on a rational level. Genesis 9 begins by God giving Noah permission to eat animals. Their value was not equal to humans, but they still have value.

Father, thank You for this lesson. So often we get our priorities out of focus. We can trivialize human life when our passions supersede our rational thinking. When we lose a Godly focus and develop a worldly focus, human life loses its value. I pray that You help me to always think of people’s souls and their eternal destination.