Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?
So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city,
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.
But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
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.
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.
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:
And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons?

COMMENTARY

Doest thou well to be angry?
So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city.
Yesterday we observed how Jonah became angry when God showed mercy to the people of Nineveh. Jonah wanted them to be destroyed instead. God challenges Jonah with the question “doest thou well to be angry?” but Jonah does not respond. He gets up and leaves instead.
Sometimes we get angry with God because we, too, disagree with His methods. We think we know how things should be, and are hurt to have Him tell us that we are wrong.

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
But God prepared a worm, and it smote the gourd that it withered
And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?
When our pride has been stung we lash out. “Hey, don’t touch that! It hurts!” Which request God promptly ignores. He jabs His finger firmly into it! He isn’t going to just let this go. We have a festering blemish and He is going to lance it and it is going to hurt…. But He only does it so that we can finally heal.
So while Jonah is fuming under the gourd God reaches out and makes him even angrier! He kills the gourd, and when Jonah complains he brings back the still unanswered question: “doest thou well to be angry?”
This time Jonah answers “I do well to be angry, even unto death.”

Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured
And should not I spare Nineveh, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons?
And now the Lord shows Jonah the contradiction that he is making. Jonah is sorry, and rightfully so, for the death of a gourd. But he is unfeeling for the death of an entire city. Even the densest of people should be able to see the misaligned priorities here. The Lord is stressing to Jonah that there is no pleasure in destruction. It is tragic for a gourd to fall, and it is tragic for a people to die. Perhaps Jonah already knew these things in his head, but needed God to break him down so that he could feel them in his heart.
I certainly have been emotionally tied to my own misconceptions as well, and like Jonah I built up walls to protect them. I said I was being “righteously indignant,” but I wasn’t, I was just being obstinate.