20160123 Saturday, January 23 2016
Jonah 04: Their Right Hand And Their Left Hand

by Wayne Blank
See also 1 Year Holy Bible Reading Plan

"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?"

The prophet Jonah had one of the most successful ministries of any prophet of the Holy Bible. The paradox is that Jonah would very much have preferred to have failed in the mission that the LORD (see The Identity Of The LORD God and The LORD God Our Saviour) gave to him.

Jonah was contemporary with other prophets of the LORD, who were given to warn the Kingdom of Israel directly, while Jonah was sent to warn Israel's enemy Assyria, to keep them from being destroyed before they were sent to destroy Israel if Israel refused to heed the warnings of the other prophets (see Why Was Nineveh Saved From Destruction?). The northern Kingdom of Israel did not heed their warnings, so the LORD brought about their fall by the hand of the Assyrians who did heed the LORD's warning (see Israel In History and Prophecy: The Lost Ten Tribes).

Jonah's famous experience at sea (see Jonah's Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea and Jonah's Prayer) was the result of his direct attempt to not go to Assyria. Jonah rightly viewed the people of Assyria as a major threat to Israel - and would much rather have preferred to see the LORD destroy them, despite the LORD's stated reason and purpose for the Assyrians.

With his at-sea lesson learned, Jonah went to Nineveh, Assyria's capital city, and warned them. Much to Jonah's personal dismay, he was successful at getting the Assyrians to repent (see also The Nineveh Prophecies).

It was however a plain assurance and proof that the LORD has compassion and forgiveness for anyone who genuinely repents and obeys Him - and that those who regard themselves as "special" in the LORD's Sight will be surely destroyed if they do not return to the reason that the LORD blessed them. It's the reason that Messiah spoke of them all when He said "12:41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here" (Matthew 12:41 KJV).

"4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 4:2 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. 4:3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

4:4 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?

4:5 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. 4:6 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. 4:7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. 4:8 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.

4:9 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.

4:10 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: 4:11 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 4:1-11 KJV)

Fact Finder: What did the LORD mean when He referred to "persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand"?
See Which Way Is Right And Left?; also Strait And Straight