It's really too bad, isn't it, that this is not what the Hebrew asks?
Here's the actual Hebrew of Jonah 4:4:
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהוָ֔ה הַהֵיטֵ֖ב חָ֥רָה לָֽךְ׃
A concordant literal
rendering of this passage would be something like "And the LORD said,
'Being right is to be angry with respect to you?'" Or perhaps the relevant
question is something like "Does the anger that you have (the harah
lach that is the last two words of the question above) create your
rightness (the haheitiv portion of the question above)? Or, as we
put it, "Does being angry make you right?"
We have no explanation as to why everybody
else has missed the nuance of the Hebrew. Maybe they were sloppy? Or in a
hurry? Or didn't understand it? At any rate, the way we've crafted the
question is rather deep.
Ever met somebody who's so angry they
can't see or be told the truth?
That in their settled anger lies the
righteousness of their position, if only because they are the perennially
wrathful, who can never be content with truth lest they have to lay down
their anger.
The man who, though proclaiming to be open
to the truth (as any prophet of God ought to be), nevertheless is
so mad at sin that he's even madder at it than God is, because this angry
man despises the grace of God being extended to an entire heathen city?
A man who would rather grieve over a dead
gourd vine than the forewarned destruction of 120,000 children?
Does being angry make you right, Jonah?
Not in a million years, Jonah, not in a
million years.
Better that a man like that stay out of
the ministry than pervert the Gospel of God...
Our rendering stands as we crafted it, so
that maybe, just maybe, God's people will learn once and for all that no
minister of the Gospel has a right to be more angry at unrepentant sin
than God is, lest the way of repentance be concealed from those who need
to find it.
