ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE CITY God blessed Nineveh with His mercies and He also lifted Jonah from his dejection; He even held a conversation with him in the east of the city so that his soul would find peace. 1. Jonah in his dejection. 1-4 2. On the east side of the city. 5 3. Jonah under the gourd. 6-8 4. God’s closing conversation. 9-11 1- JONAH IN HIS DEJECTION “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. So he prayed to the Lord, and said, ‘Ah Lord, was not this what I said when I was still, in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, One who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, 0 Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!” Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” [1-4]. St. John Chrysostom says: [Truly, the Prophet was embarrassed that what he foretold did not come true, but God is not embarrassed because all He really wants is the salvation of humanity and the good of His servant1.] St. Jerome sees that Jonah’s distress and complaints are based on his trust in God’s mercy and compassion, because there was no way he would introduce Him to the people of Nineveh as a cruel God, but he preferred to die rather than see God’s mercies encompass the Gentiles while the Jews perish. He quotes the Prophet saying, [I am the only Prophet who would announce to his own people their destruction through the salvation of others.] Throughout these feelings which were filled with love towards his own people, yet seemed to carry cruelty towards the Gentiles, he asked God to take his life because he saw that death was better than life; Jonah repeated the same request when the gourd (Israel) withered. At any rate, this request or desire contained a prophetic aspect, because like Christ, or as a symbol of Him, Jonah requested to die for his people, hoping that salvation of humanity be realized by the death on the Cross, not by getting off it or avoiding it. So it is not surprising when we read that Christ told His disciples: “with fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15). Since He is the slaughtered Lamb of the Passover thus He desired to hand over His life by His own hands, to grant His believers His Body and Blood which were given and shed for the salvation of the world. Jonah desired to die, but in bitterness, for the destruction of his people which was announced through the salvation of the Gentiles. However our Jonah came purposely for that hour, gladly approaching pain, despising the shame (Heb. 12:2), to save all humanity. 2- ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE CITY 1 Conc. Stat. 5:18. 37 “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” [5]. Jonah left the city on great distress; he was filled with anger and sat on the east side of the city to see what God would do to it. Jonah there could either represent the Jewish way of thinking, or the older son who stood outside the house, in pain, to see his younger brother return to their father’s house (Luke 13:25-31). While the house was filled with joy and happiness, the elder son, in egotistical righteousness, stood outside, harshly blaming his father. With active faith and love the prodigal city of Nineveh usurped the mercies of God. Jonah rushed outside the city to build a shelter for himself, i.e. his egotistical righteousness, assuming that he was better than the others, anticipating God’s anger against them. 3- JONAH AND THE GOURD ‘And the Lord God prepared a gourd 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. But as morning dawned the next day God prepared, a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered. And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the beat on Jonah head so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, it is better for me to die than to live” [6-8]. What was God’s intention for preparing this gourd and then providing a worm to destroy it? First: Undoubtedly, the gourd is the Jewish people of whom God said: “You have had pity on the gourd for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night” [10]. Jonah was very grateful for the gourd” [6]...he who vehemently loved his people... the gourd for which he had not labored ...he had not planted it nor reared it nor watched over it. However God did raise Israel and took care of him, freed him from slavery to Pharaoh, gave him the law, brought him to the Promised Land, gave him the Prophets and did not let him in need for anything. God reproached him, saying. “And now, 0 inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge please, between Me and My vineyard. What more could have been done to My vineyard that I have not done to it?” Is. (5:3-4). It would have been better for Jonah, who represents a small part of one of the branches of the gourd, not to be miserable and angry because He who raised the gourd, chose it and tended it, is He Himself who sent him to Nineveh so that God would tend it through him. God said of the gourd, “Which came up in a night and perished in a night” [10]. It was a product of a night, God did not call it of “light” or “day’ but of” night” because it refused its Savior, the Sun of Righteousness, and preferred darkness to the light. St. John, the Evangelist, says: ‘That was the True Light, which gives light to every man who comes into the world... He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:9-12). Second: God raised the gourd for Jonah to draw him away from his man-made shelter, as though he pulls people away from their self-righteousness that they would enjoy protection provided by God, their Maker and Protector. It was necessary for that little tree to wither so that it would be replaced by the Holy Cross (tree) under which the 38 Church finds shelter and enjoys the joys of the Bible, saying, “I sat down in his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste (Songs 2:3). When Jonah went to the east of the city, prophetically, awaiting the dawn of the Sun of Righteousness (Mal 4:2) which shined above all the Gentiles, not only over Israel, he was very glad to see the gourd; as did Israel enjoy the Law and the Prophets to lead them to their Savior. At the same time, he could not accept Israel’s fall to pave the way for faith to the Gentiles, and hence his resentment towards the withered plant. He wanted to live in a world of symbolism and in the shade of prophecies as a refuge, not realizing that it is the way to fulfill the yearning of the Gentiles. The Law, according to St. Paul the Apostle, should lead us to Christ, but the Jews insisted on the letter of the Law and the formalities of worship denying the tree of the living Cross. Let our souls look towards the east to see the Lord’s rising; let the letter of the Law (the gourd) wither, so that we may enjoy the Holy Spirit and accept within us the desire of the Gentiles as the secret of our enlightenment, joy and satisfaction. Third: Formerly, God spoke to Jonah through the elements: the wild gale, the rocking ship, the Gentile sailors, the draw and the whale; then God spoke to him through the feeble gourd, the easterly wind, and the destructive worm. God converses, at different stages, in a different manner, according to what the person would react and comprehend most. So when Jonah was rebellious in his heart and decided to run away, God spoke to him in a language full of fierceness, which was equivalent to a fierce heart. He spoke to him through a gale, to show him the storm within him; the Gentile sailors, to show him that he had deviated from the spirit of faith; the rocking ship which was shifted around by the winds, to find his heart which he almost lost in the midst of the sea of this world; and the whale, to realize the chasm which drew him, the depths which swallowed him and the prison which he set up for himself... Then, when Jonah came out weak, exhausted and unable to resist, God talked to him through the weak gourd and the corruptive worm, to realize that he was but a weak gourd that could be destroyed by the worm of ungratefulness and resistance. In short, we can say that God speaks to us in the language, which would help us discover our most obscure inner self. Fourth: St. Hippolytus of Rome sees that the hot easterly winds which God prepared, symbolize the antichrist who is allowed by God to come from the east, to resist the Church before the second coming. 4- GOD’S CLOSING CONVERSATION A beautiful conclusion of God’s conversation with Jonah was: “You have had pity on the gourd for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. 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 also much livestock?” [10-11]. This sums up God’s love for His creation, His Hand made. Nineveh, as St. Jerome says, the great city, is the Church which embraces the twelve spiritual tribes, which returns to infancy in its innocence and simplicity.
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