4:2b
is this not what I said while I was still in my own country?: Jonah told the LORD that this was just what he expected to happen. He had feared that if he went to preach to the people of Nineveh, they might repent of their evil ways and the LORD would not destroy them.
This is a rhetorical question; Jonah was complaining. If you cannot use rhetorical questions in your language when you complain about something, you will need to use a statement instead. See 4:2b in the Display for examples of both options.
while I was still in my own country: Here Jonah was referring to his home country, Israel.
4:2c
This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish: Since Jonah wanted Israel’s enemies to be destroyed, he did not want the LORD to spare Nineveh. So rather than give them the chance to repent, he ran away to Tarshish.
4:2d
I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God: In Hebrew, this part of the verse begins with the connecting word kiy “for.” Although the Berean Standard Bible and a number of other versions have omitted it, it is an important connection. Jonah ran away because he knew God was kind and would forgive the people of Nineveh if they believed God’s message through Jonah and repented from their sins. You should make sure this relationship is clear in your translation.
a gracious and compassionate God: The two adjectives used here, ḥannun (gracious) and raḥum (compassionate), are usually only used to refer to God.
gracious: This means that God is kind to those who are evil and who are his enemies. Because he is gracious, he treats them with kindness even though such people do not deserve such treatment from him.
compassionate: This means that God shows pity to those who suffer and is merciful to those who do not deserve mercy.
4:2e
slow to anger: The Hebrew expression here has two aspects: first, someone who does not get angry easily or quickly, and, second, someone who is even-tempered and patient (UBS Handbook Handbook, p. 105). Since there is no English word that includes both aspects in its meaning, English versions handle this expression in two ways:
(1) They emphasize “not getting angry quickly”. This can be expressed positively as “slow to get angry,” or negatively as “not quick to get angry.”
(2) They emphasize “being patient”.
It is recommended that you follow the first option, unless your term for “patient” includes the idea of someone who doesn’t get easily angered.
4:2f
abounding in loving devotion: The Hebrew word translated here as loving devotion is ḥeseḏ. See how you translated the same word in 2:8b. This word often contains the meaning, “faithfulness, loyalty, steadfastness.” Here are some other ways to translate this word:
steadfast love (Revised Standard Version)
-or-
loyal love (NET Bible)
-or-
unfailing love (New Living Translation (2004))
The same list of God’s attributes in 4:2d–f, that is, “gracious,” “compassionate,” “slow to anger,” and abounding in loving devotion, is also found in Exodus 34:6, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 86:15, Psalm 103:8, Psalm 145:8, and Joel 2:13.
4:2g
One who relents from sending disaster: This aspect of God’s character is not found in the other lists mentioned above because it is specific to Jonah’s situation.
relents from sending disaster: This is literally “changes his mind about the evil” and is the same expression as was found in 3:10c. They should be translated the same way in both places.
relents: This verb is again naḥam. See the discussion on this verb in 3:9a.
The idea that the LORD could change his mind and not destroy people was not a comforting thought to Jonah because he had hoped that the LORD would destroy the people of Nineveh.
© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.