There is a problem involved in the introductory expression The LORD answered, since what follows is actually a question. Therefore it may be necessary to translate “The Lord answered Jonah by asking a question” or “The Lord asked Jonah a question in reply.”
What right do you have to be angry? may be expressed as “How can you justify being angry?” or “What excuse do you have for being angry?”
The Lord replies with a question like that addressed to Cain (Gen 4.6), “What right have you to be angry?” The Hebrew verb used here can mean “to do (something) well” (for example, 1 Sam 16.17), but it can also mean “to do right,” as in Isa 1.17; Jer 4.22. So here the sense seems to be “Are you doing right in being angry?” or, as in Moffatt, Jerusalem Bible, “Are you right to be angry?” Bible in Basic English is close to Good News Translation with “Have you any right to be angry?” while the reasonableness, rather than the rightfulness, of Jonah’s anger is questioned in Chinese Union Version, “Is it reasonable for you to be as angry as this?” (compare Modern Language Bible, New American Standard Bible “Do you have good reason to be angry?”). Knox acknowledges in a note the uncertainty of the meaning here: “The exact force of the Hebrew idiom used here is uncertain. Some think it means ‘Hast thou good reason to be angry?’; others would translate ‘Art thou very angry?’ ” While Knox himself suggests “Why, what anger is this?” An American Translation prefers his alternative “Are you so very angry?” and New Jerusalem Bible has “Are you that deeply grieved?” This is no doubt the basis of New English Bible “Are you so angry?” the meaning of which is not clear at first sight. This treatment of the question is based on the meaning of the Hebrew verb in its sense of “to do (something) thoroughly,” as in Deut 13.14; 17.4, and has the support of the Septuagint. New English Bible‘s translation suits the similar question in verse 9 reasonably well but is not so suitable here as Knox‘s first alternative, which is supported by other ancient translations.
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on the Book of Jonah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .