Good Gifts for Bad People

Good gifts for bad people

The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: Jonah 1:1

Who was Jonah?

Jonah appears first in 2 Kings 14:25 where he prophesied the restoration of the borders of Israel during the reign of King Jeroboam II of the northern kingdom of Israel. The borders were restored to the proportion of Israel’s borders under Solomon’s reign. For any king, there’s no bigger blessing than that! (More on this later).

Too long, please open your Bible 2 Kings 14: 23-27
Solomon and all Israel with him—a great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the Brook of Egypt—observed the festival at that time in the presence of the LORD our God, seven days, and seven more days—fourteen days.

1 Kings 8:65

What’s the significance of the expansion?

To see the significance of the expansion of the borders, we have to take a long trip back to Genesis.

Back to the beginning

The creation account in Genesis 2 makes a pause from narrating God’s creative acts to give us details about a river that broke into four.

Too long, please open your Bible Genesis 2: 10-14
image

The four regions that these rivers water and give life to, become very important in the development of the biblical story

River
Region
Associated Kingdom
Pishon
Havilah
Egypt
Gihon
Cush
The desert, south of Israel
Tigris
Assyria
Assyria
Euphrates
Babylon
Babylon

Abraham

After man rebelled against God, man is driven away from the garden. The story then narrows down on one person, Abraham to whom God promises land for all his descendants. That land would be the “new Eden” where God would dwell with His people and life would flourish. This is description of the borders of that land:

On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I give this land to your offspring, from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River Genesis 15:18

The boundaries of this land of promise approximately resemble the areas outside the garden where the rives in Genesis flowed!

Joshua

When the descendants of Abraham who had now become a nation - Israel - were to enter the promised land, God gave Joshua a description of the land which would be theirs.

Your territory will be from the wilderness and Lebanon to the great river, the Euphrates River—all the land of the Hittites—and west to the Mediterranean Sea. Joshua 1:4

However, we know that Israel under Joshua did not take over the full extent of the land.

Solomon

The story leads us to King Solomon, who depended on God for discernment between good and evil.

So give your servant a receptive heart to judge your people and to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of yours?” 1 Kings 3:9

The allusion to Genesis is quite obvious in this narrative, but there’s something else to pay attention to.

Solomon ruled all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and as far as the border of Egypt. They offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. 1 Kings 4:21
Solomon and all Israel with him—a great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the Brook of Egypt—observed the festival at that time in the presence of the LORD our God, seven days, and seven more days—fourteen days.

1 Kings 8:65

It is no coincidence the the first time Israel occupies the land as promised is when the king depends on God for wisdom to discern good and evil. Solomon is presented as the opposite of Adam & Eve, in the new Eden.

However, this doesn’t last too long as we see in scripture that Solomon’s heart turned away from God (more of this next week). After Solomon dies, the kingdom is divided and down the line, the children of Israel are driven out of the land just like Adam & Eve.

Jonah & Jeroboam II

Too long, please open your Bible 2 Kings 14: 23-27

The expansion of the borders was an act of God’s mercy, as we read that King Jeroboam II was a terrible king.

A pattern with God?

The preceding chapter of 2 Kings also contains this theme of God showing mercy to evil kings

Too long, please open your Bible 2 Kings 13

The author of Jonah expects us to know all this. He expects us to know that God’s people had been repeatedly shown mercy and blessing. He expects us to know that Jonah himself had a history of being used by God to prophesy blessing to a king who didn’t deserve it. This point is very crucial for when we study chapter 4 of Jonah.

God is still the same

Too long, please open your Bible Matthew 5: 43-48

Not only is God still the same, the expectation is that we are also like Him in this regard.

We also must not be envious when God blesses others, especially those we perceive as undeserving.

Too long, please open your Bible Psalm 73

Because God blesses all men with good things, we have to make sure that we don’t measure our worth or the state of our relationship with God with material things.