Albert Barnes Commentary Jonah 4:11

"and should not I have regard for Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" — Jonah 4:11 (ASV)

Should I not spare? — literally “have pity” and so “spare.” God waives for the time the fact of the repentance of Nineveh, and speaks of those on whom man must have pity, those who never had any share in its guilt: the 120,000 children of Nineveh, "who, in the weakness of infancy, did not know which hand, 'the right' or 'the left,' is the stronger and fitter for every use." He who would have spared Sodom “for ten’s sake,” might well be thought to spare Nineveh for the 120,000’s sake, in whom the inborn corruption had not developed into the malice of willful sin.

If these 120,000 were the children under three years old, they were one-fifth (as is calculated) of the whole population of Nineveh. If, of the 600,000 people in Nineveh, all who by reason of age could be guilty were so, then more than one-fifth were innocent of actual sin.

To Jonah, whose eye was evil toward Nineveh for his people’s sake, God says, as it were, “Let the ‘spirit’ which ‘is willing’ say to the ‘flesh’ which ‘is weak,’ You grieve for the palm-christ—that is, your own kindred, the Jewish people; and shall I not spare Nineveh, that great city? Shall I not provide for the salvation of the Gentiles in the whole world, who are in ignorance and error? For there are many thousands among the Gentiles who go after mute idols even as they are led (1 Corinthians 12:2), not out of malice but out of ignorance; who would without doubt correct their ways if they had the knowledge of the truth, if they were shown the difference ‘between their right hand and their left’—that is, between the truth of God and the lie of men.”

But, beyond the immediate teaching to Jonah, God lays down a principle of His dealings at all times: that, in His visitations of nations, He, “the Father of the fatherless and judge of the widows” (Psalms 68:5), takes special account of those who are of no account in man’s sight, and defers the impending judgment, not for the sake of the wisdom of the wise or the courage of the brave, but for the helpless, weak, and, as yet, innocent as to actual sin.

How much more may we think that He regards those with pity who have on them not only the recent uneffaced traces of their Maker’s Hands, but have been reborn in the Image of Christ His Only Begotten Son! The infants clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27) must be a special treasure of the Church in the Eyes of God.

“How much greater is the mercy of God than that even of a holy man; how far better to flee to the judgment-seat of God than to the tribunal of man. Had Jonah been judge in the cause of the Ninevites, he would have passed on them all, although penitent, the sentence of death for their past guilt, because God had passed it before their repentance. So David said to God (2 Samuel 24:14); ‘Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; and let me not fall into the hand of man.’ From this the Church professes to God that mercy is the characteristic of His power: ‘O God, who show Your Almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant to us such a measure of Your grace, that we, running the way of Your commandments, may obtain Your gracious promises, and be made partakers of Your heavenly treasure.’”

“Again, God here teaches Jonah and us all to conform ourselves in all things to the Divine Will, so that, when He commands any work, we should immediately begin and continue it with alacrity and courage; when He bids us cease from it, or deprives it of its fruit and effect, we should immediately tranquilly cease, and patiently allow our work and toil to lack its end and fruit. For what is our aim, except to do the will of God, and in all things to conform ourselves to it? But now the will of God is that you should resign, yes, even destroy, the work you have begun.

Acquiesce then in it. Otherwise, you do not serve the will of God, but your own fancy and cupidity. And in this consists the perfection of the holy soul: that, in all acts and events, adverse or prosperous, it should with full resignation resign itself most humbly and entirely to God, and acquiesce, whatever happens, yes, and rejoice that the will of God is fulfilled in this thing, and say with holy Job, ‘The Lord gave, The Lord has taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord.’

Ignatius had so transferred his own will into the will of God, that he said, ‘If perhaps the society, which I have begun and furthered with such toil, should be dissolved or perish, after passing half an hour in prayer, I should, by God’s help, have no trouble from this thing, than which nothing sadder could befall me.’ The saints let themselves be turned this way and that, round and round, by the will of God, as a horse by its rider.”