Albert Barnes Commentary Jonah 4:3

"Therefore now, O Jehovah, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live." — Jonah 4:3 (ASV)

Therefore now, O Lord, I ask You, take my life from me – He would rather die than see the evil that was to come upon his country. Impatient though he was, he still cast himself upon God. By asking God to end his life, he, at least, committed himself to the sovereign disposal of God.

He reasoned that since the Gentiles were, in a way, entering in, and those words were being fulfilled—They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is "not God," and I will move them to jealousy with those which are "not a people"; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation (Deuteronomy 32:21)—he despaired of Israel’s salvation. He was convulsed with great sorrow, which burst out into words and revealed the causes of his grief, essentially saying, ‘Am I alone chosen out of so many prophets to announce destruction to my people through the salvation of others?’

He did not grieve, as some think, that the multitude of nations was saved, but that Israel was perishing. This is why our Lord also wept over Jerusalem.

The Apostles first preached to Israel. Paul wished to become an anathema for his brethren, who are Israelites (Romans 9:3–5), whose is the adoption and the glory and the covenant, and the giving of the law and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. Jonah had now faithfully discharged his office. He had done what God commanded; God had done through him what He willed. Now, then, he prayed to be discharged. So Augustine, in his last illness, prayed that he might die before the Vandals brought suffering and devastation to his country.