Psalms 31:22

31:22 I jumped to conclusions and said, ¹ 

“I am cut off from your presence!” ² 

But you heard my plea for mercy when I cried out to you for help.

Psalms 73:15

73:15 If I had publicized these thoughts, ³ 

I would have betrayed your loyal followers. ⁴ 

Psalms 116:11

116:11 I rashly declared, ⁵ 

“All men are liars.”

Psalms 116:1

Psalm 116 ⁶ 

116:1 I love the Lord

because he heard my plea for mercy, ⁷ 

Psalms 25:21

25:21 May integrity and godliness protect me,

for I rely on you!

Jeremiah 20:14-15

20:14 Cursed be the day I was born!

May that day not be blessed when my mother gave birth to me. ⁸ 

20:15 Cursed be the man

who made my father very glad

when he brought him the news

that a baby boy had been born to him! ⁹ 

Jonah 4:1

Jonah Responds to God’s Kindness

4:1 This displeased Jonah terribly ¹⁰  and he became very angry. ¹¹ 

Jonah 4:9

4:9 God said to Jonah, “Are you really so very angry ¹²  about the little plant?” And he said, “I am as angry ¹³  as I could possibly be!” ¹⁴ 

Luke 9:54-55

9:54 Now when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to call fire to come down from heaven and consume ¹⁵  them?” ¹⁶  9:55 But Jesus ¹⁷  turned and rebuked them, ¹⁸ 

¹ tn Heb “and I, I said in my haste.”

² tn Heb “from before your eyes.”

³ tn Heb “If I had said, ‘I will speak out like this.’”

⁴ tn Heb “look, the generation of your sons I would have betrayed.” The phrase “generation of your [i.e., God’s] sons” occurs only here in the OT. Some equate the phrase with “generation of the godly” (Ps 14:5), “generation of the ones seeking him” (Ps 24:6), and “generation of the upright” (Ps 112:2). In Deut 14:1 the Israelites are referred to as God’s “sons.” Perhaps the psalmist refers here to those who are “Israelites” in the true sense because of their loyalty to God (note the juxtaposition of “Israel” with “the pure in heart” in v. 1).

⁵ tn Heb “I said in my haste.”

⁶ sn Psalm 116. The psalmist thanks the Lord for delivering him from a life threatening crisis and promises to tell the entire covenant community what God has done for him.

⁷ tn Heb “I love because the Lord heard my voice, my pleas.” It is possible that “the Lord” originally appeared directly after “I love” and was later accidentally misplaced. The translation assumes the prefixed verbal form is a preterite. The psalmist recalls that God heard his cry for help (note the perfect in v. 2a and the narrative in vv. 3-4).

⁸ sn From the heights of exaltation, Jeremiah returns to the depths of despair. For similar mood swings in the psalms of lament compare Ps 102. Verses 14-18 are similar in tone and mood to Job 3:1-10. They are very forceful rhetorical ways of Job and Jeremiah expressing the wish that they had never been born.

⁹ tn Heb “Cursed be the man who brought my father the news saying, ‘A son, a male, has been born to you,’ making glad his joy.” This verse has been restructured for English stylistic purposes.

¹⁰ tn Heb “It was evil to Jonah, a great evil.” The cognate accusative construction רוַיֵּרע...רָעָהַ (vayyera’…ra’ah) emphasizes the great magnitude of his displeasure (e.g., Neh 2:10 for the identical construction; see IBHS 167 §10.2.1g). The verb רָעַע (ra’a’) means “to be displeasing” (BDB 949 s.v. רָעַע 1; e.g., Gen 21:11, 12; 48:17; Num 11:16; 22:34; Josh 24:15; 1 Sam 8:6; 2 Sam 11:25; Neh 2:10; 13:8; Prov 24:18; Jer 40:4). The use of the verb רָעַע (“to be evil, bad”) and the noun רָעָה (“evil, bad, calamity”) here in 4:1 creates a wordplay with the use of רָעָה in 3:8-10. When God saw that the Ninevites repented from their moral evil (רָעָה), he relented from the calamity (רָעָה) that he had threatened – and this development greatly displeased (רָעָה) Jonah.

¹¹ tn Heb “it burned to him.” The verb חָרָה (kharah, “to burn”) functions figuratively here (hypocatastasis) referring to anger (BDB 354 s.v. חָרָה). It is related to the noun חֲרוֹן (kharon, “heat/burning”) in the phrase “the heat of his anger” in 3:9. The repetition of the root highlights the contrast in attitudes between Jonah and God: God’s burning anger “cooled off” when the Ninevites repented, but Jonah’s anger was “kindled” when God did not destroy Nineveh.

¹² tn Heb “Does it burn so thoroughly to you?” or “Does it burn rightly to you?” See note on this expression in v. 4.

¹³ tn Heb “It thoroughly burns to me” or “It rightly burns to me.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “unto death.” The phrase עַד־מָוֶת (’ad-mavet, “unto death”) is an idiomatic expression meaning “to the extreme” or simply “extremely [angry]” (HALOT 563 s.v. מָוֶת 1.c). The noun מָוֶת (“death”) is often used as an absolute superlative with a negative sense, similar to the English expression “bored to death” (IBHS 267-69 §14.5). For example, “his soul was vexed to death” (לָמוּת, lamut) means that he could no longer endure it (Judg 16:16), and “love is as strong as death” (כַמָּוֶת, kammavet) means love is irresistible or exceedingly strong (Song 8:6). Here the expression “I am angry unto death” (עַד־מָוֶת) means that Jonah could not be more angry. Unfortunately, this idiomatic expression has gone undetected by virtually every other major English version to date (KJV, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, ASV, NASB, NIV, NJB, JPS, NJPS). The only English version that comes close to representing the idiom correctly is BBE: “I have a right to be truly angry.”

¹⁵ tn Or “destroy.”

¹⁶ tc Most mss, especially the later ones (A C D W Θ Ψ Ë^1,13 33 Ï it), read here “as also Elijah did,” making the allusion to 2 Kgs 1:10, 12, 14 more explicit. The shorter reading has better and earlier support (Ì^45,75 א B L Ξ 579 700* 1241 pc lat sa). It is difficult to explain how the shorter reading could have arisen from the longer, especially since it is well represented early on. However, the longer reading looks to have been a marginal note originally, incorporated into the text of Luke by early scribes.

¹⁷ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁸ tc Many mss ([D] K Γ Θ Ë^1,13 [579] 700 2542 pm it) have at the end of the verse (with slight variations) “and he said, ‘You do not know what sort of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s lives, but to save [them].’” This variant is clearly secondary, as it gives some content to the rebuke. Further, it is difficult to explain how such rich material would have been omitted by the rest of the witnesses, including the earliest and best mss.