In this fourth chapter of the Book of Jonah, (Jonah 4), the prophet Jonah has a strange reaction to his success. He's angry, and sulky. He thinks he knows better than God does. What is this story about?

Rev. George McCurdy, in his exegesis of this chapter, offers a summary in his Study Guide for the Book of Jonah, which is available for free as a .pdf, for your use. Below, we've excerpted part of his summary, and edited it for use in this context.

The people of the Jewish church in Jonah's time didn't want to reconsider their belief in their "most-favored-nation status." They challenged the Lord. They couldn't understand why He wanted to save their enemies in Nineveh.

Despite the hard lessons in chapters 1 and 2, and his success as described in chapter 3, Jonah still thought he knew better than the Lord. He thought that God was being too soft and loving -- too forgiving -- and that He needed to come around to Jonah’s tougher view.

Jonah got so angry and vengeful that he preferred to die rather than approve of the Lord’s way to save the Ninevites. His self-love wanted shade -- protection for its concepts. The Lord needed to bring such thinking to an end; the worm brought about death to the gourd from within. The Lord then sent a vehement east wind, that represents a blowing away of the stagnant thinking of the church.

The Lord's heavenly sun shone upon Jonah, but he felt faint. Here, Jonah's insistence on his own troubling view of things made him uncomfortable with the Lord’s view. The Divine guidance offered him a way to learn to enjoy the success of his neighbors as his own, but he wouldn't take it.

For us, then -- what? This story is telling us that we can't just keep the truths of the Word for ourselves; we have to go to Nineveh and share them. And then, if people start to hear them, and use them to turn their lives around, we can't allow ourselves to get resentful that the Lord accepts their repentance and forgives them. It's a very human reaction; think of the disciples vying to be first in the Lord's command structure (Luke 9:46), or the brother of the prodigal son (Luke 15:28-29), or the workers in the vineyard who had worked all day for a denarius (Matthew 20:10-12). But... it's not a good reaction. The Lord doesn't admire it in Jonah, and doesn't admire it when it crops up in our minds, either.

Rev. Martin Pennington recommends several explanatory passages from Swedenborg's theological writings:

"Shade or shadow means the perception of good and truth lies in obscurity." (Arcana Coelestia 2367)

"A vine is spiritual good (the spiritual church)". (Arcana Coelestia 217)

"A worm represents falsity gnawing away and tormenting one." (Arcana Coelestia 8481)

"'And the sun grew hot' in the contrary sense means self-love and love of the world." (Arcana Coelestia 8487)

And... here's a link to an interesting (audio) sermon on this chapter, by Rev. Todd Beiswenger.

8452. 'That the selav came up' means natural delight through which good was imparted. This is clear from the meaning of 'the selav' as natural delight. The reason why 'the selav' means natural delight is that it was a bird of the sea, and 'a bird of the sea' means the natural, while its 'flesh' which was desired means delight, dealt with above in 8431. And the reason why it means that good was imparted through it is that it was given in the evening. For when in the next life the state corresponding to evening arrives good spirits, and also angels, are taken back to the state of natural affections that moved them when they were in the world. Consequently they are taken back to the delights belonging to their natural man. This is done in order that good may thereby be imparted, that is, in order that they may thereby be made more perfect, 8426. All people are made more perfect by the implantation of faith and charity in their external or natural man. Unless they are implanted there no goodness or truth can flow in from the internal or spiritual man, that is, from the Lord by way of the internal man, because they are not accepted. And if that goodness and truth are not accepted the influx of them is halted and perishes, indeed the internal man is also closed. From this it is evident that the natural must be perfectly adjusted to act as a receiver; this is done through delights, for forms of good as they exist with the natural man are called delights, since they are feelings.

[2] 'The selav' means natural delight because, as has been stated, it was a bird of the sea; for it is said in Numbers 11:31 to have been cut off from the sea - A wind set out from Jehovah, and it cut off ¹ the selav from the sea, and sent them down over the camp - and a bird of the sea and its flesh mean natural delight, and in the contrary sense the delight that goes with craving. The latter kind of delight is meant by 'selav' in the following verses in Moses,

The rabble who were in the midst of the people had a strong craving, and wished to have flesh. They said, Now our soul is dry; and there is nothing at all except the man[na] for our eyes [to look] at. A wind set out from Jehovah, and it cut off the selav from the sea, and sent them down over the camp. The people rose up that whole day, and the whole night, and the whole of the next day, and gathered the selav. Those who gathered least gathered ten homers, which they spread out for themselves all around the camp. The flesh was still between their teeth, before it could be swallowed, when Jehovah's anger flared up against the people, and Jehovah struck the people with an extremely great plague. So he called the name of that place The Graves of Craving, because there they buried the people having the craving. Numbers 11:4-6, 31-34.

Here 'the selav' stands for the delight that goes with craving. It is called the delight that goes with craving when the delight belonging to any bodily or worldly love becomes dominant and takes possession of the whole person, to such an extent that the good and truth of faith residing with him are annihilated. This is the kind of delight that is being described, for the people were struck by a great plague. But natural delight, meant in the present chapter by 'the selav' which was given to the people in the evening, is not the delight that goes with craving; it is the natural or external man's delight complementing the spiritual or internal man's good. This delight holds spiritual good within itself; but the delight that goes with craving, spoken of in Numbers 11, holds hellish evil within itself. Both are called delight, and also both are experienced as delight. But the difference between them could not be greater, for the one holds heaven within itself and the other holds hell. Also the one becomes heaven to the person when he sheds his external, and the other becomes hell to him.

[3] They are like two women who both seem to outward appearances to have lovely faces and to lead beautiful lives, but inwardly are completely different from each other That is to say, the one is chaste and wholesome, the other immoral and revolting, so that the spirit of the one is with angels, the spirit of the other with devils. But their true natures are not visible except when the external is rolled away and the internal is revealed. These things have been said in order that people may know what natural delight is that has good within it, meant by 'the selav' in the present chapter, and what natural delight is that has evil within it, meant by 'the selav' in Numbers 11.

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