Yona 4 | Slow to Anger, Abounding in Kindness, and Relenting from Evil

God relents from the evil He had planned to bring upon Nineveh — and this, for Yona, is a 'cruel evil'. Only now does the book finally reveal what troubled Yona about his prophetic mission, and why he attempted to flee: “This is why I first fled toward Tarshish — because I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, and relenting from evil.” (4:2) Yona quotes a partial quote the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, but with a crucial alteration of one of the attributes: “God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and truth” (Shemot 34:6).

Yona’s problem is not a philosophical one; it is existential. He is Yona son of Amitai (in Hebrew the name itself evokes 'אמת'=truth). What disturbs him is that God, in his view, doesn't run the world according to truth, but rather according to 'relenting from evil'. According to truth, a sinner should be punished. (As stated in the Yerushalmi, Makkot 2:6: “They asked Wisdom, ‘What is the punishment of the sinner?’...”)

But God does not govern the world that way. From God's perspective, truth itself lies in the concept of repentance. As we saw in the book of Yechezkel: “Is My way not fair? Surely, your ways that are not fair?” (Yechezkel 18:25). God judges us not by who we once were, but by who we are now.

While one might frame the “disagreement” between Yona and God as a debate over whether there is a place for repentance in the world, that explanation is insufficient, for the dispute between Yona and God takes place on an entirely different plane: Yona does not doubt repentance as a concept; he doubts this repentance. As he declared in Chapter 2: “Those who cleave to empty fully will yet forsake their faithfulness.” (2:9) After God decides not to destroy Nineveh, Yona sits outside the city: “He made himself a shelter and sat in the shade beneath it, waiting to see what would become to the city.” (4:5) He wants to see what will happen in the city. He is not waiting to see whether they will be destroyed, he already knows God has chosen not to do that. He is waiting to see whether they will sin again.

This is the heart of the dispute. Yona says to God that a fleeting repentance, one in which a person immediately returns to sin, is not true repentance. You may choose to forget past sins and judge people by their current state — but at least let that current state be authentic, not a momentary religious enthusiasm destined to fade soon. God replies to his that he didn't understand: When He seeks to show compassion to Nineveh, the truth is that even the smallest gesture suffices as evidence of their repentance. If they are good now, then they are good. Even if tomorrow they return to sin.

One of our own struggles with repentance, especially during Elul and the Days of Awe (=Yamim Nora’im), is the feeling of being caught in a cycle. Each year we make commitments, ask forgiveness, and feel regret, often for the very same things. But the book of Yona reminds us: this too is real repentance.