Jonah, Chapter 4, Jonah's Anger

Jon 4:1  But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. 

He was very angry; Septuagint, συνεχύθη, "was confounded." -Pulpit Commentary

Why was Jonah so mad as to be confounded?  Was it because Nineveh was their enemy?  This type of nationalism is hard for me to relate to.

The Expositor's Bible explains, 

"In short he could not, either then or now, master his conviction that the heathen should be destroyed. His grief, though foolish, is not selfish. He is angry, not at the baffling of his word, but at God’s forbearance with the foes and tyrants of Israel. Now, as in all else, so in this, Jonah is the type of his people. If we can judge from their literature after the Exile, they were not troubled by the non-fulfillment of prophecy, except as one item of what was the problem of their faith-the continued prosperity of the Gentiles. " -Expositor's Bible

Alistair Begg sees the problems as that of a double standard:

"In Jonah’s case, the root issue is a double standard. He has a standard for himself and the people of God—namely, Israel. And then he has another standard by which the foreigners and the enemies of God’s people are to be judged. It was okay for God to forgive Jonah’s disobedience, but not, in Jonah’s mind, just as right for God to show his mercy to the Ninevites."

Jamieson Fausset Brown's comment is also helpful:

"If Nineveh had been the prominent object with him, he would have rejoiced at the result of his mission. But Israel was the prominent aim of Jonah, as a prophet of the elect people...he was bitterly disappointed, not from pride or mercilessness, but from hopelessness as to anything being possible for the reformation of Israel....But God’s plan was to teach Israel, by the example of Nineveh, how inexcusable is their own impenitence, and how inevitable their ruin if they persevere." 

It's an excellent point--not only does Jonah anticipate Jesus in the belly of the great fish/death followed by rescue and the resurrection, but Jonah's selfishness anticipates the problem of the Jewish response in Christ's day.  They had a certain thought about how things should be, how God should perceive things, and it wasn't big enough.  It was still playing favorites, the Jews, not the Jews and...

"Moreover, if this is a picture of Christ in his death and resurrection, then it’s also, by extension, a picture of his followers. One reason Jonah was such a beloved subject among Christians throughout the Roman Empire during the persecutions is because his story, and its New-Testament fulfillment, reminded them of the ultimate powerlessness of the grave, of the hope they had of rising again on the last day. And it is a picture not only of what will be but also of what has been in baptism: the believer’s dying to sin and being raised to new life in Christ (Romans 6:1–11).  -Victoria Emily Jones

Source: Woodmen Valley Chapel