1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, "I pray thee, LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repentest of evil. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, take my life from me, I beseech thee, for it is better for me to die than to live." 4 And the LORD said, "Do you do well to be angry?" 5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 And the LORD God appointed a plant, and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm which attacked the plant, * so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a sultry east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah so that he was faint; and he asked that he might die, and said, "It is better for me to die than to live." 9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" And he said, "I do well to be angry, angry enough to die." 10 And the LORD said, "You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night, and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"
Commentary on Jonah 4
4:1 Jonah was distressed, it was not because the city escaped destruction, but because he gave the impression of being a liar and a braggart, idly alarming them, speaking his own mind and not at all what came from the mouth of the Lord. (St. Cyril of Alexandria) But his sorrow was proved to be ill founded, since he would rather speak truth and have a countless multitude perish than speak falsely and have them saved. (St. Jerome)
4:4 He believed that because of their decision to repent they were given a postponement of the disaster, but that the effects of the wrath would occur if they did not display works of repentance commensurate with their sins. After all, why should three days effort benefit people who were buried in every form of wrongdoing and guilty of such dreadful sins? It was probably with thoughts like this within him that he left the city, waiting to see what would happen to them. He expected, in fact, that it perhaps be shaken and collapse, or be burnt to the ground like Sodom. (St. Cyril of Alexandria) |
4:6 a plant: In this passage, where the Septuagint has ‘gourd (KOLOKUNTHE),’ and Aquila and the others have rendered the word ‘ivy’ (KISSOS), the Hebrew manuscript has ‘ciceion,’ which is in the Aramaic tongue, as now spoken, ‘ciceia.’ It is a kind of shrub having large leaves like a vine, and when planted it quickly springs up to the size of a small tree, standing upright by its own stem, without requiring any support of canes or poles, as both gourds and ivy do. (St. Jerome)
4:10 Notice in fact, how He presents Jonah being distressed not at an appropriate time nor when it was called for, despite being obliged like a saint to applaud and praise the Lord for his goodness. If you took it personally, he says, or rather were brought to the extremes of distress because your pumpkin plant withered, which grew up in a single night and perished likewise, how for my part should I not take account of the great city. (St. Cyril of Alexandria) |
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