Chapter Four

1–4. The prophet Jonah’s grief at the sparing of Nineveh. 5–11. And God’s instruction of him.

Jonah 4:1. But this displeased Jonah greatly, and he was angry. Jonah 4:2. And he prayed to the Lord and said, O 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 you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Jonah 4:3. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. Jonah 4:4. And the Lord said, Do you do well to be angry? The beginning of chapter IV stands in close connection with the final words of the preceding one: “God relented of the disaster... and he did not do it” (Jonah 3:10) to Nineveh; the prophet Jonah learned of this, probably because the forty-day period passed safely for the city, and lo he “was greatly displeased and was angry” (Jonah 4:1). That Jonah was displeased not by anything else, but precisely by the sparing of the heathens—the Ninevites—is not left in doubt by his prayer. In it he says that what he feared has now come to pass, when he was yet in his country, why he fled to Tarshish: “for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (verse 2). Thus, at the end of the book the prophet Jonah appears before us the same as we saw him at the beginning: unwilling that salvation come to the heathens and even protesting against God’s merciful judgment of them, as though all the signs were lost on him and his obedience to Jehovah were not a conviction of his soul. Now he considers himself right in his thoughts about the heathens, and God unjust in His mercy toward them, and, being unable to bear this disagreement, begs God for his own death: “Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live” (verse 3). This return to national Hebrew thoughts and feelings in the prophet Jonah probably occurred because he personally in Nineveh saw the full immeasurable depth of the moral corruption of the heathens, while either did not notice the fruits of repentance or did not believe in their sincerity and durability. As a person who was emotional and always sincere, who could not do anything halfway but gave himself entirely to every feeling, Jonah expresses his protest against the sparing of those he deemed unworthy heathens in the harshest form. In this case he perhaps imitated the prophet Elijah, whom he could have known personally, when he too asked for death if God did not wish to destroy those who had fallen away from Him (1 Sam 19:3-14).

Jonah 4:5. So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. Jonah probably hoped that his prayer, expressing indignation at the sparing of Nineveh, would be heard by God and the city, though with delay (not in forty days), would still be punished. Therefore, he went out of the city and sat on the east side of it, “waiting to see what would become of the city.”

Jonah 4:6. 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. Jonah 4:7. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. Jonah 4:8. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on 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. Jonah 4:9. 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. Jonah 4:10. And the Lord said, You pity the plant, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. Jonah 4:11. And should I not 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? Before instructing Jonah about his murmuring at God’s mercy toward the Ninevites, God made him himself feel pity for the plant that grew over his head. Then He said that if Jonah pities the withered plant, should not greater pity and mercy be shown to a city in which there were more than a hundred thousand innocent children? This simple narrative in itself raises a difficulty only in the obscurity of how to understand the growth and withering of the plant over Jonah’s head—whether to consider it a natural phenomenon or a miracle. The miraculous character of the phenomenon is indicated, as it were, by the fact that this plant grew unnaturally quickly and withered (“it came into being in a night and perished in a night”), and moreover, in this case the immediate participation of God is repeatedly noted (“appointed... appointed... appointed...”). However, these data are not decisive: in Scripture it is often spoken of even natural phenomena as happening by God’s will, because according to religious consciousness, all that occurs in the world is accomplished by God’s action (Matt 10:30; see note to verse 4 of chapter 1). The expression in verse 10 about the quick growth of the plant “it came into being in a night and perished in a night” does not necessarily have to be understood with literal exactness; it could have been used hyperbolically to express the idea of the insignificance of the plant compared with human life (Isa 40:6; Ps 102:15). The natural character of the phenomenon is suggested, as it were, by the fact that the author mentions natural factors accomplishing one or another action: a worm eats into the plant, from the scorching east wind it withers. Moreover, a miracle was not presupposed by the course of the narrative: for instruction of the prophet it was not necessary, and in natural order he would have learned compassion just as much as in the miraculous. The plant spoken of here is designated in the Hebrew text by the word kijkajon, which is usually derived from the Egyptian kjkj. It is possible that the Hebrews became acquainted with this plant in Egypt, so when they encountered it in their own land, they called it by a word modified from the Egyptian. This plant is described by Herodotus, Pliny, and blessed Jerome. All of them consistently say that it has a herbaceous stalk, broad leaves, reaches a height of 8–12 feet, grows quickly and withers. Thus it is not a pumpkin and not ivy, as stated in the Church Slavonic and Latin translations, but a special plant, called in botany palma Christi.