Jonah4

Jonah becomes exceedingly angry when God spares Nineveh, expressing his prior knowledge of God's mercy and wishing for death. God questions his anger and provides a gourd for shade, only to destroy it with a worm and a hot wind, causing Jonah further distress and a renewed death wish. The chapter concludes with God challenging Jonah's disproportionate pity for the gourd compared to His own compassion for the vast population of Nineveh.

Jonah's Anger at God's Mercy

1
And it is grievous unto Jonah--a great evil--and he is displeased at it;
2
and he prayeth unto Jehovah, and he saith, `I pray Thee, O Jehovah, is not this my word while I was in mine own land--therefore I was beforehand to flee to Tarshish--that I have known that Thou art a God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in kindness, and repenting of evil?
3
And now, O Jehovah, take, I pray Thee, my soul from me, for better is my death than my life.'
4
And Jehovah saith, `Is doing good displeasing to thee?'

The Object Lesson of the Gourd

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And Jonah goeth forth from the city, and sitteth on the east of the city, and maketh to himself there a booth, and sitteth under it in the shade, till that he seeth what is in the city.
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And Jehovah God appointeth a gourd, and causeth it to come up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head, to give deliverance to him from his affliction, and Jonah rejoiceth because of the gourd with great joy.
7
And God appointeth a worm at the going up of the dawn on the morrow, and it smiteth the gourd, and it drieth up.
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And it cometh to pass, about the rising of the sun, that God appointeth a cutting east wind, and the sun smiteth on the head of Jonah, and he wrappeth himself up, and asketh his soul to die, and saith, `Better is my death than my life.'

God Challenges Jonah's Compassion

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And God saith unto Jonah: `Is doing good displeasing to thee, because of the gourd?' and he saith, `To do good is displeasing to me--unto death.'
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And Jehovah saith, `Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou didst not labour, neither didst thou nourish it, which a son of a night was, and a son of a night perished,
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and I--have not I pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than twelve myriads of human beings, who have not known between their right hand and their left--and much cattle!'
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