Jonah 4

KJV · Chapter 4/4

1But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

2And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

3Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

4Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?

5So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.

6And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.

7But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.

8And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

9And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.

10Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:

11And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Jonah becomes angry that God spared Nineveh and wishes to die; God uses a plant that grows and then withers to teach him a lesson about compassion for people who do not yet know the truth.

Explanation

The end of the book reveals Jonah's true inner conflict: he knew from the start that God was 'gracious, and merciful... and repentest thee of the evil,' and that is precisely why he tried to flee — he did not want Nineveh to be forgiven. The living parable of the plant (likely a fast-growing castor-oil plant or gourd) that God causes to grow and then wither teaches by analogy: if Jonah clings to and grieves over the loss of a simple plant he did not even cultivate, how much more does God care about the more than 120,000 people of Nineveh, whom He created. The book ends with an open question, with no recorded answer from Jonah, inviting every reader to reflect on their own prejudices. The application for today: God's compassion extends beyond the borders we define as 'our people' or 'those who deserve it.'

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