Old Testament
Jonah 4
Overview
Jonah is furious that God spared Nineveh, and at last he confesses the real reason for his flight: he knew the LORD to be gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in love — and he resented that mercy reaching his enemies. He sulks outside the city, praying to die, while God appoints a plant to shade him, then a worm to wither it, then a scorching wind, exposing how Jonah cares more for his own comfort than for a city of people. The book ends not with Jonah's reply but with God's piercing question about whether He should not have pity on the great city with its many thousands who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and even its cattle. The unanswered question hands the prophet's struggle — and the reader's — over to the heart of God.
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?