King James Version, with Nii Okai's journal notes · 4 notes
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.
What was Jonah's grudge with God?
Did he have a personal issue with Nineveh?
Had they done some evil to him in time past, for which he felt and maybe prayed for the Lord's vengeance?
Now it was all tumbling down.
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.
God sometimes uses experiences to teach a lesson and elicit the appropriate response and understanding from us.
Jonah wanted the people dead, yet he wanted a plant to have lived — a plant of so little worth compared to a man, yet Jonah did not see it that way till God took from him what he cared about, the gourd, to help Jonah see that he was not being fair and reasonable.
The story ends with this lesson from God to Jonah.
A strange story of the man, the prophet who wanted an entire nation dead, or maybe they were enemies of Israel — who knows?
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?
What are cattle doing in here... So this was in reference to the prosperity of the city.
God was telling him it's a buzzing and economically vibrant city.
They did not deserve death ☠ without a chance at repentance.