CHAPTER 4

1 And Jonah was grievously displeased, and he was very angry; (116) and he prayed to Jehovah, and said, —

2 “I pray thee, Jehovah, was not this my word, when I was yet in my own land? I therefore hastened to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that thou are a God full of grace, and merciful, slow to wrath, great in kindness, and who repentest of evil.

3 And thou, Jehovah, take, I pray, my life from me; for better it is for me to die than to live.”

4 And Jehovah said to him, — “Doest thou well in being angry?” (129)

5 And Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east over against the city, and made there for himself a tent, and sat under it in the shade, until he saw what might be in the city.

6 And Jehovah God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up for Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, and free him from his distress; and Jonah rejoiced for the gourd with great joy.

7 God also prepared a worm, when the morning rose the next day, which smote the gourd, and it withered:

8 And it was, when the sun arose, that God prepared an impetuous wind, and the sun smote the head of Jonah, and he fainted, and wished for himself that he might die, and said, “Better is my death than my life.”

9 And God said to Jonah, — “Doest thou well in being angry for the gourd?” and he said, — “I do well in being angry even unto death.”

10 And Jehovah said, — “Thou wouldest have spared the gourd, for which thou hast not labored, and which thou has not raised up; the daughter of a night it was, ²⁵⁴²⁵⁴     It is literally, “the son of a night,” but as cucurbita, gourd, is feminine, Calvin adopted filia instead of filius — Ed. and as the daughter of a night it has passed away;

11 And should I not spare Nineveh, this great city, in which there are twelve times ten thousand men, every one of whom knows not his right hand from his left, and also many animals?”