Jonah 4:5

So Jonah went out of the city It has been proposed to take the verbs in this verse as pluperfects: "Now Jonah had gone out of the city, and abode on the east side of the city, &c." The verse will then be a parenthesis introduced to relate what had really taken place before Jonah's anger and complaint. In point of time it will precede the first verse of the chapter. It is doubtful, however, whether such a rendering is grammatically allowable; nor is there any reason for adopting it. The course of the narrative flows regularly on throughout the chapter. Jonah while still in the city comes to know that Nineveh will be spared. In bitter displeasure he complains to God, and is rebuked (Jonah 4:1). Still cherishing the hope of vengeance, fostered possibly by the question in Jonah 4:4, which his distempered mind might interpret to mean, "Do not judge too hastily what My purposes may be," he will not abandon the city altogether. He will linger yet awhile in its precincts, and watch what its fate shall be.

on the east side of the city where it was skirted by hills. Probably he chose some eminence from which he could command a view of the city.

a booth of twigs and branches, such as the Israelites were directed to dwell in for seven days at the feast of tabernacles (Leviticus 23:42; Nehemiah 8:14-16). Such were the "tabernacles" which St Peter proposed to make on the Mount of Transfiguration.

till he might see what would become of the city We are not told whether this was before or after the forty days had expired. If it was before, then we must suppose that Jonah, and possibly the Ninevites also, had some direct intimation that God would spare the city, and that Jonah in his reluctance to accept the result still tarried in the neighbourhood, in the hope that on the appointed day the blow would fall. If however we suppose that the forty days had elapsed without the threatened judgment being executed, and that it was by this that Jonah and the Ninevites knew that God had repented Him of the evil, we can only conclude that Jonah hoped for some later punishment upon the people of Nineveh, provoked it might be by their speedy relapse into sin. "The days being now past, after which it was time that the things foretold should be accomplished, and His anger as yet taking no effect, Jonah understood that a respite of the evil has been granted them, on their willingness to repent, but thinks that some effect of His displeasure would come, since the pains of their repentance had not equalled their offences. So thinking in himself apparently, he departs from the city, and waits to see what will become of them." St Cyr. quoted by Pusey.