Jonah 4:6

prepared Rather, appointed. And so in Jonah 4:7. See Jonah 1:17, note.

a gourd This is the only place in the Old Testament in which the Hebrew word here translated gourdoccurs. It is quite a different word which is rendered gourdin 2 Kings 4:39, and (of architectural ornaments) in 1 Kings 6:18 (margin), 1 Kings 7:24. It is an old controversy, dating back as far as the times of Jerome and Augustine, whether Jonah's plant was a gourd or not. It is now generally admitted that it was not, but that the plant intended is the ricinus communisor castor-oil plant. This plant satisfies all the requirements of the history. The name kikayonhere used in the Hebrew is akin to the word kikeiaor kiki(Herodot. II. 94), which ancient authors tell us was used by the Egyptians and others for the castor-oil plant. That plant is a native of North Africa, Arabia, Syria and Palestine, and is said by travellers to grow abundantly and to a great size in the neighbourhood of the Tigris. It is succulent, with a hollow stem, and has broad vine-like leaves (much larger, however, than those of the vine), which from their supposed resemblance to the extended palm of the hand have gained for the plant the name of Palma Christi, or palmchrist. It grows with such extraordinary rapidity that under favourable conditions it rises to about eight feet within five or six months, while in America it has been known to reach the height of thirteen feet in less than three months. Jerome also bears testimony to the rapidity of its growth. It is, he says, "a shrub with broad leaves like vine-leaves. It gives a very dense shade, and supports itself on its own stem. It grows most abundantly in Palestine, especially in sandy spots. If you cast the seed into the ground, it is soon quickened, rises marvellously into a tree, and in a few days what you had beheld a herb you look up to a shrub." Pusey.

made it to come up Or, it came up. The naturally rapid growth of the plant was miraculously accelerated. As in other miracles of Holy Scripture Almighty God at once resembled nature and exceeded nature. "We know that God, when He does anything beyond the course of nature, does nevertheless come near to nature in His working. This is not indeed always the case; but we shall find for the most part that God has so worked as to outdo the course of nature, and yet not to desert nature altogether.… So too in this place, I do not doubt that God chose a plant, which would quickly grow up even to such a height as this, and yet that He surpassed the wonted course of nature." (Calvin.) In like manner, our Lord, when at the marriage-feast in Cana He turned the water into wine, "was working in the line of (above, indeed, but not across or counter to) His more ordinary workings, which we see daily around us, the unnoticed miracles of every-day nature." "He made wine that day at the marriage in those six water-pots which He had commanded to be filled with water, Who every year makes it in the vines. For as what the servants had put into the water-pots was turned into wine by the working of the Lord, so too what the clouds pour forth is turned into wine by the working of the same Lord. This however, we do not wonder at, because it happens every year: its frequency has made it cease to be a marvel." St Augustine, quoted by Trench On the Miracles.

a shadow over his head His booth or hut, made as we have seen of twigs and branches, the leaves of which would naturally soon wither, was far from being impervious to the rays of the sun. The living plant rising above the booth and covering it with its broad shadow would prove a most welcome addition.

from his grief Lit. his evil, the same word as in Jonah 4:1. The gloomy and dissatisfied condition of his mind had been aggravated by physical causes. The heat and closeness of his booth had added to the weariness and oppression of his spirit. The palmchrist with its refreshing shade by ministering to his bodily comfort had tended also to calm and soothe the agitation of his mind. We need not look for any deeper meaning in the words. It is surely a mistake to say that Jonah "must have looked upon its sudden growth as a fruit of God's goodness towards him (as it was) and then perhaps went on to think (as people do) that this favour of God showed that He meant in the end to grant him what his heart was set upon." (Pusey.) The object of the writer is not to tell us what inferences Jonah drew from the sudden growth of the plant, but what was the object and intention of Almighty God in causing it to grow up over him. He sent it to refresh him as a step in His lesson of correction and amendment; He did not send it to mislead him. The force of the rebuke in Jonah 4:10-11, in which the chapter culminates and which turns entirely upon Jonah's joy and grief for the plant, is greatly weakened if we import into that joy and grief such moral elements.