Jonah
Summary
The prophet's anger and God's final QUESTION of mercy. it records Jonah's extreme displeasure at God's mercy being extended to the Gentiles. it features the object lesson of the GOURD and the WORM as the LORD teaches Jonah about the value of life and His compassion for the ignorant and the innocent. it reaches its peak with the divine question: 'and should not I spare Nineveh?'. it conclude with a profound reminder of God's love for all His creation, including 120,000 children and 'much cattle'.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
And he prayed to the LORD, and said, "I pray You, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before to Tarshish: for I knew that You are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest You of the evil."
"Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech You, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live."
Then said the LORD, "Do you well to be angry?"
So 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.
And 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.
But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
And 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."
And God said to Jonah, "Do you well to be angry for the gourd?" And he said, "I do well to be angry, even to death."
Then said the LORD, "You hast had pity on the gourd, for the which you hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:"
"And 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?"