Jonah and the Plant (4:5-11)

⁵ Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. ⁶ Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. ⁷ But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. ⁸ When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” ⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.” ¹⁰ But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. ¹¹ And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

At the end of the previous passage, God asked Jonah a question, and this part answers it. Jonah has no right at all to be angry. Jonah has left the city but stays around outside it, hoping to see Nineveh’s destruction. We, of course, know that God has decided to spare Nineveh but Jonah does not. There is little wood in the region so his hut was probably made of stones and/or clay and/or earth. He probably had no roof so there was little or no protection from the sun. God helps Jonah by providing a plant to give him shade, and Jonah is delighted. As ever, he’s always willing to accept gifts from God when they benefit him.

However, after a day, God sends a worm to destroy the plant, and Jonah’s shelter no longer has any shade to protect it. To make matters worse, God sends a very hot east wind and a cloudless sky. As a result, the sun beats down on Jonah as he waits for Nineveh’s destruction. Jonah suffers from this, possibly getting sunstroke and, once again, asks God to kill him. From his point of view, everything had gone wrong for him. Of course, he didn’t need to be there: God hadn’t ordered him to stay. He did so for very petty reasons.

In verse nine, God speaks again, and, once again, asks Jonah what right he has to be angry, although this time the question is specifically about the plant. This question is the central theme of the book as it concerns our own attitude to God. What right do we have to ask God to favor us rather than others? What right do we have to think that the good things we get in life are due to us? Jonah is a complete egotist and falls into the trap God has set. He condemns himself with his own words. Jonah insists on how important the plant was for him, and how much he loved it. Its death makes him angry: so angry that he prefers death to life.

God now has Jonah where he wants him. If Jonah thinks that God was wrong to kill a plant, how can he think it would have been right for him to destroy the population of an entire city? God insists on his right to feel as concerned about the people of Nineveh as Jonah wants him to be about a plant – even though Jonah had nothing to do with the existence of that plant and didn’t take care of it. The plant lived only a day. Effectively, God compares the value of a plant with that of a city. God points out that the people of Nineveh don’t know their right hand from their left. They really are lost and know very little; they don’t even know the difference between good and evil.             

Note the mention of animals again at the end. God seems to be suggesting that Nineveh was also worth sparing because of the animals who were innocent of Assyria’s crimes. How could Jonah protest the death of a plant and want the death of thousands of animals just because of who owned them? Perhaps God is suggesting that the people of Nineveh are like those animals, lacking knowledge. Or maybe the animals are there because we usually put them below humans but above plants in our scale of worth.

And so the book ends on the words of God himself as he invites all of us out of our narrow prejudices and into his eternal and unbiased love. God does not take sides in our petty quarrels for he loves all of us. The Assyrians had done horrible things but, even so, its people had great worth in God’s eyes. God gave Jonah multiple gifts, and Jonah was delighted by each of them. But Jonah had done nothing to deserve these gifts and certainly did not earn them. If God can do that for Jonah, why can’t he do that for Nineveh? What right did Jonah have to be angry about that? What right do any of us have to be angry about God’s favor being shown to a people or a nation or an individual who may be our rival? Indeed, we have no right to be angry about God’s grace being shown to someone else. We should praise God for the gifts he gives us and others, even if they do not last.