Jonah 4 · The Lantern

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

After he preached in the midst of Nineveh, he went out of the city in order to observe if anything should happen. When he saw that three days had passed and nothing had happened anywhere near what was threatened, he then put forward his first thought and said, "Are these not my words that I was saying that God is merciful and longsuffering and repents for people's evils?"

But God will reply by the mouth of Jeremiah, "At what instant I will speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to break down, and to destroy it; if that nation, concerning what I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them.

When God pitied those who by their repentance were warding off the things that come from wrath, and when the appointed time had already come to its end, after which it was likely that the thing foretold would happen, and then when none of the expected things had happened, the blessed Jonah was greatly grieved, and not because the city had escaped destruction; for this would be…

And he prayed unto HaShem, and said: 'I pray Thee, O HaShem, was not this my saying, when I was yet in mine own country? Therefore I fled beforehand unto Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious G-d, and compassionate, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy, and repentest Thee of the evil.

Therefore now, O HaShem, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.'

And HaShem said: 'Art thou greatly angry?'

"Then said the LORD, Do you well to be angry?" LXX: 'The Lord replied to Jonah, are you so much afflicted?' The Hebrew word hara lach can be translated as 'are you annoyed?' and are you afflicted?'.

But when the days had already passed, as I just said, after which it was likely that the things announced would be accomplished, and then, with the wrath still not taking effect, he understands that God has shown mercy, yet he has not gone entirely outside of hope; but he thinks that a postponement of the evil has been given to them, who chose to repent, yet there will be somet…

Jonah understood that Israel would be destroyed. For the Lord did not say, "You are angered evilly," lest He seem to blame the saddened man; on the other hand, He did not say, "You are angered rightly," lest He be contrary to His own sentence.

Then 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.

"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." LXX: similar. Cain who initiated civilisation by fratricide and homicide in killing his brother was the first to build a city, and he gave it the name of his son Enoch. [Gen.

But when Jonah made himself a booth and sat down opposite the city of Nineveh, waiting to see what would befall it, the prophet played a part of different significance. He was a type of the carnal people of Israel, for he was sad over the preservation of the Ninevites! He was frustrated over the redemption and salvation of the Gentiles!

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 God had pity on Nineveh.

And HaShem G-d 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 evil. So Jonah was exceeding glad because of the gourd.

A certain bishop, one of our brethren, having introduced in the church over which he presides the reading of your version, came upon a word in the book of the prophet Jonah, of which you have given a very different rendering from that which had been of old familiar to the senses and memory of all the worshippers, and had been chanted for so many generations in the church.

You tell me that I have given a wrong translation of some word in Jonah, and that a worthy bishop narrowly escaped losing his charge through the clamorous tumult of his people, which was caused by the different rendering of this one word.

This has been the present which you have made us with your excess of wisdom, that we are all judged even by the heathen as lacking in wisdom... The ears of simple men among the Latins ought not after four hundred years to be molested by the sound of new doctrines... Now you are yourself saying...

But G-d 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 arose, that G-d prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said: 'It is better for me to die than to live.'

And G-d said to Jonah: 'Art thou greatly angry for the gourd?' And he said: 'I am greatly angry, even unto death.'

And HaShem said: 'Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night;

and should not I have pity on 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?'

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