Jonah 4 · The Lantern

But to Jonah this was evil — a great evil — and it burned in him.

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 it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry. [And he prayed unto the LORD, and said]" LXX: 'Jonah was saddened by a great sadness, and he was confounded. And he prayed to the Lord, and he said'. Seeing the crowd of gentiles enter [Rom.

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 to the LORD: “Please, LORD — was this not my word while I was still on my own soil? That is why I fled ahead to Tarshish. For I knew that you are a God gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in loyal love, who relents over evil.

And now, LORD, take my life from me, please — for my death is better than my life.”

And the LORD said, “Is it good, this burning of yours?”

"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.

And Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city. He made himself a shelter there and sat under it in the shade, until he should see what would happen in 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 the LORD God appointed a qiqayon plant, and it grew up over Jonah to be shade over his head — to deliver him from his evil. And Jonah rejoiced over the qiqayon, a great joy.

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...

And God appointed a worm at the rise of dawn the next day, and it struck the qiqayon, and it withered.

And when the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun struck Jonah’s head, and he grew faint — and he asked with all his soul to die: “My death is better than my life.”

And God said to Jonah, “Is it good, this burning of yours over the qiqayon?” And he said, “It is good — it burns in me enough to die.”

And the LORD said, “You — you had pity on the qiqayon, which you did not labor over and did not grow, which was born in a night and in a night perished.

And I — should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which are more than a hundred and twenty thousand human beings who do not know their right hand from their left — and many animals?”

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