Jonah's Gourd

After Nineveh repented and was spared, Jonah sat sulking east of the city to see what would happen. God 'prepared a gourd' that grew up to shade him, and Jonah was 'exceeding glad of the gourd.' The next morning God prepared a worm that killed it, and a scorching east wind, and Jonah wished to die. Then came the lesson: if Jonah pitied a plant he had not labored for, should not God spare Nineveh, with its 'more than sixscore thousand persons'? The exact plant is uncertain; many suggest the fast-growing castor-oil plant.

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Strongest connections in Scripture

Jonah 4

Key Passages

The Gourd and the Worm

Jonah 4:6-11

God uses a short-lived plant to expose Jonah's misplaced pity and to reveal his own compassion for Nineveh.

A⁶nd 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.

⁷ But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. ⁸ 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. ⁹ And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. ¹⁰ Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: ¹¹ 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?