But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
| Word | Hebrew | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| God | הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ ha.'E.lo.Him | H430 | gods in the ordinary sense · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute |
| prepared | וַיְמַ֤ן vay.Man | H4487 | properly · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular |
| worm | תּוֹלַ֔עַת to.La.'at | H8438 | the crimson-grub · noun, common feminine singular absolute |
| morning | הַשַּׁ֖חַר ha.Sha.char | H7837 | dawn (literal · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| rose | בַּעֲל֥וֹת ba.'a.Lot | H5927 | to ascend · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct |
| day | לַֽמָּחֳרָ֑ת la.mo.cho.Rat | H4283 | the morrow or (adverbially) tomorrow · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular absolute |
| smote | וַתַּ֥ךְ va.Takh | H5221 | to strike (lightly or severely · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular |
| gourd | הַקִּֽיקָי֖וֹן ha.ki.ka.Yon | H7021 | the gourd (as nauseous) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| withered | וַיִּיבָֽשׁ vai.yi.Vash | H3001 | to be ashamed · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular |
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
a worm--of a particular kind, deadly to the ricinus. A small worm at the root destroys a large gourd. So it takes but little to make our creature comforts wither. It should silence discontent to remember, that when our gourd is gone, our God is not gone. the next day--after Jonah was so "exceeding glad" (compare ).
But God prepared a worm - By being eaten through the root, the plant, losing its nourishment, would soon wither; and this was the case in the present instance.
But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day,.... That God that prepared this plant to rise so suddenly, almost as soon prepared a worm to destroy it; for it rose up one night, continued one whole day, to the great delight of Jonah; and by the morning of the following day this worm or grub was prepared in, it, or sent to it, to the root of it: this shows that God is the Creator of the least as well as the largest of creatures, of worms as well as whales, contrary to the notion of Valentinus, Marcion, and Apelles; who, as Jerom (s) says, introduce another creator of ants, worms, fleas, locusts, &c. and another of the heavens, earth, sea, and angels: but it is much that. Arnobius…
Read the whole note in the consoleJonah 4:6-8 6. 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. 6. Et paravit Jehova Deus cucurbitam (vel, hederam,) et ascendere fecit ad Jonam, ut esset umbra super caput ejus, atque liberaret eum a molestia sua; et gavisus est Jonas super hedera (vel, cucurbita) gaudio magno. 7. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. 7. Et paravit Deus vermem quum ascenderet aurora postridie, qui percussit hederam et exaruit. 8. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east…
Read the whole note in the consoleBut the worm came in the morning. It gnawed at the vine and withered it. For when the gospel had been published by Christ's mouth, all those things withered and faded away. The shade of the vine symbolized temporal prosperity for the Israelites. And now those people have lost the kingdom of Jerusalem and their priesthood and sacrifice. All of this was a foreshadowing of the future. They were scattered abroad in captivity and afflicted with a great flood of suffering, just as Jonah—so it is written—suffered grievously from the heat of the sun. Yet the salvation of penitent nations is preferred to Jonah's suffering and the shade that he loved.
"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." LXX: 'and God commanded a worm early the next morning, which smote the gourd that it withered. When the sun had risen the Lord immediately commanded a hot and burning wind. The sun hit upon Jonah's head in his distress and suddenly became very exhausted and he said, it is better for me to die than to live.' Before the sun of justice [Mal. 4:2] rose the shade was verdant and Israel was not dry. But after it rose, and when the darkness of Nineveh had been dispersed by its light, a worm obtained for the first light of the next day smote the gourd, (the worm, which is mentioned in the title to psalm twenty-one: "in honour of the morning incarnation", and which was born from the earth without any seed, can say, 'I am a worm and not a man' [Ps. 21:7]. And Jonah, abandoned by God's aid, loses all his strength. The Lord ordered a hot and burning wind, which was prophesied by Hosea: "the Lord will bring a wind out of the desert, which will dry up the rivers and abandon his fountain" [Hos. 13:15]. And Jonah began to get hot and once again he wants to die in the baptism of Israel to receive in this basin the moisture which he lost in his refusal to do God's word. This is why Peter speaks to the Jews who are parched, saying, "Repent, and let each of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for payment for your sins, so that you might receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" [Act. 2:38]. There are those for whom the worm and the burning wind represent the Roman generals who, after the resurrection of Christ, completely destroyed Israel.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Jehovah-God appointed a Qiqayon, which grew up over Jonah, to give him shade over his head, "to deliver him from his evil." The Qiqayon, which Luther renders gourd (Krbiss) after the lxx, but describes in his commentary on the book of Jonah as the vitis alba, is, according to Jerome, the shrub called Elkeroa in Syriac, a very common shrub in Palestine, which grows in sandy places, having broad leaves that throw a pleasant shadow, and which shoots up to a considerable height in a very few days. (Note: Jerome describes it thus: "A kind of bush or shrub, having broad leaves like vine leaves, casting a very dense shadow, and sustaining itself by its trunk, which grows very abundantly in Palestin…
Read the whole note in the consoleThe Lord is God’s covenant name in relation to Israel (see, e.g., Ps 72:18). God did these things to show his covenant love toward Jonah and to those in Israel who had the same attitude. • arranged for: see study note on Jon 1:17.
attacked Heb. וַתַּךְ. The worm attacked the kikayon. Where one would say for masculine וַיַךְ, he struck, he says for feminine וַתַּךְ, she struck.
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
