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Jonah 4:7

in Jonah 4

When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it withered.

KJV

But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.

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This verse in Jonah 4

Commentary

10 notes on this verse
When the morning rose - , i. e., in the earliest dawn, before the actual sunrise. For one day Jonah enjoyed the refreshment of the palm-christ. In early dawn, it still promised the shadow; just ere it was most needed, at God’s command, it withered.

This site's exposition

But God prepared a worm

on Jonah 4:7-8

The same verb that prepared the great fish at 1:17 now prepares a worm to smite the gourd and a vehement east wind to beat on Jonah's head, fish, plant, worm, and wind each arranged by God's own hand to teach the prophet rather than to punish Nineveh. Jonah faints under the sun and repeats his death wish in the same words he used at verse 3, it is better for me to die than to live, the plant's loss undoing him more than a spared city ever did. Keil reads the sequence as deliberate escalation, comfort given and then instruction given by comfort withdrawn. Wesley notes the east wind was the sirocco known across the region for its choking heat, no unusual weather invented where a known wind will do.

The record, by era

The Church Fathers2 voices

A commentator

Jerome

Commentary on Jonah, Chapter 4 · Written before 420.

proposed

"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.

A commentator

Augustine of Hippo

LETTER 102:6 · Written in the 5th century.

proposed

But 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.

The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices

But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day,....

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

The gourd withered the next day after it sprang up; our comforts come forth like flowers and are soon cut down. When we please ourselves most with them, and promise ourselves most from them, we are disappointed.

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

A commentator

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

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 Ps 80:7).
3 more voices on this verse

The Nineteenth Century3 voices

I WANT to lay the stress especially upon these three sentences in my text— "God prepared a gourd." "God prepared a worm." "God prepared a vehement east wind." The life of Jonah cannot be written without God. Take God out of the Prophet's history and there is no history to write. This is equally true of each one of us. Apart from God, there is no life, nor thought, nor act, nor career of any man, however lowly or however high. Leave out God and you cannot write the story of anyone's life. If you attempt it, it will be so ill-written that it shall be clearly perceived that you have tried to make bricks without straw and that you have sought to fashion a potter's vessel without clay. I believe that in a man's life the great secret of strength, holiness and righteousness is the acknowledgment of God. When a man has no fear of God before his eyes, there is no wonder that he should run to an excess of meanness and even to an excess of riot! In proportion as the thought of God dominates the mind, we may expect to find a life that shall be true and really worth living. But in proportion as we forgetGod, we shall play the fool. It is the fool who says in his heart, "No God," and it is the fool who lives and acts as if there were no God! In Jonah's life, we meet with God continually. The Lord bade the Prophet go to Nineveh, but instead of going there, he took ship to go to Tarshish.
I WANT to lay the stress especially upon these three sentences in my text— "God prepared a gourd." "God prepared a worm." "God prepared a vehement east wind." The life of Jonah cannot be written without God. Take God out of the Prophet's history and there is no history to write. This is equally true of each one of us. Apart from God, there is no life, nor thought, nor act, nor career of any man, however lowly or however high. Leave out God and you cannot write the story of anyone's life.

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

proposed

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.

The words behind it

10 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • וַיְמַ֤ןand he appointed

    vaymanH4487 →28 times

  • הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙<the> God

    haelohimH430 →2601 times

  • תּוֹלַ֔עַתa worm

    tolaatH8438 →

  • בַּעֲל֥וֹתwhen came up

    baalotH5927 →890 times

  • הַשַּׁ֖חַרthe dawn

    hashacharH7837 →

  • לַֽמָּחֳרָ֑תto the next day

    lamochoratH4283 →

  • וַתַּ֥ךְand it attacked

    vatakhH5221 →

  • אֶת־<obj.>

    ʾet-H853 →10935 times

  • הַקִּֽיקָי֖וֹןthe plant

    hakikayonH7021 →5 times

  • וַיִּיבָֽשׁ׃and it withered

    vaiyivashH3001 →

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Related verses

8 in all, six open

The number beside each verse is how many compiled reference works tie it to this one. The strongest six stand open.

Joel 1:12The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, palm, and apple—all the trees of the orchard—are withered. Surely the joy of mankind has dried up.5 worksPsalms 90:5–6You whisk them away in their sleep; they are like the new grass of the morning—4 worksPsalms 102:10because of Your indignation and wrath, for You have picked me up and cast me aside.3 worksPsalms 30:6–7In prosperity I said, “I will never be shaken.”3 worksIsaiah 40:6–8A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.3 worksJob 1:21saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.”3 works
The other 2 cross-references, with their words ▾
Hosea 5:12So I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like decay to the house of Judah.3 worksDeuteronomy 28:39You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.1 works

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Joel 1:12

    The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, palm, and apple—all the trees of the orchard—are withered. Surely the joy of mankind has dried up.

    it leads to

    • Isaiah 24:11

      In the streets they cry out for wine. All joy turns to gloom; rejoicing is exiled from the land.

    • Isaiah 16:10

      Joy and gladness are removed from the orchard; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards. No one tramples the grapes in the winepresses; I have put an end to the cheering.

    • Song of Solomon 2:3

      Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

    • Joel 1:16

      Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes—joy and gladness from the house of our God?

    • Hosea 9:1–2

      Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations, for you have played the harlot against your God; you have made love for hire on every threshing floor.

  • Through

    Psalms 102:10

    because of Your indignation and wrath, for You have picked me up and cast me aside.

    it leads to

    • Psalms 38:3

      There is no soundness in my body because of Your anger; there is no rest in my bones because of my sin.

    • 2 Corinthians 4:9

      persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.

    • Romans 3:19

      Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

Where this verse is studied

About Jonah

Jonah Is Spewed Forth by the Whale, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Jonah Is Spewed Forth by the Whale, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Jonah: the study guide →Read Jonah 4 →
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, LETTER 102:6; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2504: “Jonah's Object-lessons” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Jonah, Chapter 4; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.

Read on in Jonah 4 →