Jonah 4:8

A vehement east wind - Which was of itself of a parching, withering nature; and the sun, in addition, made it intolerable. These winds are both scorching and suffocating in the East, for deserts of burning sand lay to the east or south-east; and the easterly winds often brought such a multitude of minute particles of sand on their wings, as to add greatly to the mischief. I believe these, and the sands they carry, are the cause of the ophthalmia which prevails so much both in Egypt and India.

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.

God prepared a vehement - o (The English margin following the Chaldee, “silent,” i. e., “sultry”). East wind - The winds in the East, blowing over the sand-deserts, intensely increase the distress of the heat. A sojourner describes on two occasions an Assyrian summer . “The change to summer had been as rapid as that which ushered in the spring. The verdure of the plain had perished almost in a day. Hot winds, coming from the desert, had burned up and carried away the shrubs. The heat was now almost intolerable. Violent whirl-winds occasionally swept over the face of the country.” “The spring was now fast passing away; the heat became daily greater; the grain was cut; and the plains and hills put on their summer clothing of dull parched yellow. “The pasture is withered, the herbage faileth; the green grass is not.” It was the season too of the Sherghis, or burning winds from the south, which occasionally swept over the face of the country, driving in their short-lived fury everything before them. We all went below (ground) soon after the sun had risen, and remained there (in the tunnels) without again seeking the open air until it was far down in the Western horizon.” The “Sherghi” must be rather the East wind, Sherki, whence Sirocco. At Sulimania in Kurdistan (about 2 12 degrees east of Nineveh, and 34 of a degree south) “the so much dreaded Sherki seems to blow from any quarter, from east to northeast. It is greatly feared for its violence and relaxing qualities,” “hot, stormy and singularly relaxing and dispiriting.” Suffocating heat is a characteristic of these vehement winds. […]