Jonah 4:9

9 But God said to him, "What right do you have to be angry about the plant?" Jonah replied, "I have every right to be angry - angry enough to die!"

Jonah 4:9 Meaning and Commentary

Jonah 4:9

And God said to Jonah, dost thou well to be angry for the
gourd?
&c.] Or, "art thou very angry for it?" as the Targum: no mention is made of the blustering wind and scorching sun, because the gourd or plant raised up over him would have protected him from the injuries of both, had it continued; and it was for the loss of that that Jonah was so displeased, and in such a passion. This question is put in order to draw out the following answer, and so give an opportunity of improving this affair to the end for which it was designed: and he said, I do well to be angry, [even] unto death;
or, "I am very angry unto death", as the Targum; I am so very angry that I cannot live under it for fretting and vexing; and it is right for me to be so, though I die with the passion of it: how ungovernable are the passions of men, and to what insolence do they rise when under the power of them!

Jonah 4:9 In-Context

7 But at dawn the next day, at God's command, a worm attacked the plant, and it died.

8 After the sun had risen, God sent a hot east wind, and Jonah was about to faint from the heat of the sun beating down on his head. So he wished he were dead. "I am better off dead than alive," he said.

9 But God said to him, "What right do you have to be angry about the plant?" Jonah replied, "I have every right to be angry - angry enough to die!"

10 The Lord said to him, "This plant grew up in one night and disappeared the next; you didn't do anything for it and you didn't make it grow - yet you feel sorry for it!

11 How much more, then, should I have pity on Nineveh, that great city. After all, it has more than 120,000 innocent children in it, as well as many animals!"