Jonah 4:9

9 And God saith unto Jonah: `Is doing good displeasing to thee, because of the gourd?' and he saith, `To do good is displeasing to me -- unto death.'

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 And God appointeth a worm at the going up of the dawn on the morrow, and it smiteth the gourd, and it drieth up.

8 And it cometh to pass, about the rising of the sun, that God appointeth a cutting east wind, and the sun smiteth on the head of Jonah, and he wrappeth himself up, and asketh his soul to die, and saith, `Better [is] my death than my life.'

9 And God saith unto Jonah: `Is doing good displeasing to thee, because of the gourd?' and he saith, `To do good is displeasing to me -- unto death.'

10 And Jehovah saith, `Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou didst not labour, neither didst thou nourish it, which a son of a night was, and a son of a night perished,

11 and I -- have not I pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than twelve myriads of human beings, who have not known between their right hand and their left -- and much cattle!'