Jonah 4:9

9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you think it is right for you to be angry about the plant?" Jonah answered, "It is right for me to be angry! I am so angry I could 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 the next day when the sun rose, God sent a worm to attack the plant so that it died.

8 As the sun rose higher in the sky, God sent a very hot east wind to blow, and the sun became so hot on Jonah's head that he became very weak and wished he were dead. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live."

9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you think it is right for you to be angry about the plant?" Jonah answered, "It is right for me to be angry! I am so angry I could die!"

10 And the Lord said, "You are so concerned for that plant even though you did nothing to make it grow. It appeared one day, and the next day it died.

11 Then shouldn't I show concern for the great city Nineveh, which has more than one hundred twenty thousand people who do not know right from wrong, and many animals, too?"