How does the ivy enter God’s dialogue with Jonas?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Anger, shade, withering and heat lead to the final question about sparing Ninive.

Chapter breakdown

Jonas is troubled and angry. The edition gives concern about seeming a false prophet, or rather God’s word being slighted and disbelieved, as its interpretation. His prayer recalls that he fled to Tharsis knowing God to be gracious, merciful, patient, compassionate and ready to forgive evil. He asks for death rather than life; God asks whether his anger has reason.

Jonas leaves to the city’s east, makes a booth and sits in its shade to see what will happen. God prepares ivy to shade his head and cover his fatigue; Jonas is exceedingly glad. The edition gives Hederam and Hebrew Kikajon, noting renderings as gourd, palmerist or palma Christi. The following morning a prepared worm strikes the ivy and it withers. At sunrise God commands a hot burning wind; the sun beats on Jonas, who broils in the heat and again desires death. No wind direction or worm attack on a root is specified.

Asked about anger over the ivy, Jonas says he is angry with reason even to death. God contrasts this grief for a plant Jonas neither laboured for nor grew, which rose and perished in a night, with sparing Ninive. The final question names more than 120,000 persons unable to distinguish their right from their left, and many beasts. It does not expressly identify those persons as children or narrate Jonas’s final reply.

The story inside

The edition preserves several plant renderings. The wind’s direction is unstated. The ending names persons and many beasts.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The edition preserves several plant renderings.
2
The wind’s direction is unstated.
3
The ending names persons and many beasts.

Test your recall

What has Jonas not done for the ivy?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 101391–101395
4:2. And he prayed to the Lord, and said: I beseech thee, O Lord, is not this what I said, when I was yet in my own country? therefore I went before to flee into Tharsis: for I know that thou art a gracious and merciful God, patient, and of much compassion, and easy to forgive evil.
Lines 101406–101408
4:6. And the Lord God prepared an ivy, and it came up over the head of Jonas, to be a shadow over his head, and to cover him (for he was fatigued): and Jonas was exceeding glad of the ivy.
Lines 101416–101419
4:8. And when the sun was risen, the Lord commanded a hot and burning wind: and the sun beat upon the head of Jonas, and he broiled with the heat: and he desired for his soul that he might die, and said: It is better for me to die than to live.
Lines 101425–101431
4:10. And the Lord said: Thou art grieved for the ivy, for which thou hast not laboured, nor made it to grow, which in one night came up, and in one night perished. 4:11. And shall I not spare Ninive, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons, that know not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left, and many beasts?