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Jon_4:10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
Ver. 10. Then said the Lord] He did not roar upon Jonah, nor run upon him with a drawn sword, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers, Job_15:26; but gently said unto him, that he might the more admire his own impotence and God’s lenity; both which he studiously describeth all along this prophecy; a good sign of his sound repentance.
Thou hast had pity on the gourd] Here is the end, scope, and application of the parable; whereby it appeareth that God prepared not the gourd so much for the ease and use of Jonah’s body as for a medicine to his soul, convincing him of the iniquity both of his ways and wishes, by an argument drawn from the less to the greater; and confuting him by a comparison. Thou, a sinful and wretched man, hast had pity, or spared, and art sorry it perished. The gourd a sorry shrub, a mean mushroom, and none of thine either, but as lent thee; Alas, master, said they, it was but borrowed.
For the which thou hast not laboured] And so canst not be so fast affected to it. For all men love their own works rather than other men’s, as parents and poets, saith Aristotle ( ðáíôåò áãáðùóé ìáëëïí ôá åñãá áõôùí . Ethic. 1, 4); proving thereby, that those which have received their riches from their parents are more liberal than they which have gotten them by their own labour.
Neither madest it grow] Thou hast neither planted nor watered it, or any way added to it, by thine industry; for that also was no part of thy pains, but mine. Not that God laboureth about his creatures, for he doth all his work without tool or toil, Isa_40:28; but this, as many other things in Scripture, are spoken after the manner of men, and so must be taken.
Which came up in a night] Heb. was the son of a night, not without a miracle; though Pliny speaks of the quick and wonderful growth of this shrub.
And perished in a night] Cito oriens, cito itidem moriens, quickly come, and as quickly gone; a fit emblem of earth’s happiness. Surely man walketh in a vain show; foenea quadam faelicitate temporaliter florens: they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. They are but çìåñïâéïé ; their life is but a day (and such a day too, as no man is sure to have twelve hours to it), as this gourd was but of one day’s continuance, as it came up in a night, so it perished the next; cito crevit, cito decrevit, repente prolatus, repente sublatus, quickly created, quickly destroyed, suddenly coming, suddenly cut down, of very small continuance (Tarnov.).