Jonah 4

World English Bible 86 include this book

1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

2 He prayed to the LORD, and said, “Please, LORD, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm.

3 Therefore now, LORD, take, I beg you, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

4 The LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and there made himself a booth and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would become of the city.

6 The LORD God prepared a vine and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the vine.

7 But God prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine so that it withered.

8 When the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he was faint and requested for himself that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

9 God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?” He said, “I am right to be angry, even to death.”

10 The LORD said, “You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night and perished in a night.

11 Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also many animals?”

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2 places named in this chapter.

Where this was written

Nineveh traditional The narrative turns on Nineveh, though the place of composition is not stated.

When this was written

Traditions differ. Each position is shown rather than one asserted as settled.

Traditional: 780 BC–750 BC Jonah
Jonah is named as a prophet under Jeroboam II.
Critical: 400 BC–350 BC Anonymous
Language and the book's parabolic shape suggest a much later author writing about an earlier figure.

Elsewhere in the world

Events overlapping the period this book is dated to (780 BC–350 BC).

1200 BC–600 BC Zoroaster teaches in Persia Persia
Founder of Zoroastrianism, whose dating is disputed by as much as six centuries. His teaching on a cosmic struggle between good and evil later touched Jewish and Christian thought.
1200 BC–400 BC Olmec civilisation Mesoamerica
The earliest major Mesoamerican civilisation, known for colossal stone heads and an early calendar.
1070 BC–350 AD The kingdom of Kush Africa
A Nubian power on the upper Nile that ruled Egypt itself as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
776 BC First recorded Olympiad Greece
The traditional starting point of Greek historical chronology.
753 BC Traditional founding of Rome Rome
The legendary date of Rome's founding, later used as the anchor of the Roman calendar.
745 BC–609 BC Neo-Assyrian empire at its height Mesopotamia
Assyria dominated the Near East, deporting conquered populations as policy, including the northern kingdom of Israel.
722 BC Fall of Samaria Levant
The Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel and the deportation of much of its population.
620 BC–560 BC Coinage invented in Lydia Anatolia
Stamped electrum coins of guaranteed weight, an idea that spread across the ancient world within a century.

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