John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Jonah 4:6
And the Lord God prepared a gourd ,.... So the Septuagint render the word; but some say that a worm will not touch that; Jerom renders it an ivy; but neither the gourd nor that rise upwards without some props to support them. The Hebrew word is "kikaion", the same with the "kiki", or "cici", of Herodotus F3 Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 94. , Dioscorides F4 L. 4. c. 164. , Strabo F5 Geograph. l. 17. p. 566. , and Pliny F6 Nat. Hist. l. 15. c. 7. ; a plant frequent in Egypt,... read more
Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Jonah 4:5-11
Jonah persists here in his discontent; for the beginning of strife both with God and man is as the letting forth of waters, the breach grows wider and wider, and, when passion gets head, bad is made worse; it should therefore be silenced and suppressed at first. We have here, I. Jonah's sullen expectation of the fate of Nineveh. We may suppose that the Ninevites, giving credit to the message he brought, were ready to give entertainment to the messenger that brought it, and to show him respect,... read more