Jonah 4:6

"And Jehovah God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his evil case. So Jonah was exceeding glad because of the gourd."

"God prepared a gourd ..." All kinds of fanciful "explanations" of this have been attempted, one of the favorite devices being that of making this "gourd" to be a "castor bean plant," the remarkably rapid growth of which leads some scholars to accept it as the "gourd" mentioned here. These notions should be rejected.

"The attempt to find a plant which would grow high enough in a single day to provide shade for Jonah is beside the point. This plant grows suddenly, at God's command, just as the great fish swallowed Jonah at God's command. The author does not mean to describe natural happenings."[19]

The supernatural appearance of this "gourd" overnight is one of no less than six lesser wonders that surround, confirm, and support the far greater wonder of Jonah's deliverance from death. (See full discussion of this under Jonah, the Great Old Testament Type, at the end of the commentary on Jonah.)