Jonah 4:10

for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow The principle on which the contrast implied by these words rests is that the effort which we have bestowed upon any object, the degree in which our powers of mind or heart or body have been expended upon it, in a word what it has cost us, is a measure of our regard for it. No claim of this kind had the plant on Jonah. No single effort had he made for it. He had not planted, or trained, or watered it, yet he pitied it, and mourned for its decay with a yearning tenderness. But on Almighty God, though the contrast is rather implied than expressed, all creation has such a claim in fullest measure. He "labours" not indeed; He speaks, and it is done; He wills, and it is accomplished. Yet in all things that exist He has the deepest interest. He planned them, He made them, He sustains them, He rules them, He cares for them. His tender mercies are over all His works. "This entire train of thought," as Kalisch well remarks, "is implied in the following fine lines of the Wisdom of Solomon: -The whole world is before Thee as a drop of the morning dew; but Thou hast mercy upon all … and overlookest the sins of men, in order that they may amend; for Thou lovest all the things that are, and disdainest nothing that Thou hast made.… Indeed Thou sparest all, for they are Thine, O Lord, Thou lover of souls." Wis 11:22-26."

came up in a night &c. lit. was the son of a night, and perished the son of a night, i. e. it came into existence and reached maturity (comp. for this sense of was, And God said Let light be, and light was, Genesis 1:3) in a single night, and no less rapidly (not literally in a single night, for it was when the morning arose) withered away.