Jonah 4:9

even unto death "Art thou rightly angry for the palmchrist? I am rightly angry, (and that) unto death:" i. e. "my anger is so great that it well-nigh kills me, and even in that excess it is justified by the circumstances." In like manner it is said of Samson that "his soul was vexed unto death" by the urgency of Delilah (Judges 16:16), and our Lord exclaims in the garden, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Matthew 26:38), where Alford observes, "Our Lord's soul was crushed down even to death by the weight of that anguish which lay upon Him and that literallyso that He (as regards His humanity) would have died, had not strength (bodilystrength upholding His human frame) been ministered from on high by an angel, Luke 22:43." The question in its more general form, "Doest thou well to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4) is here narrowed to a single issue, "Doest thou well to be angry for the palmchrist?" And Jonah, in his unreasoning irritation, accepts and answers it on that single issue, and thus unwrittingly prepares the way for the unanswerable argument which follows.