Jonah 4:8

Vehement] RV 'sultry' = the sirocco.

9. See on Jon 4:4. Jonah transfers his pity for himself, as an ill-used prophet, to the gourd which likewise has been hardly treated. A wonderfully true touch of human nature.

10. The argument is very fine. Jonah's feeling of pity for the gourd is just enough, a withered tree is always a sad sight. Yet on this gourd,' child of a night' (so the Heb.), he had spent neither labour nor strength. How much more should God, of whose goodness man's highest virtue is but the faintest shadow, pity and spare the helpless and ignorant works of His own hands, who now fill the streets of Nineveh with pathetic appeals for forgiveness!