1. And the thing was very evil for Jonah. Various translations seek to reconcile this clause with English idiomatic usage by representing Jonah here as “dejected,” “depressed,” or “displeased.” But the repetition of the term raʿaḥ, “evil,” is important for the writer’s purpose. When the Ninevites decide to turn away from evil, their very repentance so upsets Jonah that it becomes, ironically, an evil—which is to say, a bitter vexation for him.

2. hasten. The basic meaning of the Hebrew qidem is to anticipate something by acting before it can happen. As Sasson notes, there is an interplay between this term and miqedem, “to the east of,” in verse 5 as well as with the “east wind,” ruah_. qadim, in verse 8.

You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in kindness. These words are a direct quotation of Exodus 34:6. One may infer that by the late moment of the writing of Jonah, the Torah was already canonical and these words were familiar as a kind of doxology. Jonah, knowing God’s compassionate nature from such an authoritative text, did not want to undertake the prophetic mission because he did not want to be an instrument in saving Israel’s hated archenemies from destruction. At this late point in the story, he remains an unreconstructed Israelite nationalist, in contradiction to the universalist outlook of the book.

3. take my life. Facing the galling fact that he has enabled the despised Ninevites to survive, which was God’s intention all along but not his, Jonah does not want to go on living. This becomes the story of a prophetic mission that is a great success (unlike those of the historical prophets), with the success being intolerable to the prophet.

4. Are you good and angry? God’s response in this first exchange with Jonah is scarcely a response, only a provocation that leaves Jonah simmering.

5. till he might see what would happen in the city. Jonah hopes that either the Ninevites will yet abandon their repentance and suffer cataclysmic destruction, with him as a privileged spectator, or he will be confirmed in what he must see as God’s perverse compassion as he watches Nineveh prosper. Jonah must be situated on a hilltop or promontory, so he has gone up after the repeated and emphatic going-downs. The verb “to go up” will be repeated in this episode, but it is not attached to Jonah.

6. qiqayon plant. The term appears only in this passage. The King James Version renders this as “gourd,” which is as good as anybody’s guess; however, since the plant has not been confidently identified, it seems prudent to preserve the Hebrew name in the translation. Why does Jonah need the qiqayon if he has already set up a shelter to give him shade? The most reasonable explanation is that the shelter, assembled no doubt from the materials he could scrape together from what was on hand, provided rather imperfect shade whereas the qiqayon, miraculously sprung up overnight, offered luxuriant foliage.

7. God set out. God in this story repeatedly assigns elements of nature to do His bidding, alternately protecting and destroying.

8. slashing. The adjective ḥarishit occurs only here. Because it appears to recall the verb heḥerish, “to be silent,” one understanding, which becomes ensconced in later literary Hebrew, is that it means “silent” here. But that scarcely accords with the present context because the wind—the hot wind called the hamsin that blows from the eastern desert—has an obviously devastating effect. The translation guesses, picking up a cue from some of the medieval Hebrew exegetes, that the adjective is related to the verb ḥarash, “to plow” and perhaps by extension “to shear or cut through something.”

the sun struck Jonah’s head. What happened to the shade of the shelter? Sasson plausibly suggests that the shelter was swept away by the powerful east wind.

9. Are you good and angry over the qiqayon? God repeats the words he spoke in the earlier exchange, adding “over the qiqayon.”

I am good and angry, to the point of death. Jonah bounces back to God the provoking words He has just spoken, adding, in a pattern of incremental repetition, “to the point of death.”

10. You—you had pity for the qiqayon. God points an emphatic vocative finger at Jonah by using the second-person singular pronoun, normally not required in front of the conjugated verb. With similar pronominal emphasis, He contrasts “I, shall I not” at the beginning of the next verse. The choice of the verb “pity” is pointedly not quite appropriate. Jonah not does pity the plant for withering; rather, he is furious that he has been stripped of its vitally necessary shade. His “pity” for the qiqayon is by no means disinterested, whereas God’s pity for all the living creatures of Nineveh flows from His compassion.