Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
Ver. 10. Then said the Lord] He did not roar upon Jonah, nor run upon him with a drawn sword, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers, Job 15:26; but gently said unto him, that he might the more admire his own impotence and God's lenity; both which he studiously describeth all along this prophecy; a good sign of his sound repentance.
Thou hast had pity on the gourd] Here is the end, scope, and application of the parable; whereby it appeareth that God prepared not the gourd so much for the ease and use of Jonah's body as for a medicine to his soul, convincing him of the iniquity both of his ways and wishes, by an argument drawn from the less to the greater; and confuting him by a comparison. Thou, a sinful and wretched man, hast had pity, or spared, and art sorry it perished. The gourd a sorry shrub, a mean mushroom, and none of thine either, but as lent thee; Alas, master, said they, it was but borrowed.
For the which thou hast not laboured] And so canst not be so fast affected to it. For all men love their own works rather than other men's, as parents and poets, saith Aristotle (παντες αγαπωσι μαλλον τα εργα αυτων. Ethic. 1, 4); proving thereby, that those which have received their riches from their parents are more liberal than they which have gotten them by their own labour.
Neither madest it grow] Thou hast neither planted nor watered it, or any way added to it, by thine industry; for that also was no part of thy pains, but mine. Not that God laboureth about his creatures, for he doth all his work without tool or toil, Isaiah 40:28; but this, as many other things in Scripture, are spoken after the manner of men, and so must be taken.
Which came up in a night] Heb. was the son of a night, not without a miracle; though Pliny speaks of the quick and wonderful growth of this shrub.
And perished in a night] Cito oriens, cito itidem moriens, quickly come, and as quickly gone; a fit emblem of earth's happiness. Surely man walketh in a vain show; foenea quadam faelicitate temporaliter florens: they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. They are but ημεροβιοι; their life is but a day (and such a day too, as no man is sure to have twelve hours to it), as this gourd was but of one day's continuance, as it came up in a night, so it perished the next; cito crevit, cito decrevit, repente prolatus, repente sublatus, quickly created, quickly destroyed, suddenly coming, suddenly cut down, of very small continuance (Tarnov.).