The Gourd, of which we read in Jonah, iv, 6–10, is Kikaion in Hebrew, and there has been some doubt what the plant could have been which grew so rapidly and was so quickly destroyed. It is stated that the Lord made this grow over the booth which the prophet had erected in a single night, and provide a shade of which Jonah was “exceedingly glad.” The next morning, however, a worm attacked it, and it withered.
The author of “Harris’s Natural History of the Bible,” Dr. Thaddeus M. Harris, of Dorchester, Massachusetts (1824), quotes from an earlier work, “Scripture Illustrated,” a curious account of a violent dispute between St. Jerome and St. Augustine in reference to the identification of this plant. According to this author “those pious fathers ... not only differed in words, but from words they proceeded to blows; and Jerome was accused of heresy at Rome by Augustine. Jerome thought the plant was an ivy, and pleaded the authority of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and others; Augustine thought it was a gourd, and he was supported by the Seventy, the Syriac, the Arabic, &c. Had either of them ever seen the plant? Neither. Let the errors of these pious men teach us to think more mildly, if not more meekly, respecting our own opinions; and not to exclaim Heresy, or to enforce the exclamation, when the subject is of so little importance as—gourd versus ivy.”
While endorsing the practical lesson which the author just cited extracts from his rather unpleasant story, I think I ought to append to this narrative another which is given in Gerard’s Herbal (1597) which seems to be incompatible with the previously quoted account of the quarrel. This is what Gerard writes:—
“Ricinus, whereof mention is made in the fourth chapter and sixt verse of the prophecie of Jonas, was called of the Talmudists kik, for in the Talmud we reade Velo beschemen kik, that is in English, And not with the oile of kik; which oile is called in the Arabian toong Alkerua, as Rabbi Samuel the sonne of Hofni testifieth. Moreover a certain Rabbine mooveth a question saying What is kik? Hereunto Resch Lachisch maketh answer in Ghemara, saying Kik is nothing else but Jonas his kikaijon. And that this is true it appeareth by that name kiki which the ancient Greeke phisicions and the Aegyptians used, which Greeke word cometh of the Hebrew kik. Hereby it appeereth that the olde writers long ago, though unwittingly, called this plant by his true name. But the olde Latine writers knew it by the name Cucurbita which evidently is manifested by an Historie which St. Augustine recordeth in his Epistle to St. Jerome where in effect he writeth thus:—That name kikaijon is of small moment yet so small a matter caused a great tumult in Africa. For on a time a certaine Bishop having occasion to intreat of this which is mentioned in the fourth chapter of Jonas his prophecie (in a collation or sermon which he made in his cathedral church or place of assemblie), said that this plant was called Cucurbita, a Gourde, because it increased to so great a quantitie in so short a space, or else (saith he) it is called Hedera. Upon the novelty and untruth of this doctrine the people were greatly offended, and there arose a tumult and hurly burly, so that the bishop was inforced to go to the Jews to aske their judgement as touching the name of this plant. And when he had received of them the true name which was kikaijon, he made his open recantation and confessed his error, and was justly accused of being a falsifier of Holy Scripture.”
I quote the letter as Gerard gives it without quite understanding it, and I have not been able to trace its origin. But it is clear that if St. Augustine thought it was such a small matter he would hardly have quarrelled so violently with St. Jerome about it. Probably, however, the story of the quarrel is founded on this letter. Moreover the conclusion seems to be that the gourd was not a cucurbita but the Palma Christi.
The importance of Jerome’s translation of the word representing the plant to be Ivy (Hedera) is that he incorporated it into his Latin version of the Bible known as the Vulgate. The much older Septuagint (Greek) translation gives “kolokyntha,” the bottle gourd, as the rendering of the Hebrew kikaion. The Swedish botanist and theologian Celsius strongly supported the view that Jonah’s gourd was the Palma Christi in his “Hierobotanicon; sive de Plantis Sacrae Scripturae,” 1746. But though this tree is of very rapid growth, and is planted before houses in the East for its shade, and though philological arguments are in its favour, Dr. Hastings (“Encyclopædia Biblica”) rejects the suggestion and prefers the Septuagint version because he thinks the passage clearly indicates that a vine is intended. He considers there is no support, either botanical or etymological, for the selection of ivy to represent the gourd.
The Wild Gourds
mentioned in 2 Kings, iv, 39, are generally supposed to have been colocynth fruit, though the squirting cucumber (Ecbalium purgans) has also been suggested. The plant on which this grows, however, would hardly be called a wild vine, for it has no tendrils. The Jews were in the habit of shredding various kinds of gourds in their pottage, and as narrated, someone had brought a lapful of these gourds, the fruit of a wild vine, and shredded them into the pottage which was being prepared for the sons of the prophets. The mistake could hardly have been made with the squirting cucumber, which is very common throughout Palestine, but the colocynth only grew on barren sands like those near Gilgal, and might easily be mistaken for the globe cucumber. The mistake was discovered as soon as the pottage was tasted, and the alarm of “death in the pot” was raised. Elisha, however, casting some meal in the pot destroyed the bitter taste, and apparently rendered the pottage quite harmless.