It is hard to say what was the gourd that covered Jonah’s head at Nineveh: Jerome says, it was a small shrub, which, in the sandy places of Canaan, grows up in a few days to a considerable height, and with its large leaves forms an agreeable shade. It is now generally thought to be the Palma Christi, which is somewhat like a lily, with large smooth and black spotted leaves; one kind of it grows to the height of a fig-tree, and whose branches and trunk are hollow as a reed; there is also the wild gourd, which creeps along the surface of the earth, as those of cucumbers; its fruit is of the size and form of an orange, containing a light substance, but so excessively bitter that it has been called the gall of the earth.
I have now given you a short account of the History of Jonah, which could be greatly enlarged if space would permit—also the command given by God to preach at Nineveh—Jonah’s disobedience to that command—the pursuit and arrest of him for that disobedience by a storm, in which he was asleep—the discovery of him and his disobedience to be the cause of the storm—the casting of him into the sea, for the stilling of the storm—the miraculous preservation of his life there in the belly of a fish, which was his preservation for further services. We have also Jonah’s praying unto God: in his prayer we have, the great distress and danger he was in—the despair he was thereby almost reduced to—the encouragement he took to himself in this deplorable condition—the assurance he had of God’s favour to him—the warning and instruction he gives to others—the praise and glory of all given to God—his deliverance out of the belly of the fish—and his coming safe and sound upon dry land again—his mission renewed—and the command a second time given him to go preach at Nineveh—his message to Nineveh faithfully delivered, by which its speedy overthrow was threatened—the repentance, humiliatian, and reformation of the Ninevites hereupon—God’s gracious revocation of the sentence passed upon them, and the preventing of the ruin threatened. We have also Jonah’s repining at God’s mercy to Nineveh, and the fret he was in about it—the gentle reproof God gave him for it, Jonah’s discontent at the withering of the gourd, and justifying of himself in that discontent—God’s improving of it for his conviction, that he ought not to be angry at the sparing of Nineveh. Man’s badness and God’s goodness serve here for a foil to each other, that the former may appear the more exceeding sinful, and the latter the more exceeding gracious.
From all this we may learn, First, that though God may suffer his people to fall into sin, yet he will not suffer them to lie still in it, but will take a course effectually to show them their error, and to bring them to themselves, and to their right mind again. We have reason to hope that Jonah, after this, was well reconciled to the sparing of Nineveh, and was as well pleased with it, as ever he had been displeased.
Second, that God will justify himself in the methods of his grace toward repenting returning sinners, as well as in the course his justice takes with them that persist in their rebellion, though there are those that murmur at the mercy of God, because they do not understand it, (for his thoughts and ways therein are as far above ours as heaven is above the earth) yet he will make it evident that therein he acts like himself, and will be justified when he speaks. See what pains he takes with Jonah, to convince him that it was very fit that Nineveh should be spared. Jonah had said, I do well to be angry, but he could not prove it; God says, I do well to be merciful, and proves it; and it is a great encouragement to poor sinners to hope that they shall find mercy with him, that he is so ready to justify himself in showing mercy, and to triumph in those whom he makes the monuments of it, against those who is evil because he is good; such murmurers shall be made to understand this doctrine, that how narrow soever their souls and their principles are, and how willing soever they are to engross divine grace to themselves, and those of their own way, their is one Lord over all, that is rich in mercy to all that call on him, and in every nation, Nineveh as well as in Israel, he that fears God, and works righteousness, is accepted of him, and he that repents and turns from his evil way shall find mercy with him.
Did not the fate of this prophet typify our Saviour’s being cast into the raging sea of divine wrath; his lying a part of three days in the grave; his glorious resurrection from the dead; and the publication of his gospel to multitudes of perishing sinners that followed.
We cannot close more fitly, perhaps than by extracting a few lines from the powerful summing up by the poet Young.
“What am I? and from whence?—I nothing know,
But what I am: and since I am, conclude
Something eternal: had there e’er been nought,