Jonah · 11 verses
Jonah 4
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
Jonah would rather die because Nineveh was spared, and then because a plant withered; the plant gets the quicker entrance and exit.
Mercy, and Jonah’s sheltervv. 1–5
Jonah is greatly displeased that the disaster has not arrived, which is a remarkably awkward complaint to make against mercy. He tells the LORD that this was precisely why he fled toward Tarshish: he knew the LORD was gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and willing to relent. Then he leaves Nineveh, builds himself a shelter east of the city, and sits down to watch what happens.
The plant and the unanswered questionvv. 6–11
The LORD God appoints a vine, and Jonah is greatly pleased with it. At dawn a worm attacks the plant; then a scorching east wind and the sun leave Jonah faint, and his wish to die returns, now over the loss of something he neither tended nor made grow. The LORD’s final question compares Jonah’s care for the overnight plant with care for Nineveh, its more than 120,000 people, and its cattle. Jonah’s answer is not given.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Jonah 4:1Jonah, however, was greatly displeased, and he became angry.
Jonah 4:2So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.
Jonah 4:3And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah 4:4But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”
Jonah 4:5Then Jonah left the city and sat down east of it, where he made himself a shelter and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city.
Jonah 4:6So the LORD God appointed a vine, and it grew up to provide shade over Jonah’s head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant.
Jonah 4:7When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.
Jonah 4:8As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint and wished to die, saying, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah 4:9Then God asked Jonah, “Have you any right to be angry about the plant?” “I do,” he replied. “I am angry enough to die!”
Jonah 4:10But the LORD said, “You cared about the plant, which you neither tended nor made grow. It sprang up in a night and perished in a night.
Jonah 4:11So should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well?”
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 98 passages were voted onto 10 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 2Psalms 86:15But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness.
- 2Exodus 34:6–7Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,
- 2Numbers 14:18–19‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation.’
- 2Joel 2:13–14So rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God. For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. And He relents from sending disaster.
- 2Psalms 145:8The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion.
- 2Micah 7:18Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?
- 2Psalms 86:5For You, O Lord, are kind and forgiving, rich in loving devotion to all who call on You.
- 31 Kings 19:4while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
- 11Matthew 18:33Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?’
- 11Luke 15:28–32The older son became angry and refused to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him.
- 2Jeremiah 18:8But if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I will relent of the disaster I had planned to bring.
- 2Exodus 32:14So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.
- 4Matthew 20:15Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
- 11Jonah 1:2“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me.”
- 11Psalms 36:6Your righteousness is like the highest mountains; Your judgments are like the deepest sea. O LORD, You preserve man and beast.
- 2Amos 7:3So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen,” He said.
Onward