Jonah 4:5

4:5 Jonah left the city and sat down east ¹  of it. ²  He made a shelter for himself there and sat down under it in the shade to see what would happen to the city. ³ 

Jonah 4:3

4:3 So now, Lord, kill me instead, ⁴  because I would rather die than live!” ⁵ 

Jonah 3:6

3:6 When the news ⁶  reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat on ashes.

Jonah 4:2

4:2 He prayed to the Lord and said, “Oh, Lord, this is just what I thought ⁷  would happen ⁸  when I was in my own country. ⁹  This is what I tried to prevent ¹⁰  by attempting to escape to Tarshish! ¹¹  – because I knew ¹²  that you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger ¹³  and abounding ¹⁴  in mercy, and one who relents concerning threatened judgment. ¹⁵ 

Jonah 4:8

4:8 When the sun began to shine, God sent ¹⁶  a hot ¹⁷  east wind. So the sun beat down ¹⁸  on Jonah’s head, and he grew faint. So he despaired of life, ¹⁹  and said, “I would rather die than live!” ²⁰ 

[4:5]  ¹ tn Heb “from the east” or “from the front.” When used to designate a location, the noun קֶדֶם (qedem) may mean “front” (BDB 869 s.v. קֶדֶם 1.a) or “east” (BDB 869 s.v. 1.b). The construction קֶדֶם + preposition מִן (min, “from”) means “from the front” = “in front of” (Job 23:8; Ps 139:5; Isa 9:11) or “from the east” = “eastward, on the east side” (Gen 3:21; 12:8; Num 34:11; Josh 7:2; Ezek 11:23). Because the morning sunrise beat down upon Jonah (v. 8) and because the main city gate of Nineveh opened to the east, the term probably means “on the east side” of the city. But “in front of” the city would mean the same in this case.

[4:5]  ² tn Heb “of the city.” For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, the noun “city” has been replaced here by the pronoun (“it”) in the translation.

[4:5]  ³ sn Apparently Jonah hoped that he might have persuaded the Lord to “change his mind” again (see 3:8-10) and to judge Nineveh after all.

[4:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “take my life from me.”

[4:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “better my death than my life.”

[3:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “word” or “matter.”

[4:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my saying?” The first common singular suffix on דְבָרִי (dÿvari, “my saying”) functions as a subjective genitive: “I said.” The verb אָמַר (’amar, “to say”) here refers to the inner speech and thoughts of Jonah (see HALOT 66 s.v. אמר 4; BDB 56 s.v. אָמַר 2; e.g., Gen 17:17; Ruth 4:4; 1 Sam 20:26; Esth 6:6; Jonah 2:4). There is no hint anywhere else in the book that Jonah had argued with God when he was originally commissioned. While most English versions render it “I said” or “my saying,” a few take it as inner speech: “This is what I feared” (NEB), “It is just as I feared” (REB), “I knew from the very beginning” (CEV).

[4:2]  ¹¹ tn The phrase “would happen” does not appear in the Hebrew text but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[4:2]  ¹² tn Heb “Is this not my saying while I was in my own country?” The rhetorical question implies a positive answer (“Yes, this was the very thing that Jonah had anticipated would happen all along!”) so it is rendered as an emphatic declaration in the translation.

[4:2]  ¹³ tn Or “This is why I originally fled to Tarshish.” The verb קָדַם (qadam) in the Piel stem has a broad range of meanings and here could mean: (1) “to go before, be in front of” (1 Sam 20:25; Ps 68:26); (2) “to do [something] beforehand,” (Ps 119:147); or (3) “to anticipate, to do [something] early, forestall [something]” (Ps 119:148). The lexicons nuance Jonah 4:2 as “to do [something] for the first time” (HALOT 1069 s.v. קדם 4) or “to do [something] beforehand” (BDB 870 s.v. קָדַם 3). The phrase קִדַּמְתִּי לִבְרֹחַ (qiddamti livroakh, “I did the first time to flee”) is an idiom that probably means “I originally fled” or “I fled the first time.” The infinitive construct לִבְרֹחַ (“to flee”) functions as an object complement. This phrase is translated variously by English versions, depending on the category of meaning chosen for קָדַם: (1) “to do [something] for the first time, beforehand”: “That is why I fled beforehand” (JPS, NJPS), “I fled before” (KJV), “I fled previously” (NKJV), “I fled at the beginning” (NRSV), “I first tried to flee” (NJB), “I fled at first” (NAB); (2) “to do [something] early, to hasten to do [something]”: “That is why I was so quick to flee” (NIV), “I hastened to flee” (ASV), “I made haste to flee” (RSV), “I did my best to run away” (TEV); and (3) “to anticipate, forestall [something]”: “it was to forestall this that I tried to escape to Tarshish” (REB), “to forestall it I tried to escape to Tarshish” (NEB), “in order to forestall this I fled” (NASB). The ancient versions also handle it variously: (1) “to do [something] early, to hasten to do [something]”: “Therefore I made haste to flee” (LXX), “That is why I hastened to run away” (Tg. Jonah 4:2); and (2) “to go before, to be in front”: “Therefore I went before to flee to Tarshish” (Vulgate). The two most likely options are (1) “to do [something] the first time” = “This is why I originally fled to Tarshish” and (2) “to anticipate, forestall [something]” = “This is what I tried to forestall [= prevent] by fleeing to Tarshish.”

[4:2]  ¹⁴ tn See note on the phrase “to Tarshish” in 1:3.

[4:2]  ¹⁵ tn Or “know.” What Jonah knew then he still knows about the Lord’s character, which is being demonstrated in his dealings with both Nineveh and Jonah. The Hebrew suffixed tense accommodates both times here.

[4:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “long of nostrils.” Because the nose often expresses anger through flared nostrils it became the source of this idiom meaning “slow to anger” (e.g., Exod 34:6; Num 14:18; Neh 9:17; Pss 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Jer 15:15; Nah 1:3; BDB 74 s.v. אָרֵךְ).

[4:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “great” (so KJV); ASV, NASB “abundant”; NAB “rich in clemency.”

[4:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “calamity.” The noun רָעָה (ra’ah, “calamity, disaster”) functions as a metonymy of result – the cause being the threatened judgment (e.g., Exod 32:12, 14; 2 Sam 24:16; Jer 18:8; 26:13, 19; 42:10; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2). The classic statement of God’s willingness to relent from judgment when a sinful people repent is Jer 18:1-11.

[4:8]  ¹³ tn Or “appointed.” See preceding note on v. 7.

[4:8]  ¹⁴ tc The MT adjective חֲרִישִׁית (kharishit, “autumnal”) is a hapax legomenon with an unclear meaning (BDB 362 s.v. חֲרִישִׁי); therefore, the BHS editors propose a conjectural emendation to the adjective חֲרִיפִית (kharifit, “autumnal”) from the noun חֹרֶף (khoref, “autumn”; see BDB 358 s.v. חרֶף). However, this emendation would also create a hapax legomenon and it would be no more clear than relating the MT’s חֲרִישִׁית to I חָרַשׁ (kharash, “to plough” [in autumn harvest]).

[4:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “attacked” or “smote.”

[4:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he asked his soul to die.”

[4:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “better my death than my life.”