Jonah — Chapter 4

Scio quia tu Deus clemens et misericors es

'I know that thou art a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and of great kindness.' Jonah's complaint to God is a perfect recitation of the divine attributes (Exod. 34:6-7). À Lapide notes the irony: Jonah knows God's mercy theologically but rejects it practically when it extends beyond Israel. He applies this to any group that professes universal divine love while resenting its application to enemies.

Praeparavit Dominus Deus hederam

'And the Lord God prepared a gourd.' À Lapide discusses the plant: Jerome disputed whether it was a gourd or ivy. The gourd shadows Jonah—divine mercy even to a complaining prophet. Its sudden destruction by the worm and the scorching east wind models the transience of earthly comfort. God uses the loss to draw out Jonah's natural compassion and then argues from the lesser to the greater: if you pity a plant, how much more should God pity 120,000 innocent souls?

Et ego non parcam Ninive civitati magnae

'And shall I not spare Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that know not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left?' À Lapide reads the unanswered final question as a rhetorical invitation to the reader to assent to divine mercy. The 120,000 who cannot distinguish right from left are variously identified as infants, or as morally innocent Gentiles. The cattle (et iumenta multa) figure those who live in ignorance—even they are objects of divine solicitude. À Lapide closes with a meditation on God's universal salvific will.