"You pity the plant, for which you did not labour, nor did you make it grow which came into being in a night, and perished in a night". The statment above w...

Answer Details

This statement was directed by God to the prophet Jonah, as recorded in Jonah 4:10. It comes at the climax of the book, after Jonah had reluctantly preached to Nineveh and the city had repented.

After Nineveh's repentance, Jonah was angry that God spared the city. He sat outside the city, and God appointed a plant to grow up and give him shade, which made Jonah glad. But the next day, God appointed a worm to destroy the plant, and Jonah was so upset that he wished to die.

God then used the dead plant as an object lesson: "You pity the plant, for which you did not labour, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night, and perished in a night." God continued in verse 11: "And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left?"

The point was to expose Jonah's inconsistency. He grieved over a plant he did not create and that lasted only a day, yet he wanted God to destroy an entire city of people. God's compassion for Nineveh was far more justified than Jonah's grief over a withered plant.