DAWN
Daily Arts Web Nucleus
Discover the Arts! Each day a different image from the Literary, Performing, or Visual Arts representing a portion of Scripture plus an explanation with links and a discussion forum 2013 May 5
Jonah and the Gourd Vine (1999)
Jack Baumgartner (b. 1976)
Symbolist Style
Private Collection
Image Source: The School of the Transfer of Energy
Explanation: In Jonah 4 Jonah becomes upset with the LORD for sparing Nineveh and goes outside the city to wait and see what would happen to it. While he waits a gourd grows up and gives him extra shade in addition to the shelter provided by a booth which he constructed. But God prepared a worm which killed the gourd, removing its shade, and then sent a hot east wind. Under this double assault Jonah fainted; and, in anger, he asked to die. But the LORD rebuked him for having "pity on the gourd" but not on the people and the animals which were spared, especially the young children.
Jonah 4
1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
4 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?
5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
6 And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
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