And the LORD God prepared a plant, 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 exceedingly glad for the plant.
All Commentaries on Jonah 4:6 Go To Jonah 4
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
The Lord God prepared an ivy. Hederam. In the Hebrew it is kikajon, which some render a gourd; others a palmerist, or palma Christi. (Challoner)
This latter is now the common opinion. St. Jerome explains it of a shrub growing very fast in the sandy places of Palestine. He did not pretend (Calmet) that hedera, or ivy, as Aquila translates, (Haydock) was the precise import; but he found no Latin term more resembling, (Calmet) as he observes here and in his letter to St. Augustine, who had informed him that a certain bishop of Africa having read his version publicly, the audience was surprised at the change; and the Jews, "either through ignorance or malice "decided in favour of the old Greek and Latin version of gourd, which Protestants retain. (Haydock)
But this does not grow so soon no more than the ivy. The palma Christi, or ricinus, does. The Egyptians call it kiki, and the Greeks selicy prion. See Pliny, xv. 7. Its foliage is thick, and its trunk hollow. (Calmet)
But how came St. Jerome to be unacquainted with this plant? or why did he substitute one false name for another?
