So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made himself a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
All Commentaries on Jonah 4:5 Go To Jonah 4
Jerome
AD 420
LXX: similar. Cain who initiated civilisation by fratricide and homicide in killing his brother was the first to build a city, and he gave it the name of his son Enoch. This is why the prophet Hosea declares, "I am God, and not a man, amongst you I am a saint, and I will not come into the city". For the Lord, says the psalmist, is the charge of "the transition of the dead". This is why one of this cities of refuge is called Ramoth, which is translated as 'vision of death'. Therefore quite justly anyone who is a fugitive and on account of his sins does not merit living in Jerusalem lives in the city of death and is across the waves of the Jordan, which signifies 'descent'. The dove, or the suffering, comes out from such a town and lives in the east whence the sun rises. And it is there in his tent, where having contemplated every hour that passes, he hears what is going to happen to this city. Before Nineveh was saved and before the gourd dried up, before the Gospel of Christ becomes famous and the prophecy of Zechariah is realised: "here is a man whose name is East", Jonah was under his shelter. And nor had Truth come, about which the apostle of the Gospel says: "God is truth", and he adds elegantly, "and he made there a shelter" near to Nineveh. He makes it himself, for no inhabitant of Nineveh of that age would have been able to live with the prophet, and he was seated under the shade in the attitude of a judge or if you like, constrained by his majesty, "having pulled in vigorously his reins", so that his robe did not fall upon his feet and upon us who are low down, but was held together by a straighter belt. More precisely with regard to what he says, "to see what would happen to the city", this uses the accustomed usage of recourse to Scriptures to preach to God about human feelings.
