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Jonah is met on his own ground. From his human compassion comes the irresistible enforcement of the argument for the Divine mercy. Mark the contrasts.

I. PITY ON THE GOURD; PITY ON NINEVEH. Useful had been the gourd to Jonah. It had made life tolerable; it had gladdened him. He had saddened to see it wither, sorrowed to see it dead. He had pity on it; his pity would have spared it. Nor was he wrong. It is well to be unwilling to see aught that has cheered us perish. But if he was right in his desire to spare that plant, "should not I spare Nineveh?" asked God. Should a plant be more than a great city? God's great thought is upon men. How the Divine pity moved over repentant Nineveh! How the blessed Redeemer longed to save Jerusalem! On his last visit, with what other eyes than those of his disciples did he look upon it!

"They shout for joy of heart,
But he the King, looks on as one in grief;
To heart o'erburdened weeping brings relief,
The unbidden tear drops start."

II. PITY ON THE SHORT-LIVED GOURD; PITY ON THE NINEVITES, IMMORTAL CREATURES. That gourd had but the life of a day. Then "the grace of the fashion of it perished." So frail! But look at those multitudes in Nineveh. Few there had so brief a life as the gourd. And all of them were heirs of immortality, passing to an eternal destiny. How the human transcends all lower forms of life! Did Jonah pity the short-lived plant? Shall not God pity the ever-living multitude in the city?

III. PITY ON THE GOURD THAT HAD COST JONAH NOTHING; PITY ON THE VAST POPULATION THAT GOD HAD MADE AND UPHELD. The gourd "came up over" Jonah; unsought, unhelped by him - curse to him. He brought it not; he kept it not in life. He had done nothing for it, yet how he mourned its decay! Mark the principle implied in this contrast! This - that we show our value of a thing by the labour we expend upon it. This also - that our sense of the value of a thing, our love to it, grows in proportion to our labour for it. How much God had done for the Ninevites! They were all his creatures. If he had not "laboured for" them, he had made them. He was the Fountain of their life. They lived because he held them in life. He could not lightly let them perish; he was their Maker. Jonah had "not made" the gourd to "grow." But God had made the Ninevites to grow; had built them in strength, fed, clothed, preserved them. And, as with us, the more we do for another, the more we love him; so with God and those Ninevites. They were dear to him, and ever dearer because of what he had done for them.

IV. PITY ON THE ONE PLANT; PITY ON THE MANY-PEOPLED CITY. One plant called Gut Jonah's yearning tenderness. But what was that to a man? - a man made in God's image, "endued with sanctity of reason," dowered with immortality? A man? Here was a city full of men. God knew the number. But in this plea he only gives the number of the children. They in their helplessness and innocence were pleas with him for the preservation of the city. Beautiful, effectual priesthood of children! They are unconscious yet mighty intercessors for us. One hundred and twenty thousand of them are in Nineveh. That is a reason why God should spare it. Better that they should live than die. Heaven, to one who has known God's grace and accepted it, temptation and overcome it, who has "served his generation," will be a nobler world than to an infant caught in his unconsciousness to its unexpected bliss. "And much cattle." Not an animal in Nineveh but is worth more than the gourd. Man's Maker is its Maker. And he who made man made it for man. The very cattle are a plea for the preservation of the city. Conclusive, unanswerable appeal! Jonah, so ready with his replies, is now speechless. He saw that God's way was right. Let our pity to things and persons remind us of God's mercy. A mercy almighty and "to everlasting." A mercy revealed in Christ. A mercy to be accepted. If not, if rejected, if trifled with till life is trifled away - where, where can we look? There is one Saviour, and no other! - G.T.C.

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KJV: 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:

WEB: Yahweh said, "You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night.