The Bible’s book of Jonah is about how a great city, though outrageously wicked, can find itself escaping God’s wrath, and it is about why God is reluctant to destroy such a city. Jonah was sheltering from the midday heat of the sun by resting under a gourd’s big leaves. God destroyed the gourd to bring home to Jonah what destruction would mean to him in personal experience, as a hint at what the city’s destruction would mean to God. Jonah strongly objected but had to accept the lesson and it taught him God’s answer to his objections at God sparing the city. So it came to be that the city, though a terrible one, was spared the destruction its behaviour had incurred, having repented after Jonah’s warning. Jonah did not like it, and had wanted to run away from giving the warning, aware it might lead to this outcome, but God had His way.
