Gourd

The umbrella gathers two episodes — Jonah's appointed shade outside Nineveh, and the wild gourds gathered by mistake into a prophet's pot at Gilgal.

Jonah's Gourd

Outside Nineveh, the gourd is appointed as shade and then withdrawn to confront Jonah's anger: "And Yahweh God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his evil case. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the gourd" (Jon 4:6). The relief is short-lived: "But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it struck the gourd, that it withered" (Jon 4:7). With the gourd gone, the heat presses in: "And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and requested for his soul to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live" (Jon 4:8).

The gourd then becomes the lever for Yahweh's question. "And God said to Jonah, Do you well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even to death" (Jon 4:9). Yahweh draws the lesson out of Jonah's own attachment: "And Yahweh said, You have had regard for the gourd, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night" (Jon 4:10). The plant is gift, shade, and rebuke — not raised by Jonah and not held by him, yet enough to expose where his pity falls.

Wild Gourds in the Prophets' Pot

The other episode is at Elisha's company in time of famine. A gatherer brings in fruit from a wild vine he does not recognize: "And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered of it wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage; for they did not know them" (2Ki 4:39). The gourds are wild — pulled from a vine that does not belong in a stew — and shred into the common pot in ignorance.