What Does Jonah 4:7 Mean in the King James?

But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.

Jonah 4:7 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The Hebrew says God appointed the worm, placing the blow that withers Jonah’s shelter within a deliberate sequence.

THE MEANING

The shade you rely on can be struck down by something as small as a worm. The verse holds the loss plainly: the gourd withers, and the shelter it gives is gone.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that shelter is secure simply because it has been provided; its usefulness does not make it permanent.

THE ROOT

וַיְמַן

wayman

GROWS FROM

מנה

To count, allot, or appoint.

“prepared” in this verse is wayman. The verb ⁨וַיְמַן⁩ (wayman, “appointed”) grows from ⁨מָנָה⁩ (manah, “to count or appoint”). The worm is placed among the agents in the verse’s sequence: it strikes the gourd, and the gourd withers.

ALSO GROWS

manah: To count, number, allot, or appoint.

מָנָה

This is the root’s verb form, linking the worm’s arrival with an act of assignment.

moneh: One who counts or numbers.

מוֹנֶה

This participle retains the root’s consonants and connects appointment with what is counted.

memuneh: An appointed person or official.

מְמֻנֶּה

This derivative names one placed in a role, echoing the worm’s assigned role in the verse.

THE PATTERN

The root ⁨מנה⁩ places beings and events within an assigned order, whether an appointment brings shelter or removes it.

Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah 1:17 · KJVThe same root describes the great fish as appointed within Jonah’s crisis.

And the LORD God prepared a gourd, 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 exceeding glad of the gourd.

Jonah 4:6 · KJVThe same root appoints the gourd to provide Jonah with shade.

He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.

Psalm 147:4 · KJVThe root appears in “telleth,” extending the sense of counting and ordering from Jonah’s immediate scene to the stars.

THE THREAD

Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah 1:17 · KJV

The same root, ⁨מנה⁩ (manah, “appoint”), describes both the fish and the worm. The appointed fish swallows Jonah; the appointed worm strikes the gourd, carrying the same root through a very different kind of event.

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