Jonah
Then God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry, My son?”
Jonah did not wish to reply. But he was sure of one thing: that he had
every right to be angry. “Why did You wither my vine, Lord?” he asked
bitterly. “Was that also necessary?”
God, looking down on His prophet, smiled sadly. “What is a vine?” He
said gently. “Was it your vine, Jonah? You neither planted it nor
cared for it. It came up in a night, and it perished in a night. And
now you think I should have spared the vine for your sake. Yes ... but
what of Nineveh, that great city, where there are so many people who
cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand? Shall I
not spare them, too, for My sake, Jonah?”
Jonah rose wearily to his feet. “Well,” he said, “I may as well go home
again.”
And with bowed head he passed through the city, and out of the western
gate. In the streets the citizens made way for him with pious murmurs
and anxious looks, but Jonah did not notice them. All his courage was
gone, his pride, his hope of glory, all gone down in the dust of God’s
mercy to others, to all but him. To him alone God had been merciless
and exacting. One by one the warm hopes of the youth, the ardors of
the man, had been denied him; peace, love, pride, everything had been
taken from him. What was there left? Only the desert, stony as life
itself ... only the empty heart, the deliberate mind, the bare and
patient spirit. Well, Jonah ... what a fool to think of anything else.
Glory ... yes, but the glory is God’s, not yours.
But he had not learned even that. He was not a good prophet. The
flowers of his hope, the bitter blossoms of his grief, sprang up
everywhere, where there should have been only waste brown earth. No, he
was not a prophet; he was a man, like anybody else, whose love had been
false, whose God had been unkind....
And as he trudged dejectedly along, his heart, bare now of pride,
filled with loneliness and longing. He thought of Judith, of the
happiness that would never be his; and he wept.
High among the clouds, God turned sadly to Moses. “You Jews,” He said
wearily, “you do not understand beauty. With you it is either glory or
despair.”
And with a sigh He looked westward to the blue Ægean. Warm and gold the
sunlight lay over Greece.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.