Bible Strands
Jonah 4:3
And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jonah speaks to the LORD immediately after summarizing God’s merciful character in 4:2 and before the divine reply in 4:4. He voices this plea at the precise moment his prophetic mission succeeds beyond his expectations.
The words — The Hebrew קַח (kach) means “take,” and נַפְשִׁי (nafshi) translates literally to “my life.” Jonah attaches the particle נָא (na), “please,” to frame the request as a direct appeal for immediate divine action.
The thread — The text mirrors Elijah’s wilderness despair in 1 Kings 19:4 and Moses’ exhaustion in Numbers 11:15. It also intersects with the wisdom observation in Ecclesiastes 7:1 that death surpasses birth.
Why it lands — The passage records a prophet demanding death rather than enduring continued life. It asks the reader to examine how divine compassion disrupts human agendas without offering comfort for that disruption.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
Cross-references
- 1 Kings 19:4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
- Ecclesiastes 7:1 A good name is better than fine perfume, and one’s day of death is better than his day of birth.
- Numbers 11:15 If this is how You are going to treat me, please kill me right now—if I have found favor in Your eyes—and let me not see my own wretchedness.”
- Jeremiah 20:14 Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me never be blessed.
- Numbers 20:3 The people quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had perished with our brothers before the LORD!
- Jonah 4:8 As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint and wished to die, saying, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
- Job 3:20 Why is light given to the miserable, and life to the bitter of soul,
- Job 6:8 If only my request were granted and God would fulfill my hope:
- Job 7:15 so that I would prefer strangling and death over my life in this body.
- 1 Corinthians 9:15 But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this to suggest that something be done for me. Indeed, I would rather die than let anyone nullify my boast.