The Bible

 

Jonah 4

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1 And it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

2 And he prayed unto Jehovah, and said, Ah, Jehovah, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I was minded to flee at first unto Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious ùGod, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great loving-kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

3 And now, Jehovah, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

4 And Jehovah said, Doest thou well to be angry?

5 And Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city.

6 And Jehovah Elohim 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 trouble. And Jonah was exceeding glad because of the gourd.

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

8 And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, so that he fainted; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, unto death.

10 And Jehovah said, Thou hast pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:

11 and I, should not I have pity on Nineveh, the great city, wherein are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

   

Commentary

 

Hundred

  
"100 in Crackers" by Caleb Kerr. Copyright 2013, by photographer. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

It's a landmark for a young child to count to 100; it sort of covers all the "ordinary" numbers. One hundred is obviously significant for other groupings: 100 cents is a dollar; 100 yards is a touchdown; 100 years is a century, and the landmark for a very long life. It makes sense, then, that in the Bible, 100 represents fullness or a state of completion, or in some instances simply "much." For instance, people marvel that Abraham had Isaac when he was 100 years old; the number represents the point at which the Lord, when growing up as Jesus, united the human elements of himself with the divine elements and in a sense became "complete.