Then the sun rose on that same morning, and once again God “arranged” for a hot east wind to blow, to make matters still worse for Jonah. The meaning hot can only be guessed from the context. It does not occur anywhere else in the Old Testament but is found in one of the hymns at Qumran, also referring to an east wind. Various guesses at the meaning have been made, on the basis of etymology. One possibility is a connection with one of the Hebrew words for “sun,” in a slightly different spelling. Another is a connection with the verb “to be silent,” hence “oppressive, sultry,” as Revised Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, Modern Language Bible, New Jerusalem Bible. Koehler’s lexicon suggests that the word harishith is really an error for hariphith, for haraph “to be sharp.” But since this adjective does not occur elsewhere, the suggestion is not very convincing. It is generally agreed, however, that the meaning is “very hot,” so that New American Bible, Bible in Basic English, and An American Translation have “burning,” and Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, New American Standard Bible “scorching.” Moffatt is still more vivid with “sweltering,” and Knox uses the special term “sirocco,” the hot wind that blows across the desert, particularly in North Africa. Jonah was to the east of Nineveh and would be exposed to the full force both of the east wind and of the rising sun. The writer, having in mind the situation in Palestine where the hot wind blows from the east across the desert, thinks in the same terms of Nineveh.
God sent a hot east wind must be restructured as a causative in many instances; for example, “God caused a hot east wind to blow.” A verb meaning “send” may be readily employed with persons as objects, but not with a physical event such as “wind.”
According to Good News Translation Jonah was about to faint from the heat of the sun beating down on his head, though the verb in its only other occurrence in Amos 8.13, means “to faint” rather than “to be about to faint.” Presumably, although on the point of fainting, Jonah needed to be conscious enough to address God in the last part of the verse. The verb could perhaps here refer to sunstroke (compare Isa 49.10). Knox, more picturesquely, has “all of a sweat.” Though the rendering by Knox is picturesque, it may be regarded as misleading, since as long as a person is sweating, he is not likely to faint or to suffer from sunstroke. It is the failure to sweat that causes faintness. There is, of course, a problem in this verse, since the reader may wonder why Jonah is not seated under the shade of the shelter and thus avoiding the sun’s rays beating down on his head. Good News Translation deals with this problem to some extent by speaking of “faint from the heat of the sun,” but the additional phrase beating down on his head may suggest to some readers a special difficulty concerning Jonah’s actual location.
Only rarely can one translate literally the sun beating down on his head, since the sun does not employ physical violence. In some instances one may speak of “the sun touching his head with heat,” or “the sun burning his head,” or “the sun causing his head to be very hot.”
So he wished he were dead, as in verse 3. But this time Jonah does not ask God to take away his nephesh (see 2.5, 6), but requests that his nephesh might die, since as he said previously, “I am better off dead than alive.” The wording of Jonah’s request is the same as that of Elijah in 1 Kgs 19.4. There is something paradoxical in the notion of the request for one’s own death. Similarly, in Exo 4.19, Moses is given the assurance that those who seek his life, in other words, who demand his death, are themselves dead (compare Matt 2.20). In 1 Kgs 3.11 Solomon is commended for not seeking the life of his enemies, in other words, their death (compare Job 31.10).
The context and the resemblance to verse 3 both indicate that Jonah is here addressing God. He is not simply expressing to himself the desirability of death rather than life, as in a literal translation “and he begged his soul that it might die.”
Jonah’s wish for death must be expressed in many languages as direct discourse, for example, “he wished, ‘I would like to be dead,’ ” or “he said to himself, ‘I wish I were dead,’ ” or “… ‘I do not want to live longer.’ ”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on the Book of Jonah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .