gourd Summary and Overview

(1.) Jonah's gourd (Jonah 4:6-10), bearing the Hebrew name "kikayon" (found only here), was probably the kiki of the Egyptians, the croton. This is the castor-oil plant, a species of ricinus, the palma Christi, so called from the palmate division of its leaves. Others with more probability regard it as the cucurbita the el-keroa of the Arabs, a kind of pumpkin peculiar to the East. "It is grown in great abundance on the alluvial banks of the Tigris and on the plain between the river and the ruins of Nineveh." At the present day it is trained to run over structures of mud and brush to form boots to protect the gardeners from the heat of the noon-day sun. It grows with extraordinary rapidity, and when cut or injured withers away also with great rapidity. (2.) Wild gourds (2 Kings 4:38-40), Heb. pakkuoth, belong to the family of the cucumber-like plants, some of which are poisonous. The species here referred to is probably the colocynth (Cucumis colocynthus). The LXX. render the word by "wild pumpkin." It abounds in the desert parts of Syria, Egypt, and Arabia. There is, however, another species, called the Cucumis prophetarum, from the idea that it afforded the gourd which "the sons of the prophets" shred by mistake into their pottage.

1. Kikayan only in #Jon 4:6-10| The plant which is intended by this word, and which afforded shade to the prophet Jonah before Nineveh, is the Ricinus commnunis, or castor-oil plant, which, a native of Asia, is now naturalized in America, Africa and the south of Europe. This plant varies considerably n size, being in India a tree, but in England seldom attaining a greater height than three or four feet. The leaves are large and palmate, with serrated lobes, and would form un excellent shelter for the sun-stroken prophet. The seeds contain the oil so well known under the name of "castor oil," which has for ages been in high repute as a medicine. It is now thought by many that the plant meant is a vine of the cucumber family, a gemline gourd, which is much used for shade in the East. 2. The wild gourd of #2Ki 4:39| which one of "the sons of the prophets" gathered ignorantly, supposing them to be good for food, is a poisonous gourd, supposed to be the colocynth, which bears a fruit of the color and size of an orange, with a hard, woody shell. As several varieties of the same family, such as melons, pumpkins, etc., are favorite articles of refreshing food amongst the Orientals, we can easily understand the cause of the mistake.

GOURD . Jon 4:6. Probably the plant which shaded the prophet was either the castor-oil plant (Ricinus communis), which in the East grows rapidly to the height of even 15 feet, or, according to rapidly-prevailing opinion, it was a vine of the cucumber family (Cucurbita pepo), similar to our gourd, and still used for shade in Palestine. " In the gardens about Sidon many an arbor Castor-Oil Plant. (Ricinus communis) of gourds may be seen. But the plant withers as rapidly as it shoots, and after a storm or any injury to the stem its fruit may be seen hanging to the leafless tendrils which so lately concealed it-a type of melancholy desolation."-Tristram. Some have regarded the expression, "It came up in a night and perished in a night," as literal, others as indicating merely rapid growth. The declaration that the Lord prepared a gourd, and prepared a worm, and prepared an east wind, indicates the direct and special interposition of his providence to teach the prophet a lesson of submission to the divine will. Gourd, Wild. The wild gourds eaten by the sons of the prophets, 2 Kgs 4:38-41, were doubtless the handsome yet poisonous fruit of the colocynth (Citrullus colocynthis), from which the medicine of that name is obtained. This vine is not common in Palestine, yet may be found about Gilgal, and bears a fruit resembling an orange in size and shape, but very hard and having its yellow rind marbled with green and Colocynthus, or Wild Gourd. (Citrullus colocynthis. After Tristram.) white. The plant resembles the watermelon, and belongs to the same family. For various reasons it is thought that the "knops" used in the ornamental work of Solomon's temple were imitations of the colocynth. 1 Kgs 6:18.

1. Jonah 4:6-10. So Augustine, the Septuagint, and the Syriac explain the Hebrew qiqayown; so modern Jews and Christians at Mosul (Nineveh). In gardens the arbor is often shaded with leaves of the bottle gourd; but the treelike sudden growth of the Ricinus, Palma Christi, or castor oil plant make it the more likely; so Jerome describes it, "within a few days you see the plant grown into a little tree"; and Celsius identifies it with the Punic and Syriac el keroa, or Ricinus, and the Hebrew is evidently from the Egyptian kiki, the same plant. The leaves are large and palmate, like a hand with outspread fingers (whence comes the name, Palma Christi), with serrated lobes. Castor oil is made from the seeds. 2. Wild gourds (2 Kings 4:38-41), paqot. It resembles the vine; and as several of the Cucurbitaceoe, melons, pumpkins, etc., from their juiciness, in a hot climate are favourite articles of food, a noxious sort might easily be mistaken for a wholesome kind. The squirting or wild cucumber (Ecbalium elaterium; the fruit opening, from paaqah "to open," and scattering its seeds when touched) and the colocynth (about the size of an orange) are such. The latter is favoured by the old versions, and its derivation also suits the dry gourds, when crushed, bursting or opening with a crashing noise. Gozan. A river (1 Chronicles 5:26; 2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 18:11). There the captive Israelites were transported by Shalmaneser and Esarhaddon. Now the Kizzit Ozan, the golden river of Media, which rises in Kurdistan and ultimately falls into the White River, and so into the Caspian Sea. A country also bore the name of the river, Gauzanitis (Ptolemy, Geog. v. 18); Mygdonia is the same name with the "M" prefixed. So Habor was a region and a river (the Khabour, the affluent of the Euphrates). The region is one of great fertility (Layard, Nineveh and Babylon). G. in G. Rawlinson's view was the district on the river Habor or Khabour.