גִדַּלְתּ֑וֹ (ḡid·dal·tōw) in Jonah 4:10: Verb - Piel - Perfect - second person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
גִדַּלְתּ֑וֹ (ḡid·dal·tōw) in Jonah 4:10
Source Word
The BSB+ row for Jonah 4:10 links the English rendering "made grow" with גִדַּלְתּ֑וֹ, Strong's H1431, and the parsing label V-Piel-Perf-2ms | 3ms.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form sharpens the contrast: Jonah cared about a plant whose growth was not his work, while God presses him to consider divine concern for Nineveh.
How To Communicate It
Use this form to connect the grammar to the rebuke's logic: Jonah is addressed directly, the plant is the object in view, and the action is denied of Jonah.
What Not To Say
- Grammar should serve context, not override it.
- Let the narrative question carry the theological weight.
- Do not make the perfect form prove more than completed or whole-action presentation in this clause.
- Do not use the Piel stem alone to settle the meaning of the rebuke.
- Do not turn the attached suffix into a full theology of Jonah's relationship to the plant.
What Does The Label Mean?
Hebrew-verb
Verb
Verb - Piel - Perfect - second person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
Third person masculine singular
Piel
Perfect
Second person
Masculine
Singular
The perfect presents the action as complete or viewed as a whole within Jonah 4:10, while context determines its interpretive weight.
This form carries the BSB rendering "made grow" within Jonah 4:10. Jonah 4 exposes the prophet's anger and sets God's compassion over against narrow human resentment.
What The Form Does In This Verse
The negative clause about Jonah not making the plant grow
God's question to Jonah in Jonah 4:10, where second person address confronts Jonah's misplaced pity.
The form presents Jonah as the addressed subject and the plant as the object marked by the attached suffix, denying that Jonah caused its growth.
It does not make the Piel stem carry the whole rebuke, and it does not turn Jonah's relation to the plant into ownership or creative agency.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The form sits in God's closing rebuke and helps contrast Jonah's plant-pity with God's compassion for Nineveh.
Piel perfect, second person masculine singular with third person masculine singular object suffix. denies Jonah's agency in the plant's growth. Attached to the plant in God's question. Governed by God's direct address to Jonah. The second person form confronts Jonah, and the suffix keeps the plant as the object under discussion.
What did Jonah not do for the plant? He did not make it grow, which strengthens God's contrast between Jonah's pity and God's compassion.
Direct: The form directly supports made grow in the negative clause.
Piel should not be treated as automatically intensive apart from the verb and context. The perfect form presents the action as a whole in the rebuke; it should not be made into a timing theory. The object suffix identifies the plant in the clause but does not create a broader ownership claim.
Piel always means intensive: The stem label should be read with this verb and this rebuke, not as a universal intensity rule. suffix proves full relational theology: The suffix marks the object in the clause; the narrative supplies the relational contrast.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The BSB+ row for Jonah 4:10 links the English rendering "made grow" with גִדַּלְתּ֑וֹ, Strong's H1431, and the parsing label V-Piel-Perf-2ms | 3ms.
H1431 is represented here by the lemma גָּדַל. In this occurrence, the public guide is limited to the BSB rendering "made grow" rather than every possible gloss of the entry.
The Piel perfect is used in God's rebuke to frame the plant's growth as something Jonah did not produce, while the attached object suffix points back to the plant.
Jonah 4 exposes the prophet's anger and sets God's compassion over against narrow human resentment.
The form fits Scripture's witness that God's mercy is larger than the prophet's preferences and reaches the nations.
When teaching Jonah 4:10, use the form to show the contrast between Jonah's pity for a plant he did not raise and God's compassion for Nineveh.
Do not derive a full doctrine of divine mercy from the stem and suffix alone. The rebuke comes from God's whole question and the surrounding narrative.