The importance of Jerome's translation of the word representing the plant to be Ivy (Hedera) is that he incorporated it into his Latin version of the Bible known as the Vulgate. The much older Septuagint (Greek) translation gives "kolokyntha," the bottle gourd, as the rendering of the Hebrew kikaion. The Swedish botanist and theologian Celsius strongly supported the view that Jonah's gourd was the Palma Christi in his "Hierobotanicon; sive de Plantis Sacrae Scripturae," 1746. But though this tree is of very rapid growth, and is planted before houses in the East for its shade, and though philological arguments are in its favour, Dr. Hastings ("Encyclopædia Biblica") rejects the suggestion and prefers the Septuagint version because he thinks the passage clearly indicates that a vine is intended. He considers there is no support, either botanical or etymological, for the selection of ivy to represent the gourd.
The Wild Gourds
mentioned in 2 Kings, iv, 39, are generally supposed to have been colocynth fruit, though the squirting cucumber (Ecbalium purgans) has also been suggested. The plant on which this grows, however, would hardly be called a wild vine, for it has no tendrils. The Jews were in the habit of shredding various kinds of gourds in their pottage, and as narrated, someone had brought a lapful of these gourds, the fruit of a wild vine, and shredded them into the pottage which was being prepared for the sons of the prophets. The mistake could hardly have been made with the squirting cucumber, which is very common throughout Palestine, but the colocynth only
