The introductory adverbial expression Now, then can rarely be translated literally, since “now” would refer to the immediate time and “then” would refer to a subsequent time or perhaps a prior time. Though in English both of the adverbial expressions are temporal, they actually suggest a causal relationship; for example, “Therefore,” or “As a result of all this,” or even “So.”

I am better off dead than alive may be expressed as “to be dead is better for me than to be alive” or “if I were dead, it would be better for me than for me to be alive.” Jonah feels that his victory has been achieved at the cost of the satisfaction he would have felt at seeing the destruction of Nineveh. So he asks the Lord, “take my life” (New English Bible), since it is better to be dead than alive. The word used for “life” is the same Hebrew word as in 2.7, and it occurs again later in this chapter.

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 .