Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jonah 2:1
Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly,
1. Then Jonah prayed ] What follows, Jon 2:2-9, is rather a thanksgiving than a prayer. The same, however, may be said of Hannah’s utterance (1Sa 2:1-10), which is introduced by the same word (“Hannah prayed ”). Comp. Act 16:25, where Alford renders “praying, sung praises,” or “in their prayers were singing praises,” and remarks that “the distinction of modern times between prayer and praise arising from our attention being directed to the shape rather than to the essence of devotion, was unknown in these days: see Col 4:2.” It has, indeed, been held (Maurer) that Jonah does pray here, and that the past tenses ( Jon 2:2, &c.) are in reality present and only in form past, because they are literal quotations from some of the Psalms. It is simpler, however, to suppose, with the great majority of commentators, that Jonah had prayed to God in the prospect and the act of being cast into the sea, while he was being buffeted by the waves and sinking into the depths, and in the agony of being swallowed by the fish. During all this time, whether his lips spoke or not, his mind was fixed in that intent Godward attitude and posture which is the truest prayer. Now, however, when he finds himself alive and unharmed in that strange abode, he prays no longer, but offers thanksgivings for the measure of deliverance already granted him in answer to those former prayers, mingled with joyful anticipations of the yet further deliverance which the last verse of the chapter records. It seems probable that Jonah’s prayer was offered at the end of the three days and nights, and was followed immediately by his release. How the three days and nights were spent by him, whether in unconsciousness, as some have thought, or in godly sorrow and repentance, like Saul at Damascus, as others have held, we have no means of knowing.
his God ] When Jonah flees in disobedience it is “from the presence of Jehovah;” when he prays in penitence, it is to “Jehovah his God.” Comp. “O Lord my God,” Jon 2:6, and “ my God,” Psa 22:1.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Then – (And) Jonah prayed, i. e., when the three days and nights were passed, he uttered this devotion. The word prayed includes thanksgiving, not petition only. It is said of Hannah that she prayed 1Sa 2:1; but her canticle is all one thanksgiving without a single petition. In this thanksgiving Jonah says how his prayers had been heard, but prays no more. God had delivered him from the sea, and be thanks God, in the fishs belly, as undisturbed as in a Church or an oratory, secure that God, who had done so much, would fulfill the rest. He called God, his God, who had in so many ways shown Himself to be His, by His revelations, by His inspirations, by His chastisements, and now by His mercy . From these words, Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fishs belly, we perceive that, after he felt himself safe in the fishs belly, he despaired not of Gods mercy.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jon 2:1-9
And Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God, out of the fishs belly.
The return to God
The object in setting forth the history of Jonah is to show the nature of his sin, the truth of his penitence, and the way in which he was restored to Gods favour. Turn thought to the change which was worked in Jonahs soul. Bear in mind what was the nature of his sin It was not that he was separated from God, but that he had abandoned his duty, had shrunk from his mission, had thought more of his own relief from trial than of Gods will. When some wrong has been done which we have not the courage to confess, and the truth is discovered, fixing the charge on ones self-personality, we know what a terrible shock and deep inward sense of self-reproach is felt. Illustrate by the cases of Achan and David. When the sailors asked Jonah what was to be done, he replied, Cast me forth into the sea . . . for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. What do his words prove? Not only Jonahs personal sense of guilt, but his complete surrender of himself to God, whether to live or to die. If I die, he seems to say, it is my just doom; if I live, it is the pure undeserved mercy of God. It was the most perfect reparation we can conceive. As before he would not surrender his own will and his own judgment, notwithstanding the command of God, so now he would give himself up wholly for whatever God might will as his deserved punishment. The sailors east him into the sea, but then a yet deeper sense of penitence awoke within him, and a yet stronger expression of profound sorrow and unquestioning childlike faith broke forth from him. Jonah saw, by faith, life restored; he saw Divine mercy working itself out in the midst of the deep darkness, and he acknowledged God as his Father, his Protector, his eternal Hope even then in the midst of his awful doom. Two lessons–
1. We see here an act of purest faith. There is a faith of a soft and easy kind, when everything goes smooth, and we have no anxiety, no fear or distress darkening the path of life. How glibly then do men speak of having their hope in God. There is another kind of faith, which produces resignation, patience, willingness to endure and be brave, and even willing to suffer. But yet it may not be faith that cheers the soul,–not a rejoicing in the Lord, not the triumph of a trustful soul. The real saving faith is seen when the soul finds God working in the storm and tempest, and reads the handwriting on the wall, speaking even in the midst of death and terror, and yet can calmly look on the Redeemer on the Cross, and see in the future the immortality beyond the grave, see the brightness of the glory that will one day be to the faithful the heritage of boundless joy, and so be comforted and gladdened even in sorrow and pain,–it is such faith we see realised in the repentant Jonah.
2. We may learn the reason of trials and troubles which so often disturb the currents of our life. What would it be if we were always in the sunshine, always prosperous? Would there not be, even to the most faithful, a risk of too great confidence of a false assurance? (T. T. Carter.)
Jonah in the sea
1. Objectively, the prophets experience was that of one in the belly of hell, in the midst of the seas, entangled in the weeds, and among the caverns worn by the waves beneath the mountains on the coast. Jonah was in the belly of hell–Sheol, the region of the dead. He was in the heart of the seas. He sank at once when cast into the sea. He was entangled with the sea-weeds. Entangled with the weeds which gathered about his head, the prophet drifted towards the coast, and was presently carried into some of its submarine caverns by the current, and there he must have perished but for the Divine mercy.
2. The subjective experience of Jonah beneath the waves was that of a living, conscious, suffering, and suppliant person. It was a miraculous circumstance that the prophet remained alive in such a position. Jonah was not only alive, but conscious while under the sea. The distress he experienced beneath the water appears to have been spiritual rather than physical. His soul was overwhelmed with the consciousness that he was cast out of Gods sight. Jonah was saved from despair by the suppliant mood which possessed him. We need despair of no man while he prays. His prayer was accompanied by a look toward the temple of Jehovah. It was prompted by his remembrance of the Lord. I remembered Jehovah. It was accompanied by a vow. It was answered in a remarkable manner.
Observe his reflections when in the fish.
1. Thou hast brought up my life from destruction, O Lord my God!
2. My prayer came in unto Thee, into Thine holy temple.
3. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
4. Salvation is of the Lord. (S. C. Burn.)
Jonahs prayer
Here we have a very clear and intense history of Jonahs inward life. Notice some points of it.
1. There was a great and sudden quickening of consciousness.
2. Rapidly this new consciousness became distressful. The reserved sorrow of long sinning comes all at once.
3. Then he began to look–upwards to earth, eastwards to the temple where he knew that the lost presence was richly manifested.
4. The look soon became a cry. It may have been an audible cry. But evidently the soul of the cry was this, that it was tim cry of the soul.
5. He began to be grateful.
6. The final state of his mind is a state of entire dependence. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)
The imprisonment of Jonah
It is evident from the chapter that, whether a longer or a shorter period elapsed, what befell him, and how he was exercised during his confinement, were things which he distinctly recollected. In verse 1 Jonah gives a summary statement of what was his situation and exercise. The belly of a fish. Clearly his preservation and escape were things altogether miraculous. That was his situation; his exercise was prayer. Let none then neglect secret prayer to God, or think themselves excused because they have not a proper or convenient place to which they may retire. The description given of the object of his prayer is worthy of notice. The Lord his God. The God of Israel, the only living and true God, God in covenant. It was plainly the prayer of an appropriating faith. Verse 2 requires but little explanation. Here we have the success with which this exercise of prayer was crowned. His situation had been one of deep distress. He cried unto the Lord out of his affliction. He was in great straits, and very closely besieged. His body and mind were both shut up. The word cried, as used in relation with the exercise of prayer, is very significant. It is not here merely a loud voice; it implies close engagements of heart, great fervour, earnestness, and importunity. This is the more strongly indicated as the word is repeated. Our prophet did not direct his cry to one whose ear was shut or averted. Our God is the hearer of prayer. Verse 3 contains an amplified account of the dismal situation of the prophet, and of the utter hopelessness of life being preserved, or deliverance obtained, except by miraculous influence. Without attempting to describe the peculiarly distressing feelings of the prophet when in the fishs belly, a case which baffles all description, let us direct attention to the piety of the man. He traces the storm to God Himself. In verse 4 we have a short but lively description of that conflict which often takes place, in the case of Gods people, between grace and remaining corruption, particularly between faith and unbelief. This conflict, though incident to the people of God at all times, is specially felt in seasons of distress. The language is not to be understood as referring to Gods natural presence, or as intimating that the prophet was beyond the sphere of Gods omniscience; for he was better taught than to give any countenance to such an idea. But he then felt strongly tempted to say that he was cast out of the Lords gracious presence. But he had in him the principle of a true saving faith. He says, I will look again toward Thy holy temple. This language intimates that the faith of the prophet embraced God in His gracious and new-covenant character. The following truths may be inferred. That God is jealous of His glory, and frequently manifests this most signally in His dealings with His own people. That it is God who adjusts the kind, measure, and duration of the afflictions with which His righteous people are afflicted. That while God displays much of His sovereignty in the afflictions He sends upon His people, yet some sin is often the immediate precursor. That right exercise under affliction consists in a clear and impressive discernment of this connection. That when afflictions are sanctified to persons they seek unto God by prayer for pardon and restoration. That although the genuine people of God, under this or the other affliction, may be reduced to a very low state as respects their soul-exercise, yet they are always upheld, and in the mercy of God are prevented from plunging into the fatal abyss of despair! (James Clyde.)
The conflict between despair and faith
Doctrine–
1. It is the usual lot of the Lords children to have not only outward afflictions to wrestle with, but spiritual temptations and sad conclusions, gathered from their troubles, which are sorer to endure than many simple afflictions. For so was it with Jonah when he was in the sea.
2. The children of the Lord in their troubles may be so tossed and divided betwixt hope and despair that faith and unbelief will be talking word about, for so doth Jonahs experience teach. I said, I am cast out; yet will I look again.
3. In a time of temptation, unbeliefs word is generally first out, till faith come and correct it; ordinarily what is said in haste is unbeliefs language, and to be unsaid again, for this comes first out, I am cast out of Thy sight.
4. A child of God may not only be assaulted with fits of despair, but for a time be overcome with it, and yield to it; and yet, for all that, recover his feet again.
5. As it is ordinary under temptation to judge of all Gods respect, care, and love by our sense of His present dealing, so to be cast off by God, as one that He will not favour nor care for nor take notice of, is the sorest of trials, especially to the child of God, who lives by Gods favour, and is made up in all his afflictions when he finds that God thinks on him, and that his troubles endear him to Gods care.
6. It is no new thing to see a child of God, and vessel of mercy, apprehending reprobation and rejection from God, in his sad and dark hour, for this also is Jonahs temptation.
7. Nor is it strange to see the children of God exercised and sadly afflicted with that which hath never been, nor will be, save in their own fearful apprehensions; for so is Jonah with casting off. When we reckon by our own deservings, and by probabilities in a strait, and not by Gods love and all-sufficiency, we cannot but draw sad conclusions, and our own spirits will make us work enough.
8. Temptations, even when they have overcome for a season, are not to be lien with, and given way to, by the children of God, but ought to be resisted and set against, though they should (if it were possible) perish in the attempt, this being the way to honour God and get deliverance,–for vanquished Jonah will not quit it so; Yet will I look again.
9. That whereby the children of the Lord must oppose all troubles inward and outward, and resist temptations, is naked faith closely adhering to the covenant of grace made in Christ, and gathering hope of better dealing This is imported in his looking again toward the holy Temple, or eyeing God in His covenant, whereof that was a sign. To cast away confidence as useless in a strait, or not to essay faith until we are hired by sense, or to lie by in wilful unbelief, think that is the way to get sense to loose our doubts; or to seek any footing for faith but in Gods covenant and free grace in Christ, is the height of folly.
10. The weakest act of faith may do much good in a day of greatest need; for in all this extremity Jonah had no more but a looking again as a poor banished man.
11. Faith in a time of need will find a way through many a dark impediment to find God.
12. It speaks much to Gods praise that when His people are laid by with their temptations yet He will not lose them, but recover them out of their deepest swoons, and make vanquished faith yet again to triumph over difficulties which they had judged insuperable. For this is also recorded to His praise: that not only Jonah persevered crying when his trouble was great, but that he was strengthened, after he had once yielded to the temptation, to believe and look again. (George Hutcheson.)
The prayer of Jonah
This prayer, as it now stands, was obviously composed after his restoration. It may be regarded as a compendium of what he uttered in his distress. Notice–
1. The depth of the prophets misery. The prophet was in the utmost jeopardy. He knew not but that death might speedily be his portion. His misery arose chiefly from the agony of his soul–the conviction that he had been arrested in an act of wilful disobedience,–in the attempt, vain as that of the first fallen pair, to escape from the presence of the Lord. Many of his expressions are similar to those of the psalmist. David felt the bitterness which is the invariable result of a departure from the living God,–the intolerable anguish which arises from a consciousness of guilt when the conscience, by habitual transgression, has not been seared, and reverential fear of God not rooted out from the heart. When we contemplate the prophet in his dark hours of terror and agony, and behold the inevitable wretchedness which is the natural consequence of disobedience, we cannot but admire the wisdom, while we should seek to follow the example, of that apostle who declared, in the presence of Felix, that he exercised himself to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men. Though depressed and desponding, Jonah did not give way to despair. He called to mind former mercies. His prayer ascended with the incense to heaven. And to whom should we betake ourselves in the hour of affliction, but to that God who dwelleth not in temples made with hands? We should not look to other sources for that comfort which Jehovah alone can bestow. As Jonah looked to the temple, and thought upon the legal sacrifices there offered, so must we, in all our addresses to the throne of grace, have respect to the meritorious efficacy of that great sacrifice by which the Lord Jesus hath averted the Fathers displeasure, and opened a way of access through His blood. The prayer of Jonah was not in vain. He was speedily delivered from his prison-house. No doubt can be entertained of the sincerity of the prophets repentance–of the deep humiliation of his soul, of his heartfelt contrition for having disobeyed the Divine command. No sooner was the prophet restored than, like the mariners, he offered praise and thanksgiving, and paid his vows unto the Lord. How overwhelming must have been his feelings on this miraculous deliverance from his strange and fearful prison-house. His soul must have been transported with gratitude and amazement, and his vows were doubtless poured forth with a fervour proportioned to a sense of deliverance. But how often are pious resolutions forgotten when the time of danger is past. Salvation is of the Lord. What truth more important to be habitually realised than this,–that all our temporal, spiritual, and eternal blessings proceed from God. What have we that we have not received? Our worldly success we are tempted to ascribe to our prudence and skilful management. We refer to second causes that which should be referred to the great First Cause of all. And we are apt to forget that it is by grace we are saved. The great practical lesson for us to learn is–the value and importance of prayer. (Thomas Bissland, M. A.)
The prophets prayer
The bottom of the sea was Jonahs holy ground, and the belly of the fish his consecrated oratory. His gloomy prison was turned into a house of prayer. Jonah evidently retained his consciousness during the term of his imprisonment. We have only the substance of the captives prayer preserved for us.
1. The spiritual exercises with which the prophets prayer is identified. It is impossible to conceive of a more critical or distressing condition than that to which the servant of God was reduced.
2. The conclusion of unbelief. Then I said, I am cast out of Thy sight. An outcast from Divine favour.
3. The victory of faith. Yet will I look again towards Thy holy temple. See faiths realised triumph, Yet hast Thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.
4. The ardour of Jonahs gratitude.
5. His emphatic ascription. Salvation is of the Lord. Notice also the evidence of spiritual reclamation which the prophets prayer supplies. This is seen in his altered feeling towards God. In the rekindling of the spirit of devotion. In the vigorous action of faith. In the expression of this faith Jonah embodied the sentiments of former saints. The prophets mind was evidently richly stored with the Word of God. (John Broad.)
The conflict of faith and sense
The prayer of Jonah is an illustrious instance of the conflict between sense and faith. Sense prompting to despair,–faith pleading for hope and procuring victory. This prayer of faith, though in unparalleled circumstances, and spiritually noble in a marvellous degree, contains in it nothing but the ordinary principles of all believing prayer. It is the very trial of faith to have circumstances to contend with which appear to extinguish hope, which even seem to shut out hope altogether. This is the true place and action of faith. Surrounded by incidents, events, circumstances, influence, powers, all adverse to your deliverance and salvation; and with your hope, as far as this region of the things seen and temporal is concerned, utterly cut off; your faith discovers another region, a realm and kingdom unseen. Your faith draws upon them.
I. View Jonahs position from the side of sense. Was ever a case so fitted to call forth utter despair? Mark–
1. The case in which Jonah finds himself.
2. The hand to which he traces it.
3. The immediate effects produced on his mind by it.
He felt to be cast out of Gods sight. His soul fainted in him. Outwardly he was begirt with terrors unspeakable. These to him were tokens of an angry God. His soul was brought to the very verge of despair.
II. Jonahs faith rose in its strength and triumph. What can stand us in any stead in such an hour but the prayer of faith?
1. We see the truth and power of Jonahs faith in that he betook himself to prayer at all.
2. He set before himself the certainty of Jehovahs reconcilableness, His promised forgiveness, His sure accessibility.
3. He did not do this in vain. He was answered in the progressive strengthening of his faith, even while his trial lasts.
4. Jonah offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving. He cometh unto God–unto God his exceeding joy. (Hugh Martin, M. A.)
Jonah the penitent suppliant
This has been called a Song of deliverance. It suggests–
1. The moral significance of adverse circumstances. Circumstances make or unmake, mould or mar us for future usefulness and distinction, according to the spirit in which they are received and utilised. Adverse circumstances are morally advantageous when rightly understood, patiently borne, and rightly used. Adversity ever has a spiritual significance. Whether it be guidance judicial or disciplinary, we cannot do better than acknowledge with reverence the hand that strikes, and supplicate His mercy.
2. The important part prayer plays in the adversities of life. It is indispensable in the trying and troublous experiences of our moral and physical being. Jonahs prayer was a necessity. He was borne on the wings of strong moral impulses.
3. That the hearer or receiver of prayer is always within reach and approachable. Time, circumstances, con dition, place are no hindrances in themselves to drawing near to God. From every point in the compass of life He is accessible.
(1) Jonahs prayer was a personal recognition of God.
(2) He was earnest in supplication. Importunity is never unsuccessful.
4. That our prayers to a great extent are moulded by our experience. As the countenance indexes the mind, the eye, the health, so prayer is a pretty sure indicator of the souls attitude Godward, its condition in grace, its experience in the faith-life. This chapter teaches the prevalency of prayer. It was answered in complete salvation. Note here, amazing Divine condescension. Great deviation from the Divine habitude. Prompt and perfect deliverance. Prayer is omnipotent, for it prevails with, it conquers God. There is no dilemma in Christian experience that prayer cannot deliver from. (J. O. Keen, D. D.)
In the deep and mighty waters
Some few years ago a terrible calamity occurred in a colliery at Tynewydd, South Wales. The mine was flooded with water, and for several days the miners were entombed, despite heroic efforts to save them. As one of the rescuing parties was exploring the mine they thought they heard singing, and creeping in the direction of the sound, heard the entombed men singing the words of a Welsh hymn, In the deep and mighty waters there is One to rescue me. (S. S. Chronicle.)
More of thanksgiving beneath the waters
There is an old legend concerning a golden organ which, when a monastery was being sacked, the monks threw into the rushing stream that hurried past their home; and the story has it that for long, long years thereafter the music of the organ was still heard beneath the waters; for, though they drowned the instrument, they could not drown its song. There is a lesson for us even in an apparently worthless legend. When Gods waves and billows roll over us, let us remember that we are Gods, and that will set the seal. Though the organ beneath the surface may run the risk of being drowned, if the Spirit of God is with us, then the sweet new song will be going on all the same. (Christian Herald.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER II
This chapter (except the first verse and the last, which make
a part of the narrative) contains a beautiful prayer or hymn,
formed of those devout thoughts which Jonah had in the belly
of the great fish, with a thanksgiving for his miraculous
deliverance.
NOTES ON CHAP. II
Verse 1. Then Jonah prayed – out of the fish’s belly] This verse makes the first of the second chapter in the Hebrew text.
It may be asked, “How could Jonah either pray or breathe in the stomach of the fish?” Very easily, if God so willed it. And let the reader keep this constantly in view; the whole is a miracle, from Jonah’s being swallowed by the fish till he was cast ashore by the same animal. It was God that had prepared the great fish. It was the Lord that spake to the fish, and caused it to vomit Jonah upon the dry land. ALL is miracle.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Then, Heb. And, at that time when he lay by the heels a close prisoner in a prison, whence none before or since ever came out alive,
Jonah prayed; sent his petition in all humble and submissive manner unto God: Jonah, wonderfully preserved alive, and in full exercise of his judgment and memory, now betakes himself to prayer, and in this exerciseth his graces; his soul follows hard after God, when he was shut up in this dungeon.
Unto the Lord, that was angry, and now was punishing of Jonah; the Lord, who had committed him to this prison; the almighty God, who can do for Jonah all that he can need or desire.
His God; though Jonah in his froward fit flees from his God, yet now, by the rod taught better, he flees to God, nay, as his God, and remembers his particular interest in God. If Jonah prays by faith grounded on Gods almightiness, now he prays with assurance and hope of faith, looking to God as his God; if the power of the Lord and his mercy keep Jonah alive in the fishs belly, the same power and mercy can deliver him out of this danger, and the prophet believes he is kept there for an enlargement as miraculous as his confinement was.
Out of the fishs belly; where he was a prisoner under many miracles, and all concur to awaken him to prayer and faith; he calls it
the belly of hell, or the grave, Jon 2:2. He employed his time well there.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. his God“his”still, though Jonah had fled from Him. Faith enables Jonah now tofeel this; just as the returning prodigal says of the Father, fromwhom he had wandered, “I will arise and go to my Father”(Lu 15:18).
out of the fish’s bellyEveryplace may serve as an oratory. No place is amiss for prayer. Otherstranslate, “when (delivered) out of the fish’s belly.”English Version is better.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly. Though Jonah had been a praying man, being a good man, and a prophet of the Lord, yet it seems he had not prayed for some time; being disobedient to the will of God, he restrained prayer before him; all the while he was going to Joppa he prayed not; and how indeed could he have the face to pray to him, from whose face he was fleeing? and as soon as he was in the ship he fell asleep, and there lay till he was waked by the shipmaster, who called upon him to arise, and pray to his God; but whether he did or no is not said; and though it is very probable he might, when convicted of his sin, and before he was cast into the sea, and as he was casting into it; his not recorded; but when he was in the fish’s belly, “then [he] prayed”; where it is marvellous he should, or could; it was strange he should be able to breathe, and more strange to breathe spiritually; it was very wonderful he should have the exercise of his reason, and more that he should have the exercise of grace, as faith and hope, as it appears by the following prayer he had. Prayer may be performed any where, on a mountain, in a desert, in the caves and dens of the earth, and in a prison, as it has been; but this is the only time it ever was performed in such a place. Jonah is the only man that ever prayed in a fish’s belly: and he prayed unto the Lord as “his God”, not merely by creation, and as the God of nature and providence, the God of his life, and of his mercies; but as his covenant God and Father; for though he had sinned against the Lord, and had been sorely chastised by him, yet he did not take his lovingkindness from him, nor suffer his faithfulness to fail, or break his covenant with him; covenant interest and relation still continued; and Jonah had knowledge of it, and faith in it; and as this is an argument the Lord makes use of to engage backsliders to return unto him, it is a great encouragement to them so to do, Jer 3:14. In this Jonah was a type of Christ, who, amidst his agonies, sorrows, and sufferings, prayed to his Father, and claimed his interest in him as his God, Heb 5:7. What follows contains the sam and substance of the prophet’s thoughts, and the ejaculations of his mind, when in the fish’s belly; but were not put up in this form, but were reduced by him into it after he was delivered; as many of David’s psalms were put into the form and order they are after his deliverance from troubles, suitable to his thoughts of things when he was in them; and indeed the following account is an historical narration of facts, which were before and after his prayer, as well as of that itself.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“Jonah prayed to Jehovah his God out of the fish’s belly.” The prayer which follows (Jon 2:2-9) is not a petition for deliverance, but thanksgiving and praise for deliverance already received. It by no means follows from this, however, that Jonah did not utter this prayer till after he had been vomited upon the land, and that v. 10 ought to be inserted before v. 2; but, as the earlier commentators have shown, the fact is rather this, that when Jonah had been swallowed by the fish, and found that he was preserved alive in the fish’s belly, he regarded this as a pledge of his deliverance, for which he praised the Lord. Luther also observes, that “he did not actually utter these very words with his mouth, and arrange them in this orderly manner, in the belly of the fish; but that he here shows what the state of his mind was, and what thoughts he had when he was engaged in this conflict with death.” The expression “his God” ( ) must not be overlooked. He prayed not only to Jehovah, as the heathen sailors also did (Jon 1:14), but to Jehovah as his God, from whom he had tried to escape, and whom he now addresses again as his God when in peril of death. “He shows his faith by adoring Him as his God” (Burk). The prayer consists for the most part of reminiscences of passages in the Psalms, which were so exactly suited to Jonah’s circumstances, that he could not have expressed his thoughts and feelings any better in words of his own. It is by no means so “atomically compounded from passages in the Psalms” that there is any ground for pronouncing it “a later production which has been attributed to Jonah,” as Knobel and De Wette do; but it is the simple and natural utterance of a man versed in the Holy Scripture and living in the word of God, and is in perfect accordance with the prophet’s circumstances and the state of his mind. Commencing with the confession, that the Lord has heard his crying to Him in distress (Jon 2:2), Jonah depicts in two strophes (Jon 2:3 and Jon 2:4, Jon 2:5-7) the distress into which he had been brought, and the deliverance out of that destruction which appeared inevitable, and closes in Jon 2:8, Jon 2:9 with a vow of thanksgiving for the deliverance which he had received.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Jonah’s Prayer; The Prophet in the Fish’s Belly. | B. C. 840. |
1 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly, 2 And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. 3 For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. 4 Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. 5 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. 6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God. 7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. 8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. 9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.
God and his servant Jonah had parted in anger, and the quarrel began on Jonah’s side; he fled from his country that he might outrun his work; but we hope to see them both together again, and the reconciliation begins on God’s side. In the close of the foregoing chapter we found God returning to Jonah in a way of mercy, delivering him from going down to the pit, having found a ransom; in this chapter we find Jonah returning to God in a way of duty; he was called up in the former chapter to pray to his God, but we are not told that he did so; however, now at length he is brought to it. Now observe here,
I. When he prayed (v. 1): Then Jonah prayed; then when he was in trouble, under the sense of sin and the tokens of God’s displeasure against him for sin, then he prayed. Note, When we are in affliction we must pray; then we have occasion to pray, then we have errands at the throne of grace and business there; then, if ever, we shall have a disposition to pray, when the heart is humbled, and softened, and made serious; then God expects it (in their affliction they will seek me early, seek me earnestly); and, though we bring our afflictions upon ourselves by our sins, yet, if we pray in humility and godly sincerity, we shall be welcome to the throne of grace, as Jonah was. Then when he was in a hopeful way of deliverance, being preserved alive by miracle, a plain indication that he was reserved for further mercy, then he prayed. An apprehension of God’s good-will to us, notwithstanding our offences, gives us boldness of access to him, and opens the lips in prayer which were closed with the sense of guilt and dread of wrath.
II. Where he prayed–in the fish’s belly. No place is amiss for prayer. I will that men pray every where. Wherever God casts us we may find a way open to heaven-ward, if it be not our own fault. Undique ad clos tantundem est vi–The heavens are equally accessible from every part of the earth. He that has Christ dwelling in his heart by faith, wherever he goes carries the altar along with him, that sanctifies the gift, and is himself a living temple. Jonah was here in confinement; the belly of the fish was his prison, was a close and dark dungeon to him; yet there he had freedom of access to God, and walked at liberty in communion with him. Men may shut us out from communion with one another, but not from communion with God. Jonah was now in the bottom of the sea, yet out of the depths he cries to God; as Paul and Silas prayed in the prison, in the stocks.
III. To whom he prayed–to the Lord his God. He had been fleeing from God, but now he sees the folly of it, and returns to him; by prayer he draws near to that God whom he had gone aside from, and engages his heart to approach him. In prayer he has an eye to him, not only as the Lord, but as his God, a God in covenant with him; for, thanks be to God, every transgression in the covenant does not throw us out of covenant. This encourages even backsliding children to return. Jer. iii. 22, Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God.
IV. What his prayer was. He afterwards recollected the substance of it, and left it upon record. He reflects upon the workings of his heart towards God when he was in his distress and danger, and the conflict that was then in his breast between faith and sense, between hope and fear.
1. He reflects upon the earnestness of his prayer, and God’s readiness to hear and answer (v. 2): He said, I cried, by reason of my affliction, unto the Lord. Note, Many that prayed not at all, or did but whisper prayer, when they were in prosperity, are brought to pray, nay, are brought to cry, by reason of their affliction; and it is for this end that afflictions are sent, and they are in vain if this end be not answered. Those heap up wrath who cry not when God binds them, Job xxxvi. 13. “Out of the belly of hell and the grave cried I.” The fish might well be called a grave, and, as it was a prison to which Jonah was condemned for his disobedience and in which he lay under the wrath of God, it might well be called the belly of hell. Thither this good man was cast, and yet thence he cried to God, and it was not in vain; God heard him, heard the voice of his affliction, the voice of his supplication. There is a hell in the other world, out of which there is no crying to God with any hope of being heard; but, whatever hell we may be in the belly of in this world, we may thence cry to God. When Christ lay, as Jonah, three days and three nights in the grave, though he prayed not, as Jonah did, yet his very lying there cried to God for poor sinners, and the cry was heard.
2. He reflects upon the very deplorable condition that he was in when he was in the belly of hell, which, when he lay there, he was very sensible of and made particular remarks upon. Note, If we would get good by our troubles, we must take notice of our troubles, and of the hand of God in them. Jonah observes here, (1.) How low he was thrown (v. 3): Thou hadst cast me into the deep. The mariners cast him there; but he looked above them, and saw the hand of God casting him there. Whatever deeps we are cast into, it is God that casts us into them, and he it is who, after he has killed, has power to cast into hell. He was cast into the midst of the seas–the heart of the seas (so the word is), and thence Christ borrows that Hebrew phrase, when he applies it to his own lying so long in the heart of the earth. For he that is laid dead in the grave, though it be ever so shallow, is cut off as effectually from the land of the living as if he were laid in the heart of the earth. (2.) How terribly he was beset: The floods compassed me about. The channels and springs of the waters of the sea surrounded him on every side; it was always high-water with him. God’s dear saints and servants are sometimes encompassed with the floods of affliction, with troubles that are very forcible and violent, that bear down on all before them, and that run constantly upon them, as the waters of a river in a continual succession, one trouble upon the neck of another, as Job’s messengers of evil tidings; they are enclosed by them on all sides, as the church complains, Lam. iii. 7. He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out, nor see which way I may flee for safety. All thy billows and they waves passed over me. Observe, He calls them God’s billows and his waves, not only because he made them (the sea is his, and he made it), and because he rules them (for even the winds and the seas obey him), but because he had now commissioned them against Jonah, and limited them, and ordered them to afflict and terrify him, but not to destroy him. These words are plainly quoted by Jonah from Ps. xlii. 7, where, though the translations differ a little, in the original David’s complaint is the same verbatim—word for word, with this of Jonah’s: All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. What David spoke figuratively and metaphorically Jonah applied to himself as literally fulfilled. For the reconciling of ourselves to our afflictions, it is good to search precedents, that we may find there has no temptation taken us but such as is common to men. If ever any man’s case was singular, and not to be paralleled, surely Jonah’s was, and yet, to his great satisfaction, he finds even the man after God’s own heart making the same complaint of God’s waves and billows going over him that he has now occasion to make. When God performs the thing that is appointed for us we shall find that many such things are with him, that even our path of trouble is no untrodden path, and that God deals with us no otherwise than as he uses to deal with those that love his name. And therefore for our assistance in our addresses to God, when we are in trouble, it is good to make use of the complaints and prayers which the saints that have been before us made use of in the like case. See how good it is to be ready in the scriptures; Jonah, when he could make no use of his Bible, by the help of his memory furnished himself from the scripture with a very proper representation of his case: All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. To the same purport, v. 5, The waters compassed me about even to the soul; they threatened his life, which was hereby brought into imminent danger; or they made an impression upon his spirit; he saw them to be tokens of God’s displeasure, and in them the terrors of the Almighty set themselves in array against him; this reached to his soul, and put that into confusion. And this also is borrowed from David’s complaint, Ps. lxix. 1. The waters have come in unto my soul. When without are fightings it is no marvel that within are fears. Jonah, in the fish’s belly, finds the depths enclosing him round about, so that if he would get out of his prison, yet he must unavoidably perish in the waters. He feels the sea-weed (which the fish sucked in with the water) wrapped about his head, so that he has no way left him to help himself, nor hope that any one else can help him. Thus are the people of God sometimes perplexed and entangled, that they may learn not to trust in themselves, but in God that raises the dead,2Co 1:8; 2Co 1:9. (3.) How fast he was held (v. 6): He went down to the bottom of the mountains, to the rocks in the sea, upon which the hills and promontories by the seaside seem to be bottomed; he lay among them, nay, he lay under them; the earth with her bars was about him, so close about him that it was likely to be about him for ever. The earth was so shut and locked, so barred and bolted, against him, that he was quite cut off from any hope of ever returning to it. Thus helpless, thus hopeless, did Jonah’s case seem to be. Those whom God contends with the whole creation is at war with.
3. He reflects upon the very black and melancholy conclusion he was then ready to make concerning himself, and the relief he obtained against it, Jon 2:4; Jon 2:7. (1.) He began to sink into despair, and to give up himself for gone and undone to all intents and purposes. When the waters compassed him about even to the soul no marvel that his soul fainted within him, fainted away, so that he had not any comfortable enjoyments or expectations; his spirits quite failed, and he looked upon himself as a dead man. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, and the apprehension of that was the thing that made his spirit faint within him. He thought God had quite forsaken him, would never return in mercy to him, nor show him any token for good again. He had no example before him of any that were brought alive out of a fish’s belly; if he thought of Job upon the dunghill, Joseph in the pit, David in the cave, yet these did not come up to his case. Nor was there any visible way of escape open for him but by miracle; and what reason had he to expect that a miracle of mercy should be wrought for him who was now made a monument of justice? How own conscience told him that he had wickedly fled from the presence of the Lord, and therefore he might justly cast him away from his presence, and, in token of that, take away his Holy Spirit from him, never to visit him more. What hopes could he have of deliverance out of a trouble which his own ways and doings had procured to himself? Observe, When Jonah would say the worst he could of his case he says this, I am cast out of thy sight; those, and those only, are miserable, whom God has cast out of his sight, whom he will no longer own and favour. What is the misery of the damned in hell but this, that they are cast out of God’s sight? For what is the happiness of heaven but the vision and fruition of God? Sometimes the condition of God’s people may be such in this world that they may think themselves quite excluded from God’s presence, so as no more to see him, or to be regarded by him. Jacob and Israel said, My way is hidden from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God, Isa. xl. 27. Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, my God has forgotten me, Isa. xlix. 14. But it is only the surmise of unbelief, for God has not cast away his people whom he has chosen. (2.) Yet he recovered himself from sinking into despair, with some comfortable prospects of deliverance. Faith corrected and controlled the surmises of fear and distrust. Here was a fierce struggle between sense and faith, but faith had the last word and came off a conqueror. In trying times, the issue will be good at last, providing our faith do not fail; it was therefore the continuance of that in its vigour that Christ secured to Peter. I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, Luke xxii. 32. David would have fainted if he had not believed, Ps. xxvii. 13. Jonah’s faith said, Yet I will look again towards thy holy temple. Thus, though he was perplexed, yet not in despair; in the depth of the sea he had this hope in him, as an anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast. That which he supports himself with the hope of is that he shall yet look again towards God’s holy temple. [1.] That he shall live; he shall look again heaven-ward, shall again see the light of the sun, though now he seems to be cast into utter darkness. Thus against hope he believed in hope. [2.] That he shall live, and praise God; and a good man does not desire to live for any other purpose, Ps. cxix. 175. That he shall enjoy communion with God again in holy ordinances, shall look towards, and go up to, the holy temple, there to enquire, there to behold the beauty of the Lord. When Hezekiah desired that he might be assured of his recovery, he asked, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord? (Isa. xxxviii. 22), as if that were the only thing for the sake of which he wished for health; so Jonah here hopes he shall look again towards the temple; that way he had looked many a time with pleasure, rejoicing when he was called to go up to the house of the Lord; and the remembrance of it was his comfort, that, when he had opportunity, he was no stranger to the holy temple. But now he could not so much as look towards it; in the fish’s belly he could not tell which way it lay, but he hopes he shall be again able to look towards it, to look on it, to look into it. Observe, How modestly Jonah expresses himself; as one conscious to himself of guilt and unworthiness, he dares not speak of dwelling in God’s house, as David, knowing that he is no more worthy to be called a son, but he hopes that he may be admitted to look towards it. He calls it the holy temple, for the holiness of it was, in his eye, the beauty of it, and that for the sake of which he loved and looked towards it. The temple was a type of heaven; and he promises himself that though being now a captive exile, he should never be loosed, but die in the pit, yet he should look towards the heavenly temple, and be brought safely thither. Though he die in the fish’s belly, in the bottom of the sea, yet thence he hopes his soul shall be carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom. Or these words may be taken as Jonah’s vow when he was in distress, and he speaks (v. 9) of paying what he vowed; his vow is that if God deliver him he will praise him in the gates of the daughter of Zion,Psa 9:13; Psa 9:14. His sin for which God pursued him was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, the folly of which he is now convinced of, and promises not only that he will never again look towards Tarshish, but that he will again look towards the temple, and will go from strength to strength till he appear before God there. And thus we see how faith and hope were his relief in his desponding condition. To these he added prayer to God (v. 7): “When my soul fainted within me, then I remembered the Lord, I betook myself to that cordial.” He remembered what he is, how nigh to those that seem to be thrown at the greatest distance by trouble, how merciful to those that seem to have thrown themselves at a distance from him by sin. He remembered what he had done for him, what he had done for others, what he could do, what he had promised to do; and this kept him from fainting. Remembering God, he made his addresses to him: “My prayer came in unto thee; I sent it in, and expected to receive an answer to it.” Note, Our afflictions should put us in mind of God, and thereby put us upon prayer to him. When our souls faint we must remember God; and, when we remember God, we must send up a prayer to him, a pious ejaculation at least; when we think on his name we should call on his name.
4. He reflects upon the favour of God to him when thus in his distress he sought to God and trusted him. (1.) He graciously accepted his prayer, and gave admission and audience to it (v. 7): My prayer, being sent to him, came in unto him, even into his holy temple; it was heard in the highest heavens, though it was prayed in the lowest deeps. (2.) He wonderfully wrought deliverance for him, and, when he was in the depth of his misery, gave him the earnest and assurance of it (v. 6): Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God! Some think he said this when he was vomited up on dry ground; and then it is the language of thankfulness, and he sets it over-against the great difficulty of his case, that the power of God might be the more magnified in his deliverance: The earth with her bars was about me for ever, and yet thou hast brought up my life from the pit, from the bars of the pit. Or, rather, we may suppose it spoken while he was yet in the fish’s belly, and then it is the language of his faith: “Thou hast kept me alive here, in the pit, and therefore thou canst, thou wilt, bring up my life from the pit;” and he speaks of it with as much assurance as if it were done already: Thou has brought up my life. Though he has not an express promise of deliverance, he has an earnest of it, and on that he depends: he has life, and therefore believes his life shall be brought up from corruption; and this assurance he addresses to God: Thou has done it, O Lord my God! Thou art the Lord, and therefore canst do it for me, my God, and therefore wilt do it. Note, If the Lord be our God, he will be to us the resurrection and the life, will redeem our lives from destruction, from the power of the grave.
5. He gives warning to others, and instructs them to keep close to God (v. 8): Those that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, that is, (1.) Those that worship other gods, as the heathen mariners did, and call upon them, and expect relief and comfort from them, forsake their own mercy; they stand in their own light; they turn their back upon their own happiness, and go quite out of the way of all good. Note, Idols are lying vanities, and those that pay that homage to them which is due to God only act as contrarily to their interests as to their duty. Or, (2.) Those that follow their own inventions, as Jonah himself had done when he fled from the presence of the Lord to go to Tarshish, forsake their own mercy, that mercy which they might find in God, and might have such a covenant-right and title to it as to be able to call it their own, if they would but keep close to God and their duty. Those that think to go any where to be from under the eye of God, as Jonah did–that think to better themselves by deserting his service, as Jonah did–and that grudge his mercy to any poor sinners, and pretend to be wiser than he in judging who are fit to have prophets sent them and who are not, as Jonah did–they observe lying vanities, are led away by foolish groundless fancies, and, like him, they forsake their own mercy, and no good can come of it. Note, Those that forsake their own duty forsake their own mercy; those that run away from the work of their place and day run away from the comfort of it.
6. He solemnly binds his soul with a bond that, if God work deliverance for him, the God of his mercies shall be the God of his praises, v. 9. He covenants with God, (1.) That he will honour him in his devotions with the sacrifice of thanksgiving; and God has said, for the encouragement of those that do so, that those that offer praise glorify him. He will, according to the law of Moses, bring a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will offer that according to the law of nature, with the voice of thanksgiving. The love and thankfulness of the heart to God are the life and soul of this duty; without these neither the sacrifice of thanksgiving nor the voice of thanksgiving will avail any thing. But gratitude was then, by a divine appointment, to be expressed by a sacrifice, in which the offerer presented the beast slain to God, not in lieu of himself, but in token of himself; and it is now to be expressed by the voice of thanksgiving, the calves of our lips (Hos. xiv. 2), the fruit of our lips (Heb. xiii. 15), speaking forth, singing forth, the high praises of our God. This Jonah here promises, that with the sacrifice of thanksgiving he will mention the lovingkindness of the Lord, to his glory, and the encouragement of others. (2.) That he will honour him in his conversation by a punctual performance of his vows, which he made in the fish’s belly. Some think it was some work of charity that he vowed, or such a vow as Jacob’s was, Of all that thou hast given me I will give the tenth unto thee. More probably his vow was that if God would deliver him he would readily go wherever he should please to send him, though it were to Nineveh. When we smart for deserting our duty it is time to promise that we will adhere to it, and abound in it. Or, perhaps, the sacrifice of thanksgiving is the thing he vowed, and that is it which he will pay, as David, Ps. cxvi. 17-19.
7. He concludes with an acknowledgment of God as the Saviour of his people: Salvation is of the Lord; it belongs to the Lord, Ps. iii. 8. He is the God of salvation,Psa 68:19; Psa 68:20. He only can work salvation, and he can do it be the danger and distress ever so great; he has promised salvation to his people that trust in him. All the salvations of his church in general, and of particular saints, were wrought by him; he is the Saviour of those that believe, 1 Tim. iv. 10. Salvation is still of him, as it has always been; from him alone it is to be expected, and on him we are to depend for it. Jonah’s experience shall encourage others, in all ages, to trust in God as the God of their salvation; all that read this story shall say with assurance, say with admiration, that salvation is of the Lord, and is sure to all that belongs to him.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
JONAH – CHAPTER 2
JONAH’S CRYING FROM THE GREAT FISH
Verses 1-10:
Jonah’s Running To God
Verse 1 describes Jonah’s intercession to “his God.” his God still. though he had run in opposition to His call. Like the prodigal son, who resolved from the pig pen. “I will arise and go to my father,” and did, Luk 15:18; Jonah resolved in faith, from the belly of the great fish. at the depth of the sea, at the end of “three days and three nights.” (Jon 1:17) to pray to his God. as follows:
Verse 2 reports that affliction was the cause or occasion for his cry to the Lord. God’s chastisement upon him brought good results, Heb 12:9-11. He asserts that the Lord heard, heeded. or responded to his cries, as He had to David’s cries. Rom 10:13; 1Jn 1:8-9. See also Psa 120:1; Psa 130:1; Psa 142:1-2; Lam 3:55-56. From and out of the “belly of hell.” (Heb sheol) the unseen, darkened world, which the belly of the fish resembled, Jonah affirmed that the living God saw him. heard him. and delivered him in mercy, that he did not die, as expressed Psa 18:5; Psa 30:3. God hears the cry of the penitent Psa 51:17
Verse 3 acknowledges that God did cast Jonah into the “eddying, the abyss, deep,” though he asked the marines to throw him overboard, when the lot had fallen on him, as the one whose wickedness had caused the terrible storm, Jon 1:15; Job 1:21; Job 2:10 recognize that the hand of God may be in calamities; It is also indicated that David recognized that the hand of God often came upon men in chastening for their sins, 2Sa 16:5-11. Jonah described his chastisement as being from God, as the floods, billows, and waves encompassed and surged over him, as also expressed Psa 24:2; Psa 42:7; See also Psa 73:14; Psa 118:18; 1Co 11:32.
Verse 4 recounts Jonah’s confession that he was “cast out of God’s sight,” out of God’s favor, or favorable regard. He had “fled from God’s presence,” from God’s fellowship and good will: God had not fled from him, Jon 1:3; Psa 31:22; Isa 59:1-2. Jonah resolved in faith to look again to God, with forgiven sins and a clean heart, 2Ch 6:22-23.
Verse 5 gives a gripping physical description of Jonah’s environment while in the whale’s belly. There, or while sinking, before being swallowed by the great fish, waters almost strangled him of physical life. Then seaweeds seem to have wrapped around his throat, choking life from him, little by little, as he despaired consciously, yet surviving in the belly of the whale, Psa 31:23. It was a severe motivation for a back-slidden prophet to cry unto the Lord, and he did, v. 2; Psa 18:5; Psa 69:1; Lam 3:54.
Verse 6 further describes the depth of the sea to. which Jonah descended, called mountains, the very terminating depths to which the sea monster carried Jonah; but Nineveh wasn’t there! The sea depth is the foundation of the hills, of the world, as far as physical land or sea creature can go, Psa 18:7; Psa 18:15. The bars of the earth’s foundation, jetting submarine rocks, like prison bars, held Jonah a temporary captive, as the great sea creature tried to hide beneath them, with a sick preacher in his belly, and perhaps as sick a whale–sick of each other. Jonah was there “forever,” so far as his own ability of escape was concerned; For it was not within him to deliver his own soul, Deu 3:5; Job 38:10; Jer 10:23. Then, without hope, within his own strength, Jonah praises God for delivering him from corruption, putrefaction, or death, as also described, Isa 38:17; Rom 8:11; Isa 44:22; Job 17:4.
Verse 7 verifies that Jonah remembered the Lord when his “soul fainted in him,” when he despaired of life. His conscience, the monitor of the human soul, the computerized depository of every human thought, was awakened by the witnessing spirit of God, even in his dying hour, to call him to repentance and further witnessing for God, much as God called Hezekiah in his affliction, Rom 8:16; Rom 8:26; 2Ki 20:1-11; Psa 42:6; Psa 73:26. This indicates the triumph of the spirit of the flesh and faith over mere sense, Psa 42:6; Psa 73:26. Jonah remembered the Lord, from the belly of the fish, in a way he did not when running from the Divine call to preach to Nineveh, Jon 1:2-3. He also now affirms that God heard and answered him from the holy temple, the holy place in Jerusalem, v. 4.
Verse 8 warns that those who observe “lying vanities,” or reverence and regard idols that are lifeless and powerless to save, forsake or desert their own grounds of mercy, Psa 31:6; Psa 59:17; Psa 144:2. He found no mercy from the prayers of the heathen mariners to their gods, Jon 1:5. To worship other gods, or to disobey the true God, is to deprive one’s self of happiness and usefulness, Jer 2:13; Jer 17:13.
Verse 9 pledges sacrifice to God, with thanksgiving, for his assurance of deliverance from his affliction in the belly of the whale, Psa 50:14; Psa 116:17-18; Hos 14:2; Heb 13:15. It appears that this was even begun from the belly of the great fish, and from Jonah’s broken and contrite heart, as if deliverance had already come. He now vows to obey God where he had not before, 2Ch 20:21; Psa 119:67. Mighty salvation is here vowed to be wholly from the Lord, Mat 1:21; Act 4:12; Rom 1:16; Rom 10:13.
Verse 10 affirms two things: 1) First, God spoke to the great fish He had prepared as an afflicter and submarine excursion bearer for Jonah for a period of three days and three nights, Jon 1:17; Jonah 2) Second, the great fish obeyed the voice of his creator and vomited (regurgitated) Jonah upon the dry land, perhaps in Palestine, or near the mouth of the Tigris river, below Nineveh, in the upper Persian Gulf. Of all God’s creatures it appears that man is most prone to disobey Him, Mat 8:9; Act 12:6-9. From Gen 5:24 to this event God manifest Himself by miracles. It foretells a greater hour of resurrection, Isa 26:19; 1Co 15:54-58.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
When Jonah says that he prayed from the bowels of the fish, he shows first with what courage of mind he was endued. He had then put on a new heart; for when he was at liberty he thought that he could in a manner escape from God, he became a fugitive from the Lord: but now while inclosed within narrow bounds, he begins to pray, and of his own accord sets himself in God’s presence.
This is a change worthy of being noticed: and hence we may learn how much it profits us to be drawn back often as it were by cords, or to be held tied up with fetters because when we are free we go astray here and there beyond all limits. Jonah, when he was at liberty, became, as we have seen, wanton; but now finding himself restrained by the mighty hand of God, he receives a new mind, and prays from the bowels of the fish (36). But how was it that he directed his petitions then to God, by whose hand he saw that he was so heavily pressed? For God most rigidly handled him; Jonah was in a manner doomed to eternal ruin; the bowels of the fish, as we shall hereafter see, were indeed to him as it were hell or the grave. But in this state of despair Jonah even gathered courage, and was able to retake himself directly to God. It was a wonderful and almost incredible example of faith. Let us then learn to weigh well what is here said; for when the Lord heavily afflicts us, it is then a legitimate and seasonable time for prayer. But we know that the greater part despond, and do not usually offer their prayers freely to God, except their minds be in a calm state; and yet God then especially invites us to himself when we are reduced to extremities. Let this, then, which Jonah declares of himself, come to our minds, — that he cried to God from hell itself: and, at the same time, he assures us that his prayer proceeded from true faith; for he does not simply say that he prayed to Jehovah, but he adds that he was his God; and he speaks with a serious and deeply-reflective mind. Though Jonah then was not only like one dead, but also on the confines of perdition, he yet believed that God would be merciful if he fled to him. We hence see that Jonah prayed not at random, as hypocrites are wont to take God’s name in their mouths when they are in distress, but he prayed in earnest; for he was persuaded that God would be propitious to him.
But we must remember that his prayer was not composed in the words which are here related; but Jonah, while in the bowels of the fish, dwelt on these thoughts in his mind. Hence he relates in this song how he thought and felt; and we shall see that he was then in a state of distraction, as our minds must necessarily be tossed here and there by temptations. For the servants of God do not gain the victory without great struggle. We must fight, and indeed strenuously, that we may conquer. Jonah then in this song shows that he was agitated with great trouble and hard contests: yet this conviction was firmly fixed in his heart, — that God was to be sought, and would not be sought in vain, as he is ever ready to bring help to his people whenever they cry to him.
(36) “No place amiss for prayer, I will that men pray everywhere; where ever God casts us we may find a way open heavenwards, if it be now our own fault. Jonah was now in the bottom of the sea, yet out of the depths he cries to God.” — M. Henry. “It may be asked, How could Jonah either pray or breathe in the stomach of a fish? Very easily, if God so willed it. And let the reader keep this constantly in view: the whole is a miracle, from Jonah’s being swallowed by the fish, till he was cast ashore by the same animal. It was God that had prepared the great fish; it was the Lord that spake to the fish, and caused it to vomit Jonah on the dry land. All is miracle.” — Adam Clarke. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
JONAH OVERBOARD
Jon 1:17 to Jon 2:9
WE come now to a further study of the Book of Jonah. You will remember our last discourse ended with the sixteenth verse, with Jonah overboard, and the sailors offering sacrifice unto the Lord and making vows. That seemed indeed to be the end of Jonah; but one of my professors used to say, A man is immortal until his ministry is finished.
Whether that is always true, it will appear to have been the fact of this Prophets existence, for although he is thrown into the midst of the sea and is swallowed up by a great fish, his history goes right on, and the belly of that fish, instead of being his grave, was converted into a closet of prayer.
This is one of the points at which the critics stumble. They cannot quite believe that anything so improbable ever actually took place. If the text of this night could be cut out of the Book of Jonah, the modern Jehoiakims would be made more happy thereby, and would the more readily consent to the inspiration of the Minor Prophets. But this is the very part of the Book which cannot be set aside. Upon these ten verses Jesus Christ has set the seal of His own acceptance. To cut them out is to call in question either His knowledge or His honesty. Personally I am not disposed to do either! To me this record contains no serious barrier to belief. My reason is no more offended by it than by many another historical incident of the Word of the Lord. I do not see one feature in the whole narrative which ought to strain the faith of the man who admits that there is a God in Heaven. The record is,
The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fishs belly.
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and Thou hearest my voice.
For Thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about; all Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me,
Then I said, I am cast out of Thy sight; yet I will look again toward Thy holy Temple,
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head,
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast Thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God,
When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto Thee, into Thine holy Temple,
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy,
But I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.
Three or four suggestions for our consideration! In the first place Jonahs experience involves both
THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL
Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonahnatural!
There is not the least occasion to suppose a miracle here. The Mediterranean Sea has in it many a white shark which could, and if he had a chance, would swallow a man. The scholarly Pusey in his Notes on the Book of Jonah cites from history a number of instances in confirmation of the naturalness of this episode. There are a half dozen instances on record where these sharks, which sometimes attain the enormous weight of 10,000 pounds, with an extreme length of thirty to forty feet, have swallowed men. He also cites well authenticated instances where this same specie of fish has been found, one with a deer, absolutely whole, in the stomach; one with a large sea-calf, undigested; and one which had a full grown horse. Mueller still further confirms the naturalness of this incident by saying, In 1758, in stormy weather, a sailor fell overboard from a frigate in the Mediterranean. A shark was close by, which, as he was swimming and crying for help, took him in his wide throat so that he forthwith disappeared. The captain had a gun which stood on the deck discharged at the fish, striking it and sickening it so that it cast out the sailor, who was taken up alive. The wounded fish was harpooned and presented to the man who, by Gods providence, had been so wonderfully preserved. The sailor went around Europe exhibiting it at Farnconia, Erlangen, Numberg, and other places. It was twenty feet long and weighed 3,924 pounds when dried.
Yet people go up and down the country saying, A whale cannot swallow a man. Well, the record says, A great fish. Naturalists know that the larger of these white sharks could, at one gulp, swallow a descent sized family without effecting a sore throat. Natural!
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nightssupernatural!
This might have been accomplished by natural means so far at least as the preservation of life is concerned. It is claimed that the fakirs of India have a custom of sealing up the lungs by turning the human tongue back into the epiglotis, thereby rendering the victim insensible, and leaving him in a comatose condition for weeks, out of which he is aroused at their pleasure. It is a fact of natural history that life can be sustained for sometime in the belly of a fish, possibly because the gastric juices hermetically seal the body swallowed.
But we are not so anxious to escape the miracle as to insist upon this as an explanation of Jonahs remaining alive. In fact, we do not believe it is the explanation. The admission of a miracle from God in preserving his life seems the more rational. It is one of the amazing features of modern thinking that so many men seem determined to deny the supernatural. Anything, any explanation, is regarded by a certain class of so-called thinkers as more satisfactory than an assent to the intervention of divinity. You have heard the story perhaps of the colored man who had caught the spirit of modem criticism and was disposed to remove the miraculous element from the Word. He was preaching about the Israelites passage over the Red Sea, and the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host in the waters thereof. Looking at his congregation with a learned air, he said, My bredern; der aint no use sposin a miracle heah. Dis can all be splained on natural grounds. You see, it was like dis: It was about de middle ob de winter when dese Israelites was agittin out ob Egypt, and when dey come down to de sea, dey found it well froze ober. And dey, bein afoot, all walked across on de ice. But when Pharo, with his great heaby charots tried to foiler em, de ice wouldnt hold em up, and so he and all his army broke thro, and got drowned.
An old deacon of this colored church, not quite satisfied with this explanation on natural grounds, rose and said, Hold on, Elder; jes a minute dere! I got one question I would jes like to ask ye! Ise been studin Gogaphy, an de Gogaphy do say dat am de place ob de tropics, whar it dont freeze ober; now will you splain dat?
To which the colored parson replied, Yes, sah; dats all easy enough. You see dis all happened before dey made any gogaphies, and dere warnt no tropics den.
We smile at the colored mans irrational method of avoiding the miracle, but we are not able to see wherein it is one whit less rational than the present-day critics endeavors to do the same. The man who has a mind so constituted that it can accept the Gospel record of Lazarus resurrection, a mind so constituted that it can believe Daniels report of how the three Hebrew children passed, unhurt, through the fiery furnace, and yet denies the possibility of Jonahs Divine preservation in the fishs belly at the bottom of the deep is not saved from the charge of faulty reasoning because his skin is white and he speaks the lingo of the schools. The only man who need have trouble with this incident in the Book of Jonah is the man who is unwilling to admit the claim of Scripture, With God all things are possible.
This supernatural experience was significantly symbolical. It had another meaning than that which then appeared. If as a judgment it looked backward to Jonahs sin, as a symbol it looked forward to Christs burial and resurrection. Doubtless that was the very reason God had prepared the fish to swallow Jonah up. He could as easily have gotten him ashore by means of a floating spar. He could have sent an angel to keep him afloat until another vessel came that way. He could have gone to him Himself, walking on the water, as He went to Peter and other disciples in an awful night of similar storm. But He let him go into the deep, and be swallowed up by this fish that He might prefigure His own descent into the earth and His escape therefrom by His resurrection. One day certain of the Scribes and of the Pharisees said to Jesus,
Master, we would see a sign from Thee.
But He answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the Prophet Jonas:
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whales belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
When Paul came to write to the Corinthians, touching the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he spoke of how Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. A disposition, therefore, to take Jonah from the sacred cannon, the present-day endeavor to cast discredit upon the record of the Prophets experience in the deep, is the disposition and endeavor which, if it were successful, would leave the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be followed by an interrogation point. Then, as the Apostle Paul says, If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
God forbid! If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
In the second place Jonahs experience as here narrated illustrates
GODS PURPOSE IN JUDGMENT
If He follows with affliction it is for our reform.
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fishs belly,
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me.
Of course He did. Long before this time David had been subjected to severe judgment, a judgment sent upon him for his good, and he wrote what Jonah is now quoting, In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me.
The devil is responsible for our sufferings. He it is who led Jonah away from his Lord and landed him in the deep; but God in His great mercy makes even the plans of this arch enemy to praise Him, and the very troubles into which Jonahs sin led were overruled for his good, in that he saw how serious it was to run away from the Heavenly Father. It was the devil who put it into the heart of the Prodigal son to say, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. It was the devil who deceived him into supposing that riotous living would lead to pleasure; and it was the devil who paid him off with pigs for his associates, and the sweet honeysuckle for his sustenance.
But those very hardships proved to be a power in the hand of God in impressing the awfulness of his iniquity, the degradation of his station, and bringing him to a keen appreciation of the fellowships and the food in his fathers house.
That is always the purpose of judgment so far as God has anything to do with it. His speech for the present-day sinner is exactly what it was three thousand years ago, when by Ezekiels lips He said, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O House of Israel?
Jonah accepted his affliction with wisdom. There are two ways to meet judgment. The one is to declare it unjust and plunge into deeper sin; the other is to see as Jonah saw, that it is sent for our good, and turn back to God. Although he believed that God had cast him into the sea, so that the floods had compassed him about, and billows and waves had gone over him, still he said, I will look again toward Thy holy Temple. When the waters came even to the soul, when the depth closed him round about, when the weeds wrapped his headsymbol of the graveclotheswhen he went down to the bottoms of the mountains, when the earth with Her bars were about him forever, when his soul fainted within him, he remembered the Lord, and his prayer made in the deep was heard in the holy Temple. That is the way to meet affliction.
The prodigal son gives us an example of what to do in the darkest hour. When the waves and billows of trouble were rolling over him he said, I will arise and go to my father. Blessed way to meet them! The man who so treats affliction will convert it into a friend. Manasseh at Jerusalem had forgotten God and gone after sin, but when he found himself in prison in Babylon, he turned again to God and was blessed in the turning.
Charles Spurgeon says: Troubles are called weights, and a weight, you know, generally cloggeth and keepeth down to the earth; but by the use of the laws of mechanics you can make a weight lift you up. And the man who knows how to take hold on God in the time of trouble will find his affliction a weight that can be made to lift him into the very presence of the Infinite One.
Jonah did his utmost, also, toward reparation.
He offered the [sacrifice] of thanksgiving, and pledged the fulfillment of his vows. That was all he could do under the circumstances. It was his besthis utmost. Had he been on land it would have been his business to have gone to Nineveh, and only such an action would have been acceptable; but, situated as he was he could only resolve, and God accepted the resolution as sufficient. It is high time that men who have sinned against God learn that in turning back to Him again, so far as lieth in them they must put the past right. There are some acts that one cannot undo, and for such he must plead forgiveness. There are others that he can reverse, and in these, reparation alone will suffice.
A friend of mine about to die could gain no peace of mind whatever until she had sent for her stepmother and asked forgiveness for some things she had said to her.
Dr. Louis Albert Banks tells the story of a lawyer of distinguished ability who went into the Music Hall of Cleveland, Ohio, to attend the Mills meeting there. As he listened to the truth, he was convicted of sin, and because he had been pushing a suit and had already won it in the lower courts, knowing that the principal witness on the winning side had falsified for a definite sum of money, the attorney had been promised a fee of $12,000 on condition that the suit was won in the highest court. He went out from this meeting to face the crisis of his life$12,000 on the one side for pleading a false issue, and defrauding the defendant. On the other side a clean conscience, if he restored the payments already received, and refused to further prosecute the suit. All night he wrestled like Jacob of old, but the next day he settled the question by determining to retore the ill-gotten money, and resign his office as attorney in the case. Then it was he realized Gods favor in forgiveness; then it was he said to the friends to whom he communicated it all, Now let me go home to my wife. She will be so happy, for she is a Christian woman, and godliness means more to her than gain.
Zacchaeus gave an excellent evidence of his conversion when he said, If I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.
But the concluding sentence of this study contains a most important suggestion, namely:
SALVATION IS OF THE LORD
Jonah had lost confidence in self.
There had been a time when Jonah had felt some self-sufficiency, but a fishs belly is a poor place to exercise any such sentiment. When Peter attempted to walk on the sea, and found himself suddenly sinking, his self-confident spirit departed and he cried, Lord, save me. But even his predicament had more of promise in it than Jonahs position presents. He has gone down already. He is at the bottom of the deep. Except God interfere, he is dead. Except God save, there is absolutely no hope. Where could you find a better figure of the condition of the natural man who is dead in trespasses and sins, and who can do nothing whatever to help or save himself?
Charles Spurgeon, in one of his sermons says:
Last week I stood beside that window of Carisbrooke Castle, out of which King Charles, of unhappy and unrighteous memory, attempted to escape. I read in the guidebook that everything was provided for his escape. His fellows had means at the bottom of the wall to enable him to fly across the country, and on the coast they had their boats lying ready to take him to another land. In fact, everything was ready for his escape, but here was the important circumstance. His friends had done all they could, he was to do the rest. But that doing the rest was just the point and brunt of the battle. It was to get out of the window, out of which he was not able to escape by any means; so that all his friends did for him went for nothing so far as he was concerned.
So with the sinner, if God had provided every means of escape and only required him to get out of his dungeon, he would have remained there to all eternity. Why, is not the sinner by nature dead in sin? The Spirit must quicken him. He is bound hand and foot, and fettered by transgression. The Spirit must cut his bands and then he will leap to liberty.
Spurgeon is right! Salvation is not of our effort. Salvation is of the Lord, and to see that truth as Jonah saw it is the first essential. So long as a man is expecting to be saved in some other way he remains in his sins, for There is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Jonah had ceased from trusting to circumstances.
There had been a time when he was in health and his feet on solid ground, and he felt he could do as he pleased, and somehow or other make it right with God at the end. But all of that is past now, for at the bottom of the deep a man does not so reason. It is only when he is in health and prosperity! After he is brought down low, after he is utterly buried, as it were, he wonders how he could ever so blunder as to imagine that sin could escape judgment, or that circumstances could be depended upon to effect a favorable issue of life.
I appeal to those of you who are in health tonight, to those of you who are in prosperity, to make your calling and election sure. Circumstances now are favorable to your doing so, but who can tell what a day may bring forth. Tomorrow the end may be on, and it may be associated with such untold suffering, such indescribable agony of body or mind, or both that it would be a poor time to settle the great questions of the soul. A dying man may pray but all preparation for a deathbed repentance seems unwarranted when we remember Jesus words, Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in Heaven.
Jonah knew that God, and God alone, could save.
Our text is authority for the claim, Salvation is of the Lord.
The sea captain had seen the same truth in the time of storm. When the vessel rocked to the winds and was ready to go down, the shipmaster came to Jonah and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.
But there is something better than either the conduct of the shipmaster or that of Jonah, and that is to call upon God before the storm comes. I plead with those of you who have not made your peace with Him, to make it now, Behold, now is the accepted time. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near.
Dr. Talmage tells the story about the ship Rebecca Goddard, which comes into our ports in midwinter. She was all scoured up and ready for the landing, when, coming almost into the harbor, an ice floe came and pushed the ship out to sea, and it drifted about two or three days. There was great suffering and one was frozen dead at his post. They had been almost in the harbor, but they did not go altogether in. Many of you will either come in now, or else the ice floe of indifference will push you out and out, upon the seas of irreligion, until at last you will be going down without hope and without God. God help you, now, to come!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES. Prayed] Really praised. His] not only to Jehovah as the sailors did. He shows his faith by adoring Him as his God [Burk], The structure of this hymn, composed like many Psalms, and filled with allusions to them, falls into three strophes (Jon. 2:4; Jon. 2:6; Jon. 2:8): each of which rises from distress to deliverance and hope [cf. Lange].
Jon. 2:2. Cried] More definite than Psa. 16:1; Psa. 120:1. Belly] Womb of Sheol, i.e. the peril of death; snares of death (Psa. 18:5); deliverance out of Sheol (Psa. 30:3).
Jon. 2:3. Deep] abyss (Psa. 42:7). Midst] Heart of the seas, in the fathomless depth, away from the shores. Floods] The stream or current of the sea which sweeps along, as Psa. 24:2. Waves] from Strbr, to break; thy breakers and thy billows roll. Thy billows, because he felt in his conscience that the sea with its waves and billows was the serv. ant of God and of his wrath to punish sin [Luther].
Jon. 2:4. Said] in my heart, i.e. I thought that I was banished from thy protection and care (Psa. 31:23). Look] Lit. look intently, an assurance that he will yet appear in the temple to praise God (Psa. 5:8).
PRAYER AND DISTRESS.Jon. 2:1-4
Jonah now describes his mournful and dismal condition. Let us notice his sorrows, prayers, and hopes.
I. The great distress. I cried by reason of my distress.
1. Distress in the deep. Pharaohs army sank into the deep; and the sea is often as the grave. (a) Into the heart of the seas, far away from the shores, and down into the fathomless bottom. (b) Encircled by the floods. The floods have compassed me (cf. Psa. 46:3; Psa. 69:1-2; Psa. 88:6). (c) Swept by the billows. The broken surges and mountain-billows rolled over his head. Sin casts into darkness and dismal gulfs. The punishment of God is often intense, but love is seen in it all. Thy waves.
2. Distress in Sheol. From the belly of hell. His confinement was like the lower world, the region of ghosts. But no abyss of grief is beyond Divine help. God can keep alive and deliver from the pit. O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave, thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit.
3. Distress away from Gods presence. I am driven out of thy sight. This was the worst of all, yet only a just retribution for one who had fled from the presence of God. Jonahs sin, and the Divine judgment upon it, pierced his soul, darkened his prospect, and led him to despair. Hope of deliverance for body or soul seemed no longer cherished. But mans extremity is Gods opportunity. Bradford said the prison can be made the palace of the Great King. Seek to be near God, and feel distressed at distance which is (a) a penal consequence of sin; (b) a sad complaint with Gods people. Why standest thou afar off, O Lord?
II. The earnest prayer. Sorrows within, around, and above him, led him to cry out to God. The Church is indebted for its best men, and the world for its best sayings, to affliction. Many of Gods children have first prayed by reason of distress. Backsliders have been reclaimed, and prayers quickened into cries, by poignant grief.
1. Its intensity. I cried. Prosperity tends to negligence, formality, and deadness in prayer; distress makes it earnest and ardent (Jas. 5:13). Many, silent with their lips, have cried aloud with their heart, says Augustine. Many, noisy with their lips, could, with heart turned away, obtain nothing.
2. Its directness. Unto Jehovah, and Jehovah as his God (Jon. 2:1). Away from himself, and up to the throne of the Eternal, were his confidence and desire fixed. He was yet the servant of God, linked to him by past discipline and future hope. The covenant of God stands firm, and brighter than stars does it shine in the depths of sorrow. This God is our God.
3. Its place. The fishs belly. What an oratory! No place is amiss for prayer. The wilderness and the den, the prison, and the belly of hell. The voice of a child is heard wherever he cries in distress. Call upon me in the day of trouble, &c.
3. Its language. Most of its expressions are found in the Psalms. It is well to be conversant with Scripture, which gives consolation and aids devotion in all circumstances. Our prayers would be more refreshing to others, and more acceptable to God, if offered in words of inspiration.
4. Its speed. Thou heardest my voice. God, who cast him down, lifted him up; inspired his heart, and answered his petition. God had called upon Jonah, and often calls to us, without response. But when we turn in penitence and prayer to him he listens. There is a voice in faith and prayer which God quickly hears, for he delighteth in mercy.
Prayer ardent opens heaven [Young].
REVIVED FEELING.Jon. 2:4
By degrees Jonah gained strength to hope and pray. His despondency was only momentary. A ray of light pierced the darkness, and blessed his heart. I will look again, &c. Learn
I. That a servant of God may be overcome with fear. Not only assaulted with temptation and despair, but overcome by them for a time. Men change in feeling, rejoice to-day, and doubt to-morrow. Light and darkness alternate in the spiritual as in the natural world. But resist temptation, seek to gather strength, and look again. Cast not away, therefore, your confidence.
II. That the weakest act of faith may be mighty in overcoming fear. Faith in God will sustain us in extremest sufferings, and find a way in greatest impediments. To remain in unbelief, rest under the waves, or trust in anything but the promise, is folly. Jonah looked not at probabilities, at things as they really were, but with fixed eye toward the holy temple. His faith pierced the darkness, and pictured the mercy-seat and the Divine presence. A true retrospect of Gods house will tinge the present with hope, and dissipate the clouds that darken our horizon. All things are possible to him that believeth.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Jon. 2:2. The affliction.
1. Its acknowledged source. Neither himself nor the mariners were considered. All comes from God. Thou hast cast me into the deep. Thy waves, &c. It was not you, but God, that sent me here.
2. Its benevolent design. Design there was, and that design not malevolent. God is love. He does not afflict willingly, but for our future good and his glory.
Now let us thank the Eternal Power, convinced
That heaven but tries our virtue by affliction:
That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour,
Serves but to brighten all our future days.
Jon. 2:2-3. The right use of the Psalter. Even holy men of God, who were partakers of the Holy Ghost, have not refused to appeal to, and to cite formally, the books of Scripture, which existed already in their time. A strong argument for the authority of the Holy Scriptures [Lange].
Depths.
1. Sorrow.
2. Despair.
3. Desertion.
One woe doth tread upon anothers heel,
So fast they follow [Shakespeare].
Thus woe succeeds woe, as wave a wave. [Herrick.]
Look again.
1. A determination to remember God in future.
2. An expression of encouragement derived from displays of Divine providence and mercy. God gave him no hope save that he preserved him alive. For he seemed to himself forsaken of God. Wonderful pattern of faith which gains strength even from Gods seeming desertion [Pusey].
Again, past experience in Gods house.
1. When improved, (a) A source of comfort in distress, (b) A ground of hope for future blessings.
2. When abused, (a) Taken an evidence of present grace. (b) Made an excuse for further effort. If you have not force enough to contemplate God in heaven, try again by fresh exercises of faith and prayer; you may be refreshed with a more excellent view and better hope than Moses had on Nebos summit. The hasty conclusion. Then I said, I am cast out. I. Its cause.
1. Consciousness of guilt.
2. Calamity interpreted as visitations of God. II. Its folly. God reproves, and often severely, but never casts away his children. When we speak in haste we do not consider. Our minds are then disturbed, and we distrust God. (Cf. David, 1Sa. 27:1; Psa. 21:2.) Hasty words, says one, are but for a moment on the tongue, but they often lie for years on the conscience. The mischief of hasty conclusions is great. Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off. I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
GODS MESSENGER RUNNING TO GODTHE PRAYER OF JONAH
TEXT: Jon. 2:1-6
1
Then Jonah prayed unto Jehovah his God out of the fishs belly.
2
And he said, I called by reason of mine affliction unto Jehovah, And he answered me; Out of the belly of Sheol cried I, And thou heardest my voice.
3
For thou didst cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas, And the flood was round about me; All thy waves and thy billows passed over me.
4
And I said, I am cast out from before thine eyes; Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
5
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul; The deep was round about me; The weeds were wrapped about my head.
6
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed upon me for ever; Yet hast thou brought up my life from the pit, O Jehovah my God.
QUERIES
a.
How could Jonah pray while in the belly of the fish?
b.
Where is Sheol?
c.
What does Jonah mean by the bottoms of the mountains?
PARAPHRASE
Then Jonah turned his heart and mind to the Lord his God and prayed from his heart in the belly of this great fish. He prayed, It was my affliction which caused me to call upon the Lord, and the Lord heard me! When I was in the embrace of death and the very grave itself I cried unto the Lord and You, O Lord, heard my plea. You cast me down into the very depths of the sea and I was surrounded by the waters. The raging waves and billows you sent to arrest me, Lord, passed over me. Then I realized that I had been banished from Your protecting love and care because of my sin; yet in faith I look forward to the hope that I would once again come into Your presence to worship You in Your holy temple. Yes, I was so sure that the sea was my grave that I despaired even in my soul. I sank beneath the waves and death was very near. The waters closed above me; the seaweed wrapped itself around my head. I sank to the very bottom of the sea where the foundations of the mountains are found. The way back to the earth was barred to me as a door of escape is bolted; yes, O Lord, My God, you rescued my life and brought me up from the very grave itself!
SUMMARY
Jonahs soul was sorrowful even unto death (cf. Mat. 26:38) and he despaired even of life itself (cf. 2Co. 1:8). He was so close to death that he considered himself actually dead. Yet the Lord delivered him back to life.
COMMENT
According to the destructive higher critics of the Old Testament this book we know as the book of Jonah was written by an unknown composer who took legends and mythological fairy-tales and formed it into the present book of Jonah. In the course of time this composition is supposed to have received certain changes, the most notable of which was the inclusion of the thanksgiving song (Jon. 2:3-10) with Jon. 2:2 as an introduction to this song. Those who believe that chapter 2 contains a psalm from a different source than the rest of the book of Jonah give the following arguments:
a.
In Jon. 2:1 it is said that Jonah prayed, but what actually follows is not a prayer but a psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance. And furthermore, they say, this psalm which suggests its connection with Jonahs experiences. One critic was sure that Jon. 2:5 excluded the idea that Jonah was in the fishs belly, because weeds do not grow in a whales belly.
b.
The critics say, lastly, that the text reads smoothly without this psalm, if Jon. 2:10 be placed immediately after Jon. 2:1, this proves it is not a part of the original.
Dr. Edward J. Young, in Introduction To The Old Testament, pp. 280282, gives a conclusive defense of the unity of the book of Jonah. We include here his defense of chapter 2:
a.
In the first place, if Jon. 2:2-9 be removed from the book of Jonah, the symmetry of the book is most certainly destroyed.
b.
There is no conflict between the statement that Jonah prayed, and a psalm of thanksgivingfor is not thanksgiving of the very essence of prayer??
c.
Of course weeds do not grow in whales bellies, but this is not a psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance from a whales belly, but of deliverance from drowning in the depths of the sea.
d.
The prayer does not take place before the deliverance when we realize Jonah was saved when he was swallowed by the great fish and that his prayer was made then.
e.
That there is nothing in the psalm which connects it with Jonahs experience is so absurd as to merit no answer!
There are some who explain the prayer as simply a fragmented collection of the book of Psalms interpolated here in Jonahs book by an unknown redactor (editor). Moeller makes the following comparisons:
Jonah 2
Psalm
Jon. 2:3 b
Psa. 18:7; Psa. 120:1
Jon. 2:4 b
Psa. 18:6; Psa. 30:4
Jon. 2:5
Psa. 42:8
Jon. 2:6
Psa. 31:23; Psa. 5:8
Jon. 2:7
Psa. 18:8; Psa. 69:2 f
Jon. 2:8
Psa. 18:17; Psa. 30:4; Psa. 103:4
Jon. 2:9
Psa. 142:4; Psa. 143:4; Psa. 18:7; Psa. 5:8
Jon. 2:10
Psa. 88:3; Psa. 31:7; Psa. 26:7; Psa. 50:14; Psa. 50:23; Psa. 42:5; Psa. 116:17
This is no evidence, whatsoever, for an unknown redactor interpolating excerpts from the book of Psalms into the book of Jonah. It is evidence that Jonah, the prophet of God, was a student of the Hebrew Scriptures and had written the word of God upon his heart and when in extreme circumstances was able to lift himself up by having hidden this Word of God in his heart.
Jon. 2:1-2 THEN JONAH PRAYED . . . I CALLED BY REASON OF MINE APPLICATION UNTO JEHOVAH . . . AND HE ANSWERED ME . . . It was because of his affliction that Jonah was led to cry unto God. This is the purpose of chastening. Our Heavenly Father knows that we have need of chastening and of endurance (cf. Heb. 10:32-39; Heb. 12:3-11). We should rejoice when it comes (cf. Jas. 1:2-4). It is a school wherein we are trained (cf. 2Co. 1:3-11). It is only when we see our own helplessness and hopelessness that we are able to turn to God (2Co. 1:8-9). It is when we are made weak that we become strong (cf. 2Co. 12:7-10). The salvation of Jonah was the affliction the Lord placed upon him.
Prayer is an act of worship which covers all the attitudes of the soul in its approach to God. Some think there are certain postures necessary for prayer but the Bible shows by example that men may pray in any posture; kneeling (1Ki. 8:54; Ezr. 9:5); standing (Neh. 9:5; Luk. 18:13); bowing down upon the earth with face between the knees (1Ki. 18:42); lying in a sick bed and turning the face to the wall (2Ki. 20:2); falling prostrate upon the ground (Mat. 26:39); walking along or standing in public (Joh. 11:41-42; Joh. 12:28-28). Prayer is more an attitude than it is a formula or a ritual. Jonah could easily have prayed in the belly of the great fish without even opening his mouth. We are to pray without ceasing (1Th. 5:17) and the only way this can be done is to be in an attitude of praise, thanksgiving, supplication and dependence upon God at all times whether, silent or aloud, whether lying down, sitting up or standing, wherever we may be.
Sheol is the Hebrew word usually translated in the Old Testament hell. It is also translated pit or grave. The context helps to determine the best translation. The etymology is uncertain. It may have been derived from a root word meaning a hollow place, Sheol means underworld, or nether-world, and is equivalent to Hades in the New Testament. In fact, the Septuagint, or Greek Old Testament, uses the word Hades in Jon. 2:2. Jonah cried out from the very grave!
Jon. 2:3-4 . . . THOU DIDST CAST ME INTO THE DEPTH . . . THE FLOOD WAS ROUND ABOUT ME . . . I AM CAST OUT FROM BEFORE THINE EYES; YET I WILL LOOK AGAIN TOWARD THY HOLY TEMPLE. Jonah was as good as dead! He had resigned himself to it! As far as he was concerned there was no possibility of saving himself. And this is exactly where God wanted him! One of the great paradoxes of God is that we must die before we can live (cf. Joh. 12:20-26).
Jonah had first to realize his estrangement from the Father before he could in all humility and dependent faith turn to the Father for help. Jonah, the Prodigal, recognized this when he said, I am cast out from before thine eyes. But then Jonahs heart turned to Gods Word for its great and exceeding precious promises and in faith cried out that he would, God willing, be restored to the presence of Jehovah.
Jon. 2:5-6 THE WATERS COMPASSED ME ABOUT, EVEN TO THE SOUL . . . THE WEEDS WERE WRAPPED ABOUT MY HEAD . . . BOTTOMS OF THE MOUNTAINS . . . EARTH . . . BARS CLOSED UPON ME . . . YET HAST THOU BROUGHT UP MY LIFE FROM THE PIT . . . The weeds are probably the reeds and grass, the vegetation on the very bottom of the sea. Jonah was down as far as one could go! The word translated bottoms is from a verb which means to cut off, or to shear. It signifies the extreme end. Jonah was at the very bottom of the sea where it seems as if the very foundations of the earth are to be found. That he lived through this experience is indeed a miracle when one considers the short time it takes to drown and the death that can come from extreme pressures of the oceanic depths. The bars of the earth had clanged into place and he would not be permitted access there now. Jonah thought of the earth as a walled city with its gate shut and locked with a bar, preventing him from ever again entering. From all outward appearances, and as far as he could determine, he would never again see the earth.
Yet the Lord did bring up his life. He was resurrected from the gravesaved out from death, Thus he became a sign to his generation and a type of the Messiah Who was a Sign to His generation and all generations. We shall deal more with Jonahs typical relation to the Messiah later.
QUIZ
1.
Show that chapter 2 is not an interpolation by an unknown editor.
2.
Why is it possible that Jonahs words may be quotations of the Psalms?
3.
What purpose does affliction serve?
4.
What is Sheol?
5.
How extreme was the condition of Jonah in the sea?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
II.
JONAHS PRAYER AND DELIVERANCE.
(1) Then Jonah prayed.This introduction, to what is in reality a psalm of thanksgiving, has its parallel in Hannahs song (1Sa. 2:1-10), which is introduced in the same way. Comp. also the Note appended by the psalm collector at the end of Psalms 72, The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
THE PRAYER OF JONAH, Jon 2:1-9.
Jon 2:1 is the introduction, indicating the circumstances under which the prayer was offered. The prayer itself opens with an acknowledgment that Jehovah heard the petition offered in distress and wrought the petitioner’s deliverance (2). After repeated figurative descriptions of the danger and distress into which he had been plunged, he glorifies Jehovah for the salvation wrought (3-6). The supplicant closes with the assurance that he will not forget the divine mercy but will forever praise Jehovah, the author of all deliverance (7-9). The prayer consists for the most part of reminiscences from the Psalms (see Introduction, p. 335).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1. Prayed The verb is used here in the wider sense of any turning of the heart toward God, whether in supplication or praise (1Sa 2:1). At what period of his imprisonment Jonah is thought to have offered the prayer is not stated; Jon 2:10, would seem to imply, however, that it was toward the close.
His God Before (Jon 1:3), he tried to escape from Jehovah’s presence; now, in danger of his life, he is driven to appeal to him as his God.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
JONAH’S WONDERFUL DELIVERANCE, Jon 1:17 to Jon 2:10 (in Hebrew, Jon 2:1-10).
The deliverance of Jonah is recorded in Jon 1:17; Jon 2:10. Jehovah prepared a great fish, which swallowed Jonah. After he had been in the fish’s belly for three days and three nights he was, at the divine command, cast upon the dry land. Jon 2:1-9, contains a poem, a prayer which Jonah is said to have offered from the belly of the fish. If so, one would expect it to be a petition; in reality it is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving for the deliverance already wrought. This peculiarity has been explained either by assuming that it was spoken by Jonah after he was vomited out by the fish, and that its proper place is after Jon 2:10; or that it is a song of thanksgiving uttered in the fish’s belly when the prophet discovered that he was preserved alive. This preservation he regarded as a pledge of final deliverance, and for it he praised God in anticipation (see Introduction, p. 337).
Prepared The verb does not mean “created,” as if Jehovah had created the fish for this special purpose, but “ordain” or “appoint.” Jehovah appointed some great fish, already in existence, to swallow Jonah. “By God’s immediate direction it was so arranged that the very moment when Jonah was thrown into the waves the ‘great fish’ was on the spot to receive him.”
Great fish This is the literal translation. Nothing is said of the species of the fish; but for a long time the popular idea has been that it was a whale. Against this identification it has been urged that the whale is not found in the Mediterranean, and that he has such a small gullet that he could not swallow a man. However, of the existence of whales in the Mediterranean there can be no doubt, and, while the gullet of the common whale is not large enough to let a man pass through whole, there are whales that would not have this difficulty; and of these the great spermaceti whale is said to wander sometimes into the Mediterranean. Most commentators, however, who interpret the narrative literally, identify the “great fish” with the shark. The latter is not uncommon in the Mediterranean. G.E. Post says that he saw one at Beirut twenty feet long; and this fish would have no difficulty in swallowing a man. To illustrate the capacity of the shark it has become customary to call attention to the following incident: “In 1758 in stormy weather a sailor fell overboard from a frigate in the Mediterranean. A shark was close by, which, as he was swimming and crying for help, took him in his wide throat, so that he forthwith disappeared. Other sailors had leaped into the sloop to help their comrade, while yet swimming; the captain had a gun which stood on the deck discharged at the fish, which struck it so that it cast out the sailor which it had in its throat, who was then taken up, alive and little injured, by the sloop which had now come up.” From this and similar incidents it would seem that there are fish that might swallow a man whole; though it would be remarkable for him to remain alive and uninjured.
Three days and three nights Whether this is interpreted as meaning three full days and full nights, or simply “a space of time reaching backward and forward beyond twenty four hours” (Mat 12:40), is of little consequence; according to all natural laws it would be impossible for any man to remain alive for any considerable length of time in the belly of a fish (see Luther’s words quoted on p. 325). Only by direct, divine, miraculous interference could Jonah be kept alive. At the end of this period the fish, at the divine command, vomited out Jonah.
Dry land Where, is not stated. The author probably intended it to be understood that the fish carried Jonah back to the place from which he had embarked. The traditional site of the ejection of the prophet is near Sidon.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Then Jonah prayed to YHWH his God out of the fish’s innards.’
All Jonah probably knew was that he was somewhere safe where he could breathe and pray. It would only be later that he discovered that he was in the innards of a large fish. And knowing that he had been saved from certain death he was no doubt confident that God would sort everything out.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jonah’s Prayer Of Repentance And Gratitude ( Jon 2:1-10 ).
Finding himself rescued from drowning, Jonah expressed his gratitude to God, and, probably puzzled as to where he was, called on God for restitution to His favour, ‘I am cast out from your sight, yet will I look again towards your holy Temple’, and again, ‘Those who regard lying vanities (Jonah in his flight), forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving, I will pay what I have vowed.’ It is apparent that while in the sea he had made certain vows to YHWH.
The prayer is necessary in order to demonstrate that God’s mercy was revealed towards Jonah, as it had been towards the sailors, and would be towards Nineveh. It draws attention to his repentance, and prepares for what follows. There is nothing in it which requires a late date, and its ideas are similar to what we view as mainly early Psalms. It suggests that Jonah was very familiar with Temple worship, or with similar worship in Israel. The parallels are not such, however, as to suggest direct borrowing. For examples of such parallels see the introduction.
To those who ask whether Jonah was likely to compose a Psalm while in the innards of the great fish our reply is, what else was he likely to do. He had to have something to occupy his time. For a prophet composing a prophetic psalm would be ideal.
His description of nearly drowning is vivid, even though his experience must only have lasted two or three minutes. At such times the thoughts are very much concentrated. It did, however, give him the opportunity to review what he had done and to repent in his heart. And then quite by a miracle he had found himself seized, and he had found himself enveloped by something he knew not what, and that he was able to breathe. And now here he was, able to thank God for deliverance from drowning and to confirm his repentance, and wait on God for further deliverance. His mind would naturally turn to composing a psalm of thanksgiving.
Analysis of Jon 2:1-10 .
a
b “I called by reason of my affliction to YHWH, and he answered me, out of the belly of Sheol I cried, you heard my voice” (Jon 2:2).
c “For you cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas, and the flood was round about me, all your waves and your billows passed over me” (Jon 2:3).
d “And I said, ‘I am cast out from before your eyes, yet I will look again towards your holy temple” (Jon 2:4).
e “The waters compassed me about, even to the soul, the deep was round about me, the weeds were wrapped about my head” (Jon 2:5).
f “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, the earth with its bars closed on me for ever, yet have you brought up my life from the pit, O YHWH my God” (Jon 2:6).
e “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered YHWH” (Jon 2:7 a).
d “And my prayer came in to you, into your holy temple” (Jon 2:7 b).
c “Those who regard lying vanities, forsake their own mercy” (Jon 2:8 a).
b “But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving, I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of YHWH” (Jon 2:9-9).
a And YHWH spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the dry land (Jon 2:10).
Note that in ‘a’ Jonah spoke to YHWH from the fish, and in the parallel YHWH spoke to the fish about Jonah. In ‘b’ he cried to YHWH from the very belly of Sheol, and in the parallel he gives thanks that God heard him and delivered him. In ‘c’ we find Jonah seemingly treated without mercy, and in the parallel the consequence of Jonah’s lying vanities, will be that he has forsaken his own mercy. In ‘d’ he looks towards YHWH’s holy Temple, and in the parallel he prays towards YHWH’s holy Temple. In ‘e’ the waters surrounded his soul, and in the parallel his soul fainted within hi. Centrally in ‘f’ he reached the lowest depths only to find deliverance.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jon 2:1-10 Jonah Pray of Deliverance from the Belly of the Fish (The Power of Praise to God) In Jon 2:1-10 the prophet Jonah prays and cries out to God from the belly of the fish. In this prayer he makes the sacrifice of thanksgiving. With this attitude of thanksgiving the Lord commanded the fish to spit Jonah out upon dry land. Thus, we see the power of praise unto God. We also see the power of praise and thanksgiving when Jehoshaphat gives the Levites instruments to praise the Lord and sends them forth to lead the battle (2 Cor 20:21).
2Ch 20:21, “And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the LORD, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the LORD; for his mercy endureth for ever.”
Another example of the power of thanksgiving is seen when Jesus gives thanks and blesses the loaves and fishes before feeding the five thousand people.
Jon 2:1-10 Jonah Pray of Deliverance from the Belly of the Fish (Three Days and Three Nights) Jon 1:17 and Jesus tells us that Jonah spend three days and three nights in the belly of the whale. Jonah could not have kept track of time in the belly of the whale. It is more likely that in his visit to Hell, suggested in Jon 2:6, his perception and understanding were enhanced so that he understood the time frame of his experience. In his book 23 Minutes in Hell Bill Wiese explains that his own senses were enhanced while he was in Hell. [15] He instinctively knew and understood things that he would not normally be able comprehend on earth.
[15] Bill Wiese, 23 Minutes in Hell (Lake Mary, Florida: Charis House, c2006), 6, 7, 10. Wiese quotes Erwin Lutzer, who said that in Hell a person has “heightened perception and a better understanding.” [see Erwin W. Lutzer, One Minute After You Die (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1997), 39]
Jon 2:6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.
Jon 2:6
[16] Bill Wiese, 23 Minutes in Hell (Lake Mary, Florida: Charis House, c2006), 1-14, 151.
Pro 7:27, “Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.”
Isa 24:22, “And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.”
Such an experience would have served the purpose of showing to the prophet the extreme horrors of Hell and God’s desire to give even the vilest sinner an opportunity to repent and avoid this place. One New Testament verse that supports this view is when Jesus paralleled Jonah’s time in the whale’s belly to His own time in Hell (Mat 12:40).
Mat 12:40, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Jon 2:9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.
Jon 2:9
Jon 2:10 And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
Jon 2:10
Psa 50:23, “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God .”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Jonah’s Prayer of Thanksgiving and Praise.
v. 1. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord, his God, out of the fish’s belly, v. 2. and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction, v. 3. For Thou hadst cast me into the deep, v. 4. Then I said, I am cast out of Thy sight, v. 5. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul, v. 6. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, v. 7. When my soul fainted within me, v. 8. They that observe lying vanities, v. 9. But I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving, v. 10. And the Lord,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Jon 2:1-10
Part I. JONAH‘S PRAYER AND DELIVERANCE.
Jon 2:1-9
1. Jonah, in the belly of the fish, offers a prayer of thanksgiving for his rescue from death by drowning, in which he sees a pledge of further deliverance.
Jon 2:1
Then Jonah prayed. These were his feelings when he sank in the waters and while he lay in his mysterious prison; he may have put them into their metrical form after his deliverance. The grammatical arrangement, and especially the language of verse 7, seem to speak of a deliverance already experienced rather than of one expected. As this “prayer” does not suit an allegory, and as no cue but Jonah could have known its substance, we have here an argument for his authorship. It is rather a thanksgiving than a prayerlike that of Hennas (1Sa 2:1). When he realizes that he was saved from drowning, he uttered his gratitude, and saw that he might hope for further rescue. How he passed the three days we cannot tell; some have thought he was unconscious; but thin is, perhaps, hardly consistent with the notice of his praying, and with the action of his great Antitype, who, during his sojourn in the unseen world, “preached to the spirits in prison” (1Pe 3:19). His God. He acknowledges Jehovah as his God. He had proved himself his by inspiration, by chastisement, and now by mercy (Pusey). The following prayer contains ample reminiscences of the Psalms, which would be familiar to a devout Israelite. Those quoted are mostly what have been considered to belong to David’s time. if their date is really ascertained. But it is a matter of controversy, incapable of settlement, whether Jonah or the psalmist is the original.
Jon 2:2
He introduces the prayer with the tact that he cried to God in distress and was heard. By reason of mine affliction; better, out of my affliction. This may be a reminiscence of Psa 120:1 or Psa 18:6; but from such coincidences nothing can be established concerning the date of the book. Like circumstances call forth like expressions; and the writers may have composed them quite independently of one another. Hell (Sheol). The unseen world (Eze 32:21). He was as though dead when thus engulfed (comp. Psa 18:5). Cried I (Psa 28:1, Psa 28:2). Thou heardest my voice (Psa 130:1, Psa 130:2).
Jon 2:3
He describes his danger and distress. Thou hadst cast; rather, thou didst cast, the sailors being the agents of the Divine will. Septuagint, i. The deep; , “depths”; Exo 15:8. In the midst; literally, in the heart; Septuagint, : galore, in corde maris. This defines more closely the previous expression. The floods; literally, the river. This may mean the current (as in Psa 24:2), which in the Mediterranean Sea sets from west to east, and, impinging on the Syrian coast, turns north; or it may have reference to the notion, familiar to us in Homer. which regarded the ocean as a river. All thy billows and thy waves; “all thy swellings and waves”; omnes gurgites tui, et fluctus tui (Vulgate). The former are “breakers,” the latter “rolling billows.” The clause is from Psa 42:7, Jonah transferring what is there said metaphorically to his own literal experience, at the same time acknowledging God’s hand in the punishment by speaking of “thy billows” (comp. Psa 88:6, Psa 88:7).
Jon 2:4
Jonah confesses that he at first fully expected death; but faith and hope soon triumphed over despondency. I am cast out of thy sight. This was his thought when what is mentioned in verse 3 happened unto him. The words are a reminiscence of Psa 31:22, altered somewhat to suit Jonah’s circumstances. The psalmist says, “I said in my haste.” Jonah says simply, “I said,” without any limitation; and for “I am cut off,” Jonah uses, “I am cast out.” Septuagint, a strong term, implying banishment with violence. Out of thy sight; literally, frown before thine eyes; i.e. from thy protecting care. He who had fled from the presence of the Lord in Canaan fears that he has forfeited the favour of God. Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. I will turn in prayer to that holy place where thou dost manifest thy presence. The Jews were wont to turn towards Jerusalem when they prayed. Some think that Jonah expresses a hope of worshipping again in the temple; but the turn of expression in the text hardly warrants this. Others refer the term to the heavenly temple, as they do in verse 7; Psa 11:4; Psa 18:6.
Jon 2:5, Jon 2:6
In parallel clauses, Jonah describes still more vividly the horrors that surrounded him.
Jon 2:5
Compassed me about. Not the same word as in Jon 2:3. Septuagint, “was poured around me.” Even to the soul; so as to reach his life (comp. Psa 18:5; Psa 69:1, Psa 69:2; Lam 3:54). The depth closed me round about. The verb is the lame as in Jon 2:3, translated there, “compassed me about” Vulgate, abyssus vallavit me. The weeds (suph); seaweed. Jonah sank to the bottom before he was swallowed by the fish. The LXX. omits the word. The Vulgate gives pelagus, which is probably derived from the fact of the Red Sea being called “the Sea of Suph,” the term being thence applied to any sea.
Jon 2:6
The bottoms of the mountains; literally, the cuttings off, where the mountains seem to be cut off by the ocean floor; the roots of the mountains. , “the clefts of the mountains”; Psa 18:15. The earth with her bars; as for the earth, her bars were about me; return to it was shut out for me; the gate by which I might return was locked behind me. He adds, forever, as it was to all appearance, because he had no power in himself of returning to earth and life. Yet; in spite of all, I am preserved. From corruption (shachath); as Job 17:14; de corruptione (Vulgate); so the Chaldee and Syriac; Septuagint, (Alex), (Vatican), “Let my life arise from destruction;“ or, “Let the destruction of my life [i.e. my destroyed life] arise.” Jerome refers the word to the digestive process in the fish’s stomach; it is probably merely a synonym for “death.” The marginal rendering, “the pit,” i.e. Sheol, is also etymologically correct (comp. Psa 30:3). My God. He thankfully acknowledges that Jehovah has proved himself a beneficent God to him.
Jon 2:7
His prayer was heard. When my soul fainted within me; literally, was coveredreferring, says Pusey, to that physical exhaustion when a film comes over the eyes, and the brain is mantled over. The clause is from Psa 142:3 or Psa 143:4. I remembered the Lord. That was his salvation (Psa 119:55). He turned in thought to thine holy temple (Psa 143:4), the sanctuary where God’s presence was most assured, like the psalmist in the wilderness (Psa 63:2). or like the exiles by the waters of Babylon when they remembered Zion (Psa 137:1-9).
Jon 2:8
Jonah contrasts the joy and comfort arising from the thought of God with the miserable fate of idolaters. They that observe (Psa 31:6); court, pay deference to, reverence. Lying vanities; Septuagint, , “vain things and false.” Idom (comp. Jer 18:15; Hos 12:11; 1Co 8:4). Their own mercy; i.e. their state of favour with Godthe mercy shown to them, as “the mercies of [shown to] David” (Isa 55:3); or God himself, the Fountain of mercy and goodness (Psa 144:2). Henderson translates, “forsake their Benefactor.”
Jon 2:9
But Iwho know better than idolaters, and who have learned a new lesson of trust in GodI will sacrifice. Pusey notes that the Hebrew denotes rather, “I fain would sacrifice,” as it depended, not on him, but on God, whether he was able to worship again in the Holy Land. His sacrifice of thanksgiving (Le 7:12, etc) should be offered with prayer and praise (Psa 42:5). That which I have vowed (Psa 1:1-6 :14; Psa 66:13). Salvation is of the Lord. This is the conclusion to which his trial has brought him, the moral of the whole canticle (Psa 3:8; Psa 118:14, Psa 118:21; Rev 7:10). The LXX. and the Vulgate join this clause to the preceding, thus: “That which I have vowed I will pay to the Lord for my salvation.” This is tame, and not in strict accordance with the Hebrew.
Jon 2:10
2. The fish casts up Jonah alive on the shore
Jon 2:10
Spake unto the fish. The punishment having done its work, the fish is impelled by some secret influence to eject Jonah on the dry land, on the third day after he was swallowed (Jon 1:17). Some, who regard the Book of Jonah as an historical allegory, see in these three days an adumbration of the period of the Babylonish captivity, during which Israel was buried in darkness, and from which she rose to a new and happier life. They compare, as referring to the same transaction, Jer 51:34, Jer 51:44 and Hos 6:1, Hos 6:2. Upon the dry land. Probably on the coast of Palestine, whence he had started.
HOMILETICS
Jon 2:1
Out of the depths.
Never surely was prayer offered in so strange a place as this! Men have often prayed upon the sea, but Jonah is represented as praying from the ocean depths.
I. NO PLACE IS UNSUITABLE FOR PRAYER. It is well to pray in stately cathedrals and in consecrated chapels, in the humble meeting house and at the “domestic altar.” But the persecuted have prayed upon the remote hillside, and in “dens and caves of the earth.” And let it be remembered, that God’s will is that “men should pray everywhere, lifting holy hands” to heaven. In the thronged street, the busy market, the legislative hall, the court of justice, in the field of battle, and upon the island where the shipwrecked mariner finds a refuge,in every place God may be sought and found. If Jonah cried “out of the fish’s body,” and was heard, is there reason for silence, for refraining from prayer, in any spot where we may find ourselves?
II. ACCEPTABLE PRAYER PROCEEDS FROM NECESSITY. There are those who have never prayed before, who have been driven to supplication by their needs. And many, whose prayers have often been formal, have learned to pray in earnest when they have been plunged into the overwhelming ocean of affliction. None ask so urgently as those who are in want; and one purpose of Providence in permitting men to suffer need may well be thisto call forth entreaties and supplications which shall be sincere, profound, and urgent.
III. ACCEPTABLE PRAYER IS THE OFFSPRING OF A SUBMISSIVE MIND. Rebellion, and even murmuring, are incompatible with a prayerful spirit. It proves that Jonah was not wholly bad that, in his affliction, he did not resent the Lord’s treatment, he did not “kick against the goad.” He rather behaved and quieted himself as “the weaned child.” It is well to acknowledge that justice and mercy are in all the Lord’s dealings with his people. Many have been taught by experience to say with the psalmist, “Before I was afflicted,! went astray;” “It is good for me that 1 have been afflicted.” Trouble is not designed to lead God’s people to cry against the Lord, but unto the Lord. To complain is both foolish and sinful; but they are happy who endure.
IV. ACCEPTABLE PRAYER IS THE UTTERANCE OF FAITH AND HOPE. Even in the depths of the sea Jonah did not lose his faith in the oversight, the care, the goodness of the Lord. He believed that the Lord had overwhelmed, and that the Lord could rescue him. He who brought him into the depths could bring him out of the depths. The believing prayer which the prophet is recorded to have offered in his extremity is a model to all those who because of their iniquities and transgressions have been afflicted. Have faith in God, and hope in his mercysuch is the lesson which this verse teaches.
V. PRAYER FROM THE DEPTHS IS HEARD IN THE HEIGHTS AND ANSWERED. Jonah’s subterraneous, subaqueous dungeon became a temple. God was present when his servant prayed. When submission and faith took the place of disobedience and rebellion, the Most High was willing to deliver the captive, to pardon the sinner, to employ again the unfaithful fugitive.
Jon 2:2, Jon 2:3
Affliction and prayer.
Doubtless the language of this psalm of thanksgiving was the result of subsequent meditation, for it is evidently a studied composition, resembling in passages several of the sacred Hebrew odes. But the sentiments were those actually experienced by the prophet when in the most humiliating position. In his experience was much which may prove very instructive and helpful to ourselves.
I. DEEP AFFLICTION. The language of Jon 2:3, literally descriptive of Jonah’s state and sufferings, is tinged with poetical feeling, and, like similar passages in the Psalms, is emblematic of the afflictions which, at some periods of human life, are the appointed experience of God’s people. The deep waters of trouble must be passed through; the mighty billows must roll over the spirit. Sorrow submerges and apparently overwhelms even the child of God; how much more the impenitent and disobedient!
II. EARNEST PRAYER. How, indeed, can prayer be other than earnest, if it be offered from “the belly of hell”? Those afflictions are, indeed, a blessing which prompt such supplications as those which came from Jonah’s lips. Far from human succour, and perhaps from human pity, the afflicted lift their voice, and cry, by reason of their afflictions, unto the Lord. There is something very instructive in the language used by Jonah, attributing his affliction to the Being upon whom he was calling, “Thou hadst cast me into the deep, thy billows and thy waves passed over me.” In this way the distressed may learn the lesson which the wisdom and the love of God would teach.
III. GRACIOUS DELIVERANCE. When in Scripture it is said that God hears, we may usually understand more than is expressed. He hears to answer, to rescue, to save. The Omnipresent did not lose sight of his servant even when he was beneath the waves of the ocean; and the All-gracious was not inattentive to his supplication, though offered from the depths where weeds were about the suppliant’s head. If there are those who fear lest their situation or their circumstances should shut them out from the regard and interest of the Supreme, they may well take courage when they think of the experience of the prophet, who called upon the Lord from the depths, and was heard and was delivered.
Jon 2:4
Looking toward the temple.
It is remarkable that in two passages of this prayer the prophet should allude to the temple. Although he was from Northern Palestine, and lived whilst Judah and Israel were distinct kingdoms, it does not seem open to question that his allusion is to the sacred edifice at Jerusalem, where Jehovah manifested his presence and favour, and received the worship of his people. Yet the temple must have been referred to, not so much as a material edifice, as in the light of the symbol of the manifestation of the presence and the favour of the Most High.
I. TO LOOK TOWARD THE TEMPLE IS TO BE REMINDED OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. As the sight of a house may remind us of the friend who dwells there, as the sight of a palace may lead us to think of the king,so to look toward the temple is to look to God. Jonah may have been tempted to say, “There is no God;” or, “If there be a God, he regards not me.” When he turned in heart to the temple, such thoughts vanished, and God’s existence Became a reality to him.
II. TO LOOK TOWARD THE TEMPLE IS TO SEEK THE FAVOUR OF GOD. The temple was the place where sacrifices were offered and accepted; where God showed himself to be gracious to his covenant people, where sin was pardoned, and the penitent sinner was received into acceptance. And Jonah knew, even from the very commission he was unwilling to fulfil, that God delighted in mercy, and was long suffering and compassionate. He had incurred Divine displeasure, but he began to feel that he was not beyond the reach of Divine commiseration and help.
III. TO LOOK TOWARD THE TEMPLE IS TO EXPECT THE DIVINE INTERPOSITION AND DIRECTION. The pious Jews sought Jehovah in his house, consulted the oracle, invoked guidance, implored blessing. And when Jonah directed the gaze of his heart towards the dwelling place of his God, it was with the well formed expectation that, however impossible it was for him to make a way of escape for himself, God would surely do this upon his behalf. There is no depth from which he cannot lift us; no recess from which he cannot draw us forth; no sorrow of which he cannot relieve us; no sin which he cannot pardon. Of how many of God’s people may it be said, “They looked unto him; and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed”!
Jon 2:7
Remembering the Lord.
The circumstances in which Jonah was placed were such as give very peculiar value and interest to this declaration. And it appears that this act of recollection was the turning point in his experience; for hitherto his troubles had increased, whilst henceforth his prospects began to brighten.
I. THE OCCASION OF THIS REMEMBRANCE.
1. External adversity may have prompted him to a kind of remembrance which in his prosperity he had not cultivated.
2. Mental exhaustion and distress caused him to realize his helplessness, and the vanity of expecting human aid. When his “soul fainted within” him, then he called to mind the God whom he had disobeyed.
II. THE CHARACTER OF THIS REMEMBRANCE.
1. Jonah, no doubt, remembered God’s commands and his own rebellion.
2. He must also have remembered the revelation of Divine mercy which had been vouchsafed him. And whilst the former recollection must have awakened penitence, this may well have shed into his soul a ray of hope.
III. THE FRUIT OF THIS REMEMBRANCE.
1. It prompted to prayer: They who forget God will not call upon God; but they who remember his promises may well lift up their hearts to him.
2. It was thus the means of securing the Divine regard and the Divine deliverance. God heard the prophet’s cry, though uttered from the ocean’s depths, and when he heard, he came to the rescue of his servant, “The Lord is mindful of his own.” We may for a time forget his faithfulness, but when we call to mind his nearness and his grace, he remembers us even in our low estate.
Jon 2:8
The vanity of idolatry.
Jonah had been brought into association with idolaters in the person of the mariners of the ship but of which he had been cast. It may be that this fact accounts for the reference in this passage to those who worship other gods than the Lord. The more he experienced the faithfulness and goodness of Jehovah, the more was he convinced that there was none other entitled to reverence, confidence, and prayers.
I. THE DESCRIPTION HERE GIVEN OF IDOLATERS. They are such as “observe lying vanities.” The Hebrews, whether pious or not, were monotheists, and regarded with contempt the idolatrous superstitions of their neighbours. The language of irony occurs in several places of Old Testament Scripture when allusion is made to the impotence of the gods of the nations. Yet it may be profitably remembered by ourselves, who may have no immediate connection with professed idolaters, that whatever men substitute for God, as the law of life and the object of devotion and trust, will surely deceive all those who put their faith therein.
II. THE FATE HERE FORETOLD OF IDOLATERS. Their “mercy,” their “goodness,” is the God whom they forget, and to whom they are so infatuated as to prefer the “lying vanities” here censured. They who quit the Lord prepare for themselves a terrible fate. In God is salvation; out of him is destruction. There is something appalling in the doom which is here described as overtaking those who, when the Saviour may be found, turn their back upon him, in order to seek and to serve other gods. Such are said to “forsake their own mercy.” They act against their highest interests; they refuse the richest blessing; they abjure their truest Friend.
Jon 2:9
Piety triumphant.
The remarkable fact connected with this sublime hymn of confidence and adoration is thisit was uttered while deliverance was yet in the future. The prophet sings of God’s goodness while he is still experiencing God’s chastisement, and promises offerings whilst the favour which they are to acknowledge is as yet in the future. In these closing words of the hymn there is a tone of exultation and of triumph, which evinces singular confidence and singular hope.
I. THANKSGIVING. There are some circumstances which render gratitude natural and easy. But it is a triumph of faith when the afflicted can acknowledge the good hand of God, when they can discern mercy in chastening, when they can see the hand of a Father in the hand that smites. One thing is certainwhatever be our position, our experience, we owe gratitude as a debt due to him who is ever forbearing and gracious.
II. SACRIFICE. According to the religious customs of his country and his age, the prophet vowed to offer an outward expression of his loyalty and gratitude to God, by presenting a sacrifice in the temple or at some consecrated altar. His life had been spared; his deliverance was near; he looked forward to an opportunity of “offering burnt offerings” upon the altar of Jehovah. The spiritual reality of which such an act is the symbol is the consecration of heart and life unto the God of all grace and salvation.
III. PRAISE. Thanksgiving looks mainly to the benefits received; praise, to the Bestower. “Salvation unto the Lord!” such is the joyful and adoring cry with which this hymn is brought to a close. It is well, when we have acknowledged favour and long suffering enjoyed, to turn away from ourselves, and to fix our thoughts, our sentiments of affectionate and adoring devotion, upon him whose attribute is mercy, and whose work is salvation.
HOMILIES BY J.E. HENRY
Jon 2:1-4
A unique oratory.
“Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God,” etc. The keynote of this passage is struck in the first verse. It is the fish, by God’s hand made Jonah’s preserver instead of his destroyer, that inspires the praise prayer of the whole chapter. God did not come to help till the prophet had, in imagination, raced the worst; but still he came in time. In the very moment of imminent death he stepped in a Deliverer. And he delivered in his own inimitable way. Natural laws cannot serve his purpose, and he accomplishes it against them. “The ravens furnish Elijah’s table; the lions are tame and quiet while Daniel is in the den; the violence of fire is gone when believers are in the furnace; the sea, which acts according to its nature towards Pharaoh and his host, is a wall on the right hand and on the left to Moses and to Israel; and the devouring shark preserves Jonah’s life” (Rev. Thomas Jones, in loc). And now the prophet realizes that God, after all, is his Friend. He is bringing life out of the jaws of death, converting the voracious seamonster into a kind protector. And thus, by judgment and mercy in turn, the obdurate heart is broken, and the sturdy apostate brought to his knees and the praise song of the restored. We see here
I. HOW AFFLICTION OPENS THE MOUTH WHICH SIN HAD SHUT. Jonah’s defection was deliberate and persistent. Not for a trifle would be cry, Peccavi! Not by an ordinary obstacle would he be arrested in his course. He seceded most determinedly. He kept his purpose in unabated strength, through a forty-mile tramp on foot. He overcame difficulty with resourceful energy. He slept calmly, going on his way, amidst the crash of an appalling hurricane. He sat sullen and made no sign when even heathen sailors called upon their gods, and wondered at his self-composure. But flesh is flesh, and at length the word came true, “In their affliction will they seek me early.” God has weapons that pierce even armour of proof. The invasion of fiery serpents did it for incorrigible Israel (Num 21:7). The cut of the Assyrian slave lash did it for graceless Manasseh (2Ch 33:12, 2Ch 33:13). The death of Bathsheba’s child did it for David, after a great crime and a whole year of impenitent hardness (2Sa 12:13, 2Sa 12:16). The Babylonish exile did it for Israel, as Isaiah expresses, “Lord, in trouble they have visited thee; they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.” And the experiences of a shark’s interior did it for Jonah. He would not surrender sooner, but resistance is out of the question now. The victory rests with God. The fires of his judgment have softened the apostate’s iron will. Yet not the Divine severity only, but severity and goodness together have operated here as “the medicine of the mind.” It was not imminent death alone but this with miraculous life out of death that broke the hideous spell, and opened the lips so stubbornly scaled. It is a wrong way of looking at things to contrast, where both have operated, the value of severity and goodness as motive powers in the religious sphere. Neither probably would be effective by itself. The severity before the goodness did not conquer, and neither, probably, would the goodness, had not the severity gone before. The effect does not flow from the last of the series of its causes, but from the series as a whole.
II. HOW A REVIVING FAITH CAN TRIUMPH OVER SENSE. To sense the prophet’s was desperate. On the platform of natural laws the circumstances forbid hope, and would logically shut the mouth of prayer. Yet their effect is directly the reverse. The prophet only begins to pray at the moment when all seems past praying for. And this is the paradoxical but characteristic way of faith. It triumphs over sense, reverses its verdict, overbears its testimony, realizes in actual possession its theoretic impossibility. “Take the case of Abraham and the character and commendation of his faith. ‘Against hope he believed in hope.’ Appearances were all against him. Sensible realities all contradicted, and in themselves alone destroyed, his expectation. Had his hope rested on sense, on reason, on nature, on time, it must have failed and sunk forever. But he did not rest on nature. He did not argue. He believed; and his faith destroyed the hope-destroying power of sense”. It is the business of your faith and mine to do likewise. We are surrounded by influences and circumstances altogether adverse to the attainment of our soul’s salvation. Lusts are strong. Tempers are violent. Habits are tenacious. Example is corrupting. Toil is engrossing. Pleasure is ensnaring. The world, alike when it smiles and frowns, is our soul’s foe. But faith is therekeen-eyed conquering faith. It sees through opacity and discovers the invisible. And it knows things very different from what they seem. Beneath the currents of sense, whose trend is away out to sea, it discerns the tidal wave of unseen influence moving in steady flow toward the celestial shores (2Co 1:9; 2Co 4:8-11). God, in his wise and stimulative dealing, “may clothe all circumstances and all his dispensations towards us with appearances of opposition and hostility, in order that we may flee to the anchor of his pure and simple Word, and lean on it without any other help, or rather against all adverse power” (Martin).
III. HOW NATURALLY PRAYER CLOTHES ITSELF IN THE WORDS OF SCRIPTURE. Jonah’s prayer was original in the sense that the thoughts called forth the words. But the words themselves are largely borrowed from the Psalms. Most of these had then been written, and, as the Church’s Psalter, would be familiar to a prophet of God. And naturally his devotional feelings appropriate their inspired and so fitting words. His prayer “is the simple and natural utterance of a man versed in Holy Scripture, and living in the Word of God” (Keil). What Scripture says is best said. It contains at once the warrant and the definition of prayer, and the actual words in which it was offered by holy men of old. What more natural or fitting than that a man should use these for himself as at once unerring and appropriate! “Let the Word of God dwell in you richly.” There is nothing else can support faith, or so well formulate its prayer. And then as to the Psalms, where in Scripture is there to be found such a concentrated wealth of devotional matter as there? “They appear to me a mirror of the soul of every one who sings them” (Athanasius). “The Psalter deserves to be called the praise of God, the glory of man, the voice of the Church, and the most beneficial confession of faith” (Ambrose). “Not without good grounds am I wont to call this book an anatomy of all parts of the soul, since no one can experience emotions whose portrait he could not behold reflected in its mirror” (Calvin). The artist goes to the Louvre, and the scholar or antiquarian to the British Museum, because he finds there the objects he studies in greatest variety and profusion. And so the pious, in search of devotional materials of the most precious kind, resorts inevitably to the Book of Psalms. There are found portrayed, as from the life, the hopes and fears, the moods and frames, the faith and ardour, of their own soul. There they find words that interpret their case and express the very spirit of their aspiration. And so in all time, and over all the world, the saintly praise and pray and vow “with the words of David and Asaph the seer.”
IV. HOW POINTEDLY GOD PUNISHES DEFECTION BY ENDORSING IT. Jonah was a spiritual deserter. He struck work, abandoned his post, and so practically vacated his office and abjured God’s service. He seemed resolved to have done with the whole thing. And he succeeded but too well, as now to his cost he feels. God has taken him at his word. Figuratively speaking, he has got the “Chiltern Hundreds.” He is no longer prophet of God, or servant, or companion. His punishment rises on him in the likeness of his sin. He has fled from God, and now he complains of the separation. “I am cast out of thy sight,” i.e. banished from covenant territory, the sphere of God’s protection and care. So with Peter. He says, “I know not the Man,” and he is virtually and formally a stranger from that moment. Only after three times confessing the Lord whom he had three times denied is he spiritually reinstated, restored to forfeited office, and authorized to feed the sheep. This is a terrible aspect of spiritual renegadism. God accepts it as an accomplished fact. You break away, and are let go. You forsake God, and he casts you off. It is a fearful power this you have of putting a whole infinity between yourself and God, between your sin and his righteousness, between your want and his gifts, between your desolate heart and his everlasting consolations. Yet it is a power proper to a moral being, a power it is of the insignia of your manhood to have, and yet an utter renunciation of it to use.
V. HOW THE REMINISCENCE OF A FORMER FELLOWSHIP HELPS TO DRAW BACK TO GOD. Jonah could look back to a gracious state and consciousness. He had walked in the light of God’s countenance. He knew the joy of his presence and the life in his favour. As part of the thought, “I am cast out frown before thine eyes,” these things would come up to mind. He must remember their quality in bewailing their loss. And they were a fragrant memory, the very cream and flower of the goodness he had tasted. Would they not hulk large among the influences drawing the wanderer back? “As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word,… if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” Yes! there is the secret. If a man has come and tasted, he will be moved to come back and feast. The final apostasy from God of a true believer would be against the nature of things. “His seed remaineth in him.” The life that has had God in it once can never be without him again. The void would be intolerable. And so, like the child that for a time has left its mother’s knee, the backslider has survivals of precious memories that bring him back to God.
VI. HOW THE TEMPLE IS THE CENTRE OF THE RETURNING PENITENT‘S REGARDS. (Verse 4) The temple was the national meeting place with God the spot which “he had chosen to place his Name there.” “There was the mercy seat, the ark of the covenant, and the Divine presence; there the tribes of Israel met to worship the Lord, and there the God of Israel came to meet and bless his people. No wonder Jonah’s eyes should be fixed on this house, which was the glory of all lands, the sun in the world of mercy, and the centre of true worship” (Jones, in loc). In the spiritual sphere worship underlies work. When Jonah ceased to labour, he had already ceased to pray. As in every case of suspended animation, it was failure of the heart’s action that had paralyzed his hand. And now the converse process begins, and first of all pulsation is re-established. The heart resumes its normal action and beats for God. To approach him in worship, and resume fellowship with him in his holy ordinances, is the first sacred exercise to which his hope springs. It is so always. The stay at home Christian is never a worker for God. No heart for the sanctuary, no hand for the plough. The very breath of the religious life is to say, “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?”
1. Wherever you are, God has placed you. Jonah says, “Thou hast cast me into the deep thy billows and thy waves passed over me.” Privilege and calamity are both God’s. He sends them, and bounds them, and is revealed in them. Judgments viewed as accidents have no disciplinary value and no moral aspect. The rod is reforming only when we see it in our Father’s hand.
2. You cannot be in anyplace where it is not fitting you should seek God. Jonah cried out of “the belly of hell.” What pit, then, is so deep, what lull so low, what evil case so desperate, that in it and from it we may not call on God? “Is any afflicted, let him pray; Whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.”
3. God is again “my God“ in the thought of the returning penitent. (Verse 1) With the child’s reawakened love comes back the revived filial instinct. God is “my Father” to the prodigal from the moment he comes to himself. Blessed be his gracious Name, that such things can be! If you have renounced the life for self, you may call God your own this hour. The thought is a new backbone to faith. God “waits to be gracious.” He is with you the moment you wish it, and for you the moment you submit, and yours in present possession the moment the soul’s appropriating hand is stretched forth.
“O Saviour, precious Saviour, Whom yet unseen we love;
O Name of might end favour, All other names above:
We worship thee, we bless thee,
To thee alone we sing;
We praise thee and confess thee,
Our holy Lord and King.”
J.E.H.
Jon 2:5-10
Deliverance waiting on the assured hope of it.
It is an obvious remark that all men are ingenuous with God. There is no thought of trying to mislead his judgment or escape his lidless eye. They know that he knows them, knows them truly, knows them thoroughly. Accordingly, when religious profession is false and religious converse is suppressive, and other religious acts are hollow and formal, secret prayer, if it be, offered at all, is both honest and open. Only tell us what a man says into the secret ear of God, and you have told us all that is in his hearthave revealed what microscope could not detect, nor scalpel lay bare. It is in this way that our text is apocalyptic. It unveils for us the inner life of Jonah as this is done by no other portion of his book. And the revelation raises him not a little in our estimation. It shows him at bottom a regenerate and saintly man. It reveals a beaten path between his soul and God’s throne, a path unused during a wayward hour, but resorted to instinctively when disaster has come and has sobered him into thought. Learn here
I. THE ESSENTIAL SOLITUDE OF SUFFERING. (Verses 5, 6) We find matter around us of different degrees of density, from the light volcanic ash to the heavy metallic ore. But men of science tell us that no material substance is absolutely solid. In the closest-grained rock, in the diamond itself, the ultimate particles are not in actual contact. They approach each other inconceivably close, but when attraction has brought them thus far, a mysterious repulsion intervenes and forbids that they should altogether touch. This fact of the material world has, no doubt, its counterpart in the world of spirit. There is an individuality about the soul that cannot be destroyed. We may be united to others by the closest ties. We may be of one mind, and one heart, and one taste, and one aim. We may thus approach men and be approached by them on many sides, and feel in union, and, to many effects and purposes, be in union with each other. But it is plain that we never coalesce, never actually touch. The shock of personal disaster proves this. Then all ties seem loosened and fall away. Friends drift apart. We are thrown in upon ourselves. Others cannot follow us into the depths. We are in a relation to the event into which no one else can come. In the last appeal we have to meet it alone. It was so with Christ (Joh 16:31, Joh 16:32). Disciples, friends, kinsmen,with none of them could the Redeemer share the pangs of death. He had to die alone. Even the earlier thought, “I am not alone, the Father is with me” gave way in the hour of mortal agony to the question of sore amaze, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It was so with Jonah. He was pressed by a feeling of utter isolation. The depths closed over him. The earth with her bars Was about him. This he felt, and in proportion as he felt it did he realize that he was cut off from his kind, engulled in the horrors of a living grave, and left to face them all alone. “I shall die alone.” “Yes; and alone you live. No soul touches another soul except at one or two points, and those chiefly externala fearful and lonely thought, but one of the truest life. Death only realizes that which has been the fact all along. In the central deeps of our being we are alone” (F.W. Robertson).
II. THREE IS AN ANTICIPATIVE POWER IN ALL TRUE FAITH. (Verses 7, 9) Jonah’s prayer has really no petition in it. It becomes in the offering a song of praise. Still m the shark’s maw, with the sea grass around his head, and going down through the deep sea caves to the foundations of the mountains, he speaks as a man delivered, and knowing only occasion of thanks. This is the grand attitude and achievement of faith. It sees the end from the beginning. It expects the end because them has been a beginning. It anticipates the end at the beginning, and deals with it as an accomplished fact. “Thou hast brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.” “I know nothing more sublime in all the range of recorded human utterances. What could dictate assured and triumphant language like this, but marvellous, miraculous faith? His deliverance is not yet come; yet faith speaks of it as if it were. O noble faith! it is in thy power to bring in the deliverance that is still future, with the sweetness of that which is already present, and the sureness of that which is already past”. This quality of Jonah’s faith appeared also in that of Paul. Crying for deliverance from indwelling sin, he forestalls the event, and prepays the thanks (Rom 7:24, Rom 7:25). So surely is prayer answered, so infallibly does needed help accrue, that from an adequate faith the gratitude may go up when as yet the blessing has not come down. And there is this prophetic realizing power in all faith. It “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It carries in its head the jewel of hope; and where the one reaches the other shines. Faith trusts God that he can do all things, and hope looks for the doing of them. The potential deliverance seen by faith becomes actual deliverance in the eye of hope. And so to the believing soul “the things that shall be” already are, and the present is bright with the borrowed light of not yet risen suns.
III. IT IS JUST IN THE MOMENT OF REALIZED HELPLESSNESS THAT THE THOUGHT OF GOD COMES TO A SOUL. (Verse 7) Jonah, as is evident, had up till now forgotten God. Not only so, but he had deliberately driven and persistently kept him out of his thoughts. The bursting of a fearful storm impressed him so little that, if left alone, he would have slept it through. The rude piety of the sailors, calling every man upon his god, sent no responsive thrill through him. The captain’s reproachful summons to arise and pray was disregarded or ignored. Even the ominous lot casting, on the issue of which his life hung, was watched with apparent calm. His self-possessed and iron obstinacy died hard. But it died. Angry Omnipotence will not be denied; and God took measures that not even Jonah’s hardihood could survive. The prophet broke down. Flesh and heart failed together. And then he came back to first principles, and remembered God. God, if they knew it, is the one need of human hearts. “Every finite spirit is inherently related to the Infinite, in him to live, and move, and have its being. It wants the knowledge of God, the society of God, the approbation of God, the internal manifestation of God, a consciousness lighted up by his presence, to receive of his fulness, to be strong in his might, to rest in his love, and be centred everlastingly in his glory” (Horace Bushnell, D.D). But the natural man has no idea of this. Conscious of incompleteness, he knows not in what it consists. And he prescribes at random for his own case. He absorbs himself in business, he struggles up the path of ambition, he plunges into mad indulgence, he runs breathless from sensation to sensation, seeking rest and satisfaction, and finding none. Everything gets stale and tiresome, and the soul finds itself unprovided for and orphan still. Not seldom the man spends his days thus in feverish search of good, and dies unsatisfied and unfed at last. But sometimes, in the providence of God, disaster comes at this stage. He is losing his idol. He is being robbed of all he loved, or abandoned of all he trusted in. He is being brought to the grave’s mouth by a resistless Providence. It becomes with him a question of God’s help or none. And shut up to it thus, he chooses it, albeit only as a last resource. “I cried unto the Lord with my voice. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord” (Psa 116:3, Psa 116:4). This is the natural history of the soul’s resort to God. It is the last resort. All other help has been tried and found wanting before the sinner turns to him. What grace, that he waits till then! that while every conceivable earthly nostrum is being tried, the Balm of Gilead is kept in store, and is available in the extremest hour! Truly a God “long suffering and slow to wrath, and plenteous in mercy,” is our God, who wearies not at our long wandering, and welcomes even the latest return.
IV. THE SIGHT OF GOD AND THE SIGHT OF SIN INVOLVE EACH OTHER. (Verse 8) Jonah had lost sight of Cod and of his own guiltiness together. In his conduct up to this point we see the most astounding oblivion of both. And now the two matters come to mind together, suggesting a logical connection between them. And so there is. Sin is a conscious offence against God. Its antagonism to him is its essential element. Accordingly, the sense of it will come and go with the thought of God, and will be adequate as this is adequate. You cannot remember the offence and yet forget the offended Being. Neither can you realize God as near and cognizant without a consciousness of your moral attitude toward him. The thought of sin and the thought of God, in fact, bring up each other. And not only is the fact of sin, but the extent and evil of it are revealed in the revelation of God. Contact with the plumb line betrays the curve in the bowing wall. So, side by side with God’s ideal holiness, sin looks itself and looks its worst (Job 42:5). When a man sees his sinfulness, he has also, as the condition of it, got a glimpse of God. To Jonah his late conduct seems nothing now but the pursuit of lying vanities. He had no fruit in It. Every promise of good it held out had been falsified. He had not escaped. He had not improved matters in any way. He had only intensified existing evils and involved himself and others in new troubles. And that is a true picture of sin the world over and all history through. It is a following of delusive phantasies, and a running away from our own mercies. Its prospective blessings burst like bubbles in our handsthe hands that, but for it, would have been full of the choicest gifts of God.
V. THE RECEIVING OF SPIRITUAL GOOD IS FOLLOWED BY A DESIRE TO MAKE SOME RETURN. (Verse 9) Gratitude is a universal duty, and ought to be a universal grace. All men receive blessing from God, and as a consequence owe him thanks. Of the gratitude due, however, they fall tar short. Some good things come incognito, and are thus received unthankfully. Other good things, God’s free gifts, are traced to some earthly source, and so produce no thankful feeling. And then the multitude of life’s mercies, so obviously Divine, are yet so common that their origin is forgotten, and they are received as a matter of course. But spiritual gifts can never be ungratefully received. They are too conspicuously gracious to be taken as a matter of right. They are too immeasurably great to be lightly deemed of. They involve the gift of a new heart itself, in which gratitude is a native growth, because grace has made it God-like. There are no thankless Christians. Ingratitude possibly means the spiritual nature absent or in abeyance, and points, where we find it, to previous spiritual deforcement. Such deforcement Jonah had suffered during the continuance of his rebellious freak. Now that religious principle had resumed the sway in his soul, the gratitude is restored that had been exiled during the spiritual interregnum. And everywhere and always the heart that has been blessed to saving effect is one in which infallibly is mooted the question of making grateful return.
VI. DIVINE DELIVERANCE IS ALWAYS TIMED TO ARRIVE WHEN THERE IS RIPENESS FOR IT. (Verse 10) Deliverance any sooner would have been too soon. It would have anticipated repentance, and so have left the erring prophet unreclaimed. It would, in fact, have defeated the object for which the entire disciplinary course had been adopted. It could not therefore occur in a divinely ordered life history. God’s providence never counterworks his scheme of grace. The one is adjusted to the other. His backsliding Jonahs are converted before his disciplinary whales vomit them forth. See you to the repentance, and God will see to your relief. Refining silver, at a certain stage the molten metal becomes for an instant so still and bright that the refiner can see his image in it as in a glass. And this, it is said, is the moment to pour it out, to anticipate which or delay beyond it is to spoil the whole experiment. In the visitations of his hand, God sits, we read, “as a refiner and purifier of silver,” to “purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver” (Ma Jon 3:3). No fear that he will spoil the process by taking you out of the fire a single moment out of date. He will keep you under discipline till he sees his image in your purified soul, and in that moment precisely will remove his hand.
“He that from dross would win the precious ore,
Bends o’er the crucible an earnest eye,
The subtle searching process to explore,
Lest the one brilliant moment should pass by
When, in the molten silver’s virgin mass,
He meets his pictured face as in a glass.
“Thus in God’s furnace are his people tried,
Thrice happy they who to the end endure.
But who the fiery trial may abide?
Who from the crucible come forth so pure
That he whose eyes of flame look through the whole
May see his image perfect in the soul?”
(J. Montgomery)
HOMILIES BY W.G. BLAIKIE
Jon 2:1-7
De profundis: distress and prayer.
“Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly,” etc. Unexampled position of Jonahno details given, and hints somewhat obscure; evidently he retained measure of consciousness, but for how long we know notseems to have been conscious of moving through the water before being swallowed by the fishmiracle of his preservation corresponds to that of the three Hebrews in the furnace (Dan 3:27), or of the burning bush (Exo 3:2, Exo 3:3)element of apparent destruction becomes supernaturally element of preservationthis record of his feelings composed after his deliverancea record of the conflict of sight and faithto sight, the situation desperatefaith pierces to the unseen, finds support, and finally triumphs. The prayer is a singular combination of midnight darkness and noonday light.
I. THE SITUATION. Described in many expressions, some of awful intensity: “By reason of mine affliction;” “out of the belly of hell;” “in the deep, in the midst of the seas;” “The floods compassed me about, all thy billows and thy waves passed over me;” “out of thy sight;” “The depths closed me round about, the weeds were wrapt about my head;” “I went down to the bottom of the mountains, the earth with her bars were about me forever.” Situation seemed absolutely hopelessphysical surroundings the most frightful ever knowneach, too, appeared a token of Divine displeasureapparently as little hope for the soul as for the body.
II. ITS SOURCEFROM GOD. For it was not a chance that had befallen Jonah; it was all God’s doing: “Thou hadst cast me into the deep; all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.” God had pursued him ever since he turned his back on him; raised the storm against him; caused the lot to fall on him; cast him into the deep; entombed him in the fish; shut him up, as it were, in despair. Yet he utters no word of reproach; God is justified when he speaks, and clear when he judges (Psa 51:4).
III. CONSTERNATION OF HIS SOUL. The first effect was to paralyze him. “I said, I am cast out of thy sight;” “My soul fainted within me.” Horrors of his situation unexampled, escape impossible; shut up a helpless prey to the most appalling forms of destructionOmnipotence itself crushing him: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
IV. THE DAWN. “When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord.” The darkest hour of night is that which precedes the dawnout of the very depths of helplessness and desolation faith begins to rise. Far more beautiful than the fabled sight when the goddess of beauty rose from the ocean foam is the sight of Jonah’s faith rising from the depths, both literal and spiritual. The moment of utter helplessness is often the turning point in spiritual experienceat first, in justification (Rom 3:19, Rom 3:21), afterwards in recovery from backsliding (Hos 2:14), and in sanctification (Rom 5:20).
“Nothing in my hand I bring;
Simply to thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to thee for dress;
Helpless, look to thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die!”
1. In “remembering God,” Jonah recognized him as “the Lord his God;” his by national covenant, by personal choice (the fruit of Divine grace), and by his prophetic call and consecration; his, though he had attempted to flee from his presence, for does he not say, “Turn, O backsliding Israel, and I will heal your backsliding” (Jer 3:12, Jer 3:22)? The God who first chose him in all his unworthiness must have an interest in him still. So the psalmist cried; so Jesus afterwards in the like spirit, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
2. He looked towards God’s temple. Why? Because of the promise virtually given to Solomon (1Ki 8:38). He builds on God’s word, “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope” (Psa 119:49). He thinks of the temple, the sacred ark, the mercy seat, the overshadowing cherubims, the promise to Moses, “There I will meet with you, and I will commune with you from above the mercy seat” (Exo 25:22). He takes hold of thissteadies his soul upon itshaking off the impression of his horrible surroundings, and enters into peace. What a change!the belly of hell turned into the gate of heaven, the how! of despair changed into the hallelujah of delight.
See here an encouragement to spirit of faithin Jonah all lights extinguished except faithin lowest depths, “let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.” Even when we are the authors of our own troubles, when we are in the depths by reason of sin, nil desperandum! “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help.”W.G.B.
Jon 2:2-10
Triumph, thanksgiving.
“And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice,” etc. This is one of the most striking instances in all Scripture of the benefit of believing prayer.
“Lord, what a change within us one short hour
Spent in thy presence will prevail to make!
What heavy burdens from our bosom take!
What parched lands refresh as with a shower!
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;
We rise, and all, the distant and the near,
Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear.
We kneel, how weak; we rise, how full of power!
Why therefore should we do ourselves this wrong,
That we are ever overborne with care?
That we should ever weak or heartless be,
Anxious or troubled, when with us in prayer,
And joy, and strength, and courage, are with thee?”
(Trench)
In the brighter part of Jonah’s prayer we notice his
I. GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF PRAYER AS ANSWERED. (Verses 2, 7) Happy effect of certainty as to this. There are grounds for such certainty:
1. When prayer is offered trustfully, poured as lute the ear of a Father, who has promised to hear such prayer. Answer to be expected, since God is true and never can deceive us.
2. When the evil dreaded is actually averted, or the benefit asked is sent. Unbelief says it would have been so at any rate; faith says, “My prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.”
3. When the heart is filled with a sense of the goodness and love of God and his trustworthiness even before the answer comes, it may be felt that the prayer is heard. Confidence in God as Hearer of prayer is a most valuable Christian grace ever associated with deep humilityinfinitely removed from presumption and boasting.
II. HUMBLE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF PAST GUILT AND FOLLY. (Verse 8) “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.” This is what he had done. Human devices contrary to will of God are “lying vanities;” empty, they bring no satisfaction; lying, they promise peace and safety, but bring misery and horrible troubles. So Eve found, so Pharaoh, so Israel when they went after ways of heathen. So Jonah himself. So all who forsake Fountain of living waters and hew out to themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. Worldly devices to get happiness apart from God are indeed “vanity of vanities.” Soul of man cannot be satisfied with husks. For God’s servants to follow them is to forsake their own mercy. It is for prodigal son to change father’s house for society of rioters and harlots: “Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about” (Psa 32:10). The way of duty is ever the way of safety, peace, and comfort; neglected duty is a sure forerunner of trouble; an evil conscience can never be the harbinger of sweet content.
III. PUBLIC EXPRESSION OF THANKSGIVING AND CONSECRATION. (Verse 9) Sacrificethanksgivingvows. This is to be done openly and publicly at the proper place. No concealment by Jonah of what had taken place. He would at once proclaim his own guilt, and declare himself a monument of God’s grace. Genuine repentance carries spirit of self-abasement, conscious indebtedness to Godeagerness to be more consecrated to him. The spring of this feeling”salvation is of the Lord.” God’s saving mercy keeps alive in redeemed hearts the sense of infinite obligation, and prompts to every suitable recognition. No other spiritual dynamic like thisall active obedience, all the labour of love, all patient endurance spring from this; whatever our mercies, we have the duty of grateful remembrance of them. and active consecration to God in connection with them. Jonah is disentombed (verse 10). “And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.” At length the purpose of the chastisement is served, therefore it is removed. The great fish continues under God’s control, and having carried Jonah safely through the deep, deposits him on the dry land. “As you see the foamy track the creature leaves behind gradually melting into the quiet green of the sea; as you turn and look at the prophet, washing himself from the filth of his living grave, and then standing upon the shore, inhaling the fresh breeze, rejoicing in heaven’s blessed light, andto prove and feel himself alive, to make sure that all was not a dreamshouting, perhaps, in a loud voice, ‘Salvation is of the Lord,’ say, ‘God helping me, I shall never despair. Never. For! see that the heaviest judgment may ripen into mercy. The darkest night may have a morning. The deepest grave has a resurrection portal. A voyage wrapped in whirling storm, and horrible with engulfing dangers, may yet end in safety on a sunny shore'” (Raleigh). Jonah a sign:
1. To the Ninevites. His history a twofold picture lesson to them.
(1) Of the consequence of spurning the authority of the God of the Hebrews; for he is no local deity, but Lord of earth and sea, of all creatures and all their actions, and has showed he could signally punish and humble Jonah on the very element to which he had betaken himself for safety from this God. It was before this God the iniquities of Nineveh had come. How must he view these?
(2) Of the pardoning, restoring, and preserving mercy of God to the penitentGod not inexorableif Nineveh should repent, it, like Jonah, would experience God’s mercy.
2. To the men of Christ‘s generation.
(1) In his humiliation. The Jews asked of Christ a sign (Mat 12:40)some great display of power in the heavens. He refused; the only sign to be given would be precisely opposite, viz. that of Jonaha sign not in heaven, but beneath the surface of the earth. As Jonah suffered humiliation for his own sin, so Jesus would suffer humiliation for the sin which he bore. Reality of his Messiahship was to be shown in his death and burial, and continuing for the same period as Jonah under the power of death. Divine, saving power of Jesus is connected with his humiliation as Sin bearer. As if Jesus had said, ‘The signs which are to discover themselves in me are to grow darker, and not brighter: they are to be derived, not from the heavens above, but from the depths beneathfrom the very chamber of the dead; yet am I not less on that account the Ambassador of Heaven; yea, surpassing Jonah in the depth of my humiliation, I still more surpass him in the dignity of my character; and the inhabitants of the heathen city, which repented at his preaching, will assuredly rise up in judgment to condemn the impenitent of this generation'” (Fairbairn).
(2) In his exaltation. This view is rather implied than expressed by our Lord. Jonah escaping from the fish is a type of Christ rising from the dead. The Ninevites were moved to repentance by means of the type; they must have heard Jonah’s history and been greatly impressed by it. The Jews had the antitypethe literal resurrection of Christ from the dead, but were not moved by it. Herein is a great lesson for alllisten to the Divine Messenger, who liveth and was dead, and is alive forever, and hath the keys of hell and of death! “Though our Lord’s pointing to the sign of Jonah, with the assurance that no other would be given them, might at first seem to betoken only trouble and disaster to his mission, yet the more thoughtful and discerning minds would not fail to discover, on further reflection, that there was also couched under it a promise of encouragement and success far beyond anything that had hitherto appeared. He was to become to the world the sign that Jonah was to Nineveh only when he entered on the resurrection life, and in his Name repentance and remission of sins were preached to the people. And hence the great stress laid upon the fact of the resurrection by the first heralds of the gospel, and the wonderful effect produced by it upon those who heard them, not simply on account of the proof it afforded of the truth of Christ’s pretensions to be the Son of God, but also, and still more, for the impressive attestation, the living witness it gave of the placability of God, and of the holy earnestness of his desire that sinners would repent and live. Precisely as in the case of Jonah, though in a manner unspeakably more solemn and affecting, the things that had befallen Jesus and the condition in which he now presented himself through his ambassadors to the people, were seen to be a singular and most magnificent provision of love on the part of God to reach their consciences, and to avert, ere it might be too late, the doom of condemnation which Divine justice had suspended over their heads” (Fairbairn).W.G.B.
HOMILIES BY G.T. COSTER
Jon 2:2
The value of affliction (as seen in Jonah’s prayer).
It:
1. Brings the man to himself. To soul consciousness, to God consciousness. When “in the shadow of a great affliction, the soul sits dumb.” Chastened, he feels his need of chastisement, and knows from whom it comes. “Thy waves;” “thy billows.”
2. Brings the consolation of Scripture to the man. From various psalms of sorrow (now remembered) Jonah quotes. By sorrow he enters into the sorrows of others. Affliction “opens up the mine of Scripture, before seen only on the surface.”
3. Brings the man to God. He “cries” to him. He comes to him. He feels that “sorrow’s crown of sorrow” is in being “cast out of God’s sight.”
4. Brings the assurance of salvation to the man. Thus, divinely blest, affliction is good. The soul, then, triumphant over trouble, can exclaim, “Salvation is of the Lord;” “O Lord my God.”G.T.C.
Jon 2:8
Lying vanities.
1. Vanities. Vanities are vain thingsthings that deceive. Such are idols. All things are idols that men trust out of God. Jonah had his idolit was his false love for his country. How many idols!ambition, pride, strength, wealth, influence, self, self-will. And men observe them as gods. But they are all “lying.” They deceive. Their promises fail. One only is “faithful who has promised” us happiness.
2. The consequence of observing these lying vanities. Men who observe them “forsake their own mercy.” How much they leave! Mercy! It is to all; but not to all alike. “Their own.” In turning to any idol, men forsake God, “whose property is always to have mercy.”G.T.C.
Jon 2:9
Thankfulness.
“Thankfulness opens the door of mercy, sets God’s goodness free to be good to us, prepares us to receive blessing.” It should be cultivated. It should be expressed. “The voice of thanksgiving.” Jonah was thankful. He had strong reason indeed to be. He paid the vows he had made. “Be ye thankful.” Every mercy is an incentive to thankfulness. And God’s mercies, “new every morning and repeated every evening,” and pauseless in their coming, “cannot be reckoned up.” And all crowned by the gift of Christ. “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable Gift.” “Thanksgiving is thanksliving.”
“Let never day nor night unhallow’d pass,
But still remember what the Lord hath done,”
G.T.C.
HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND
Jon 2:7
The prophet’s prayer.
The contrast which Jonah depicts between his own conduct and that of the heathen with whom he came in contact is very unfavourable to himself. He appears as a coward fleeing from his duty, and cruel enough to prefer that the Ninevites should be destroyed rather than that his accuracy should be impugned. But the idolatrous sailors prayed in the storm as best they could, and they were humane enough to try to save him, even after they had been told to cast him overboard (Jon 1:13). It is not only noteworthy that Jonah wrote thus, but also that a book which compared a Jew so disadvantageously with the heathen should have been preserved by the Jewish people, who were notoriously proud and bigoted. Describe the event narrated in the preceding chapter. Point out the use our Lord made of it to typify his own death and resurrection. Pass on to apply the prophet’s experience to what is represented by it among ourselves.
I. THE NEGLECT OF APPOINTED SERVICE IS A SIN. The command given to Jonah was plain enough, but he wilfully disobeyed it. Some of the excuses he may have made to conscience may be profitably suggested.
1. “I have already done my share of service; let another undertake this.“ He had faithfully conveyed his message to King Amaziah, and had doubtless proved his fidelity on other occasions, but he shrank from this new summons from God. Past service does not relieve us of present responsibilities. The indolence or the failure of others will not justify us in ignoring duty.
2. “It is useless to preach to the Ninevites; they would laugh me to scorn.“ Ignorant of the true God as they were, it certainly was hardly to be expected that they would humble themselves before him at the bidding of a stranger preaching in their streets. Yet often those we deem to be the most hopeless are the most ready to listen. Even if they were not, it is at our peril that we refuse to obey a God-given impulse to speak to them.
3. “These Ninevites are the foes of my country; let one of their own citizens be raised up to warn them.“ National hostility and personal prejudice have done much to hinder God’s work in all ages.
II. SUCH SIN IN GOD‘S PEOPLE IS FOLLOWED BY CHASTISEMENT.
1. Chastisement does not always follow sin. Sometimes it precedes and prevents it. Paul’s thorn in the flesh was sent, not because he was exalted above measure, but lest he should be. But often an affliction is intended to bring a sinner to a right state of mind about sin already committed.
2. Chastisement gives us time to think. Jonah acted on impulse, and hurriedly fled to Joppa. When cast into the sea he imagined that all was over with him; but when he was miraculously preserved he had opportunity to reflect on his own wrong doing and on God’s marvellous mercy. So the ill health which prevents work, the family affliction which keeps us within doors, the failure which sets us free from an accustomed sphere,give us time to think of neglected duties and to recover strength by prayer.
3. In chastisement God is near. Jonah felt that he was not beyond Divine help. “My prayer came in unto thee.” Compare Peter in prison, and Paul in the storm, and John in Patmos, and Bunyan in jail. Listen to the words of Bradford, “I thank God more of this prison and of this dark dungeon than of any parlour, yea, than of any pleasure ever I had; for in it I find God, my sweet God always.” Jonah was cast out as Adam was from Paradise, and as Job was from his home, that he might learn, through prayer, to suffer and be strong.
III. CHASTISEMENT, RIGHTLY RECEIVED, BRINGS ABOUT REPENTANCE.
1. In order to this it was necessary for Jonah to recognize God‘s hand in this event. He felt it was not the result of chance nor of human action. Hence he does not say, “The sailors cast me into the deep,” but “thou” (verse 3); nor does he speak of “the waves and billows of the sea,” but “thy billows and thy waves“ (verse 3). We too must learn to look beyond second causes, such as an unfortunate step or a man’s injustice, and see God as the Disposer of all events.
2. This thought led Jonah to true repentence. He did not despair, although there seemed no hope of deliverance. He did not pray to be delivered from danger, but earnestly thanks God for his rescue from the sea, and praised him in the belly of the whale that he had been so good and merciful. The reality of his repentance was shown in this, that he gratefully and bravely did the work he had formerly refused. His vow made in trouble was faithfully kept. Pliny advised one who wished to please the gods to be the same when well as he had vowed to be when sick. A lesson for us.
IV. SUCH REPENTANCE UNDER CHASTISEMENT LEADS TO ACCEPTABLE PRAYER. His prayer shows that he had not given up hope, that he still believed that Jehovah was his God, and would do what was best with him. Strangely and soon the prayer was answered.
CONCLUSION. We may obtain mercy as Jonah did. We may find that the very instrument of death becomes the preserver of life, as the great fish proved an ark of safety to Jonah; and as he was cast upon the shore, so a trouble may cast us on the shore of duty, and death will cast us on the shore of heaven.A.R.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Jon 2:1. Then Jonah prayed, &c. The following prayer was conceived and formed, as to substance, in the belly of the fish, and probably afterwards digested and written in its present mode; a thanksgiving for his deliverance being added at the end of it. Houbigant very properly reads the verbs in the following verse in the present tense, because, says he, Jonah is said to pray when in the belly of the fish. By the belly of hell, is meant the lowest parts of the deep, or place which was to Jonah as the grave.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
CHAPTER 2
[Jonahs Hymn of Thanksgiving and Praise for his Deliverance from the Bowels of Fish.C.E.]
1Now [And] the Lord [Jehovah] had prepared1 [appointed] a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
2And Jonah prayed to Jehovah his God from the bowels of the fish and said,
3I cried to Jehovah out of my distress:
And He answered me:
Out of the womb of Sheol2 I cried:
Thou heardest my voice.
4Thou castedst me into the deep,3
Into the heart of the seas;
And the stream4 surrounded me;
All thy breakers and thy billows passed over me.
5And I said: I am cast out from before thine eyes;
Yet I will look again towards thy holy temple.
6Waters encompassed me even to the soul:5
The abyss surrounded me;
Sea-weed6 was bound to my head.
7I went down to the foundations7 of the mountains;
The earthher bars were behind me forever:
And thou didst raise my life from the pit, Jehovah, my God.
8When my soul fainted8 within me,
I remembered Jehovah:
And my prayer came to Thee,
Into thy holy temple.
Those observing lying vanities
Forsake their own mercy.9
10But as for me, I will sacrifice to thee
With the voice of thanksgiving.
What I have vowed I will perform.
Salvation10 belongs to Jehovah.
11And Jehovah spake to the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry land.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Jon 2:1-2. The Crisis. [In the English Version Jon 2:1 forms the conclusion of the preceding chapter. In the original Hebrew it is the opening verse of chap. 2.C. E.]
The narrative says nothing of the kind of fish that swallowed Jonah; it attaches no importance to the question. Inutilis inquisitio. (Marck.) The Septuagint and the New Testament (Mat 12:40), translate it by the indefinite word , a sea monster; compare Bocharti Hierozoicon, 1.1, 7; 2:5,12. [Suidas following lian: , , , , , .] Still more general [than ] is the feminine form , which occurs in Jon 2:2, instead of , and which is used everywhere else (also in Deu 4:18) as a collective noun.
(The opinion of Izchakis that Jonah was first swallowed by a male fish, and that because he did not pray in it, he was vomited up and swallowed by a female one, in which his situation was more confined, and that from this circumstance he was driven to prayer, deserves mention at best as a curious and warning example of the absurdity to which adherence to the letter may lead in exegesis).
One may suppose the fish to have been the shark or sea-dog, Canis carcharias, or Squalus carcharias, L., which is very common in the Mediterranean, and has so large a throat, that it can swallow a living man whole. (Keil). It could hardly be the whale, as Luther thinks, for these two conditions [being common in the Mediterranean, and having a large throatC. E.]. do not meet in it. The cachalot also, mentioned by Quandt, is not found in the Mediterranean.
[Dr. Pusey, in his introduction to Jonah, quotes largely from modern works on zology and natural history, to prove that the Canis carcharias can easily swallow a man whole. He states on the authority of Blumenbach, that it has been found of the size of 10,000 pounds and that horses have been found whole in its stomach. In all modern works on zology, says Dr. Pusey, quoting from Lacepde, Hist, des Poissons, we find thirty feet given as a common length for a sharks body. Now a sharks body is usually only about eleven times the length of the half of its lower jaw. Consequently, a shark of thirty feet would have a lower jaw of nearly six feet in its semicircular extent. Even if such a jaw as this was of hard bony consistence, instead of a yielding carti laginous nature, it would qualify its possessor for engulfing one of our species most easily. This power, which it has by virtue of its cartilaginous skeleton, of stretching, bending, and yielding, enables us to understand how the shark can swallow entire animals as large or larger than ourselves.C. E.]
There is nothing in the original word, , which at all suggests the idea of creation or production. All that can be legitimately inferred from its use in this place, is, that in the providence of God, the animal was brought to the spot at the precise time when Jonah was thrown into the sea, and its instrumentality was wanted for his deliverance. (Henderson, On Jonah.) The fact here stated is the great stone of stumbling and rock of offense to that class of critics who deny the existence of miracles. We need have no special sympathy with their perplexities or their stumbling; for there can be no good reason for rejecting miracles. Besides in this case, our divine Lord distinctly recognizes the presence of miracles by saying that Jonah was a sign, i. e., a man in whom miracles were manifested It is not necessarily a miracle that a great fish should swallow a man. There are several varieties that are capable of swallowing a man whole, for they have done it. But that a man should live three days and three nights, or indeed one hour, in the belly of a fish, must be a miracle. (Cowles, On Jonah.) C. E.]
Jonah lives three days and three nights in the inside, literally in the bowels of the fish. Three days and three nights is a current Hebrew expression, which does not describe, with chronological exactness, the space of seventy-two hours, but corresponds to our mode of designating time by such phrases as the day after to-morrow, the day before yesterday. (1Sa 30:1; comp. 1Sa 2:12, Est 4:16; comp. Est 5:1; Mat 12:40.)
[The three days and three nights are not to be regarded as three times twenty [four] hours, but are to be interpreted according to Hebrew usage, as signifying that Jonah was vomited up again on the third day after he had been swallowed. (Comp. Est 4:16 with Est 5:1, and Tob 3:12-13 according to the Lutheran text.) (Keil and Delitzsch, On Jonah.C. E.]
[Jon 2:2. The prayer which follows (Jon 2:2-9) is not a petition for deliverance, but thanksgiving and praise for deliverance already received. It by no means follows from this however, that Jonah did not utter this prayer till after he had been vomited upon the land, and that Jon 2:10 ought to be inserted before Jon 2:2; but as the earlier commentators have shown, the fact is rather this: that when Jonah had been swallowed by the fish, and found that he was preserved alive in the fishs belly, he regarded this as a pledge of his deliverance, for which he praised the Lord.
Luther also observes that he did not actually utter these very words with his mouth, and arrange them in this orderly manner, in the belly of the fish; but that he here shows what the state of his mind was, and what thoughts he had when he was engaged in this conflict with death. The expression his God [] must not be overlooked. He prayed not only to Jehovah, as the heathen sailors also did (Jon 1:14), but to Jehovah as his God, from whom he had tried to escape, and whom he now addresses again as his God, when in peril of death. He shows his faith by adoring Him as his God. (Burk:) The prayer consists for the most part of reminiscences of passages in the Psalms, which were so exactly suited to Jonahs circumstances, that he could not have expressed his thoughts and feelings any better in words of his own. It is by no means so atomically compounded from passages in the Psalms that there is any ground for pronouncing it a later production which has been attributed to Jonah, as Knobel and De Wette do; but it is the simple and natural utterance of a man versed in Holy Scripture and living in the word of God, and is in perfect accordance with the prophets circumstances and the state of his mind. (Keil and Delitzsch, On Jonah.)C. E.]
[Some of the Rabbins, Hezel and others, would argue from the use of , from, out of, and not , in, before that the prayer of Jonah was not presented while he was in the belly of the fish, but after his deliverance; but this interpretation is justly rejected, both by Aben Ezra and Kimchi. The preposition marks the place from which he directed his thoughts to the Most High. (Henderson, On Jonah.)C. E.]
Jon 2:3-10. The prayer of Jonah, which is not a supplicatory, but a thanksgiving prayer, is in this place to be understood only from the design of the book (compare the Introduction, 3, pp. 6, 7). Also what Keil, following the early interpreters, observes, has its truth only from the point of view, that when Jonah had been swallowed by the fish and had found that he was preserved in its belly, he regarded this as a pledge of his future complete deliverance, and for this thanked the Lord. Considered in a purely historical light [Bei rein historischem Verstndniss], it might be said that the prolongation of life in this manner [in the fishs belly] would rather awaken the idea of a much more loathsome death than drowning, and hence the accompanying feeling must have been, not that of thanksgiving, but of painful uncertainty. Moreover, something at least would have been said in the prayer, of that intermediate idea of a pledge; but no trace of it is to be found.
The structure of this hymn, composed after the manner of the Psalms and filled with reminiscences of passages from them, falls into three strophes, namely Jon 2:4 f. Jon 2:6 f. Jon 2:8; which are set in the frame of a brief exordium and of a conclusion summing up the whole in an aphorism and a vow, Jon 2:9 f. Each of these strophes represents a degree in the ascent from distress to deliverance; so that strophe 1 advances to hope; strophe 2 to deliverance; and strophe 3 stops on this eminence Compare, concerning the form and kind of prayer, the Introduction, p. 8.
Jon 2:3. The brief preamble: I cried out of the distress which was upon me, to Jehovah, and He answered me. Comp. Psa 116:1 f. With trifling variations, which very naturally occur in quotations from memory (Goldhorn), it resembles Psa 120:1, which has , whereas this verse with the same periphrastic suffix reads, . The parallel: Out of the womb of Sheol I cried: Thou heardest my voice. That the expression womb of Sheol is figurative, is proved by its parallelism to . Sheol in the language of the Psalms, is often used for the inevitable peril of death: compare the way to perdition, Pro 7:27. To ascribe to it a belly or a womb, as at other times a mouth (Psa 61:7), or jaws (Isa 5:14), was certainly hot indicated by the situation as the act of Jonah, who describes something past and not present, but was done by the narrator, who produces the prayer. (Compare Luthers observation, in the Introd., p. 8).
The alleged mechanical compilation of this prayer from passages in the Psalms reduces itself also here to involuntary reminiscences of isolated expressions found in them. (Comp. Psa 130:2; Psa 28:1 ff.) [Comp. Psa 120:1 with Jon 2:3; Psa 42:8 with Jon 2:4; Psa 31:23 with Jon 2:5; Psa 142:4 with Jon 2:8; Psa 31:7 with Jon 2:9; Ps. 3:9 with Jon 2:10.11 Henderson On Jonah.C. E.]
Strophe I., Jon 2:4-5.
Jon 2:4 is an enlarged picture of the painful situation that he experienced. The connection indicated by conjunctive, is not so close as to prevent the verb from being rendered in the pluperfect. Yea, thou hadst cast me into the abyss, into the midst of the seas (comp. Psa 46:3): and thy streams surrounded me; all thy billows and waves went over me (Psa 88:7 f.; Psa 69:2 ff). These are frequent images of the deepest misery, which, in this instance, receive, from the situation, a particularly impressive character, and give the key to the understanding of the symbolism of the whole narrative. In Jonah overwhelmed by the waves, Israel, whose frame of mind is exhibited in Psalms 88, is again represented. The state of heart required by God for deliverance, a state produced by faith, which, in the deepest distress, rests upon the word and promise of God, and which, contrary to all external experience, does not relinquish its confidence in invisible things, which are the objects of hope in our present condition, is exquisitely described by the brief antithetic contrast in Jon 2:5 : And I said (comp. Psa 30:7) I am cast out from before thine eyesthe gracious experience of thy favor(Isa 34:16; Psa 31:23), yet surely [, a particle of strong opposition, of decided contrast (Isa 14:15)] I will look again toward Thy holy temple, for which Israel, in his forlorn condition, ardently longs (Psa 42:5). Compare a similar flash of hope in the night of suffering, in Job 19:22 ff. [Green would supply the negative before , and Hitzig would point , for , how; but both without any authority. Such sudden transitions from fear to hope are frequently expressed in Scripture. (Henderson On Jonah.)C. E.]
[The thought that it is all over with him is met by the confidence of faith that he will still look to the holy temple of the Lord, that is to say, will once more approach the presence of the Lord, to worship before Him in his temple,an assurance which recalls Psa 5:8 (7).
The figure of bolts of the earth that were shut behind Jonah, which we only meet with here (, from the phrase , to shut the door behind a person: Gen 7:16; 2Ki 4:4-5; 2Ki 4:33; Isa 26:20), has an analogy in the idea which occurs in Job 38:10, of bolts and doors of the ocean. The bolts of the sea are the walls of the sea-basin, which set bounds to the sea, that it cannot pass over. Consequently the bolts of the earth can only be such barriers as restrain the land from spreading over the sea. These barriers are the weight and force of the waves, which prevent the land from encroaching on the sea. This weight of the waves, or of the great masses of water, which pressed upon Jonah when he had sunk to the bottom of the sea, shut or bolted against him the way back to the earth (the land) just as the bolts that are drawn before the door of a house, fasten up the entrance into it; so that the reference is neither to the rocks jutting out above the water, which prevented any one from ascending from the sea to the land, nor densissima terr compages, qua abyssus tecta Jonam in hoc constitutum occludebat. (Marck), Keil and Delitzsch.C. E.]
Strophe II., Jon 2:6-7.
The picture receives again a deeper shade, in view of the misery which he experienced.
Jon 2:6. Waters encompassed me (Psa 18:5) even to the soul (Psa 69:2): the abyss surrounded me; seaweed was wound around my breast,all individual and independent statements descriptive of his situation.
[, even to, or to the very soul, i. e. the animal life; meaning to the extinction of life. is the alga, or weed, which abounds at the bottom of the sea, and from which the Arabian gulf takes the name of , the sea of weeds. Kimchi explains it by , the papyrus, or bulrush. Gesenius refines too much when he attaches to in this place the idea of binding round the head like a turban. Assuredly Jonah had no such idea in his mind. He rather describes how he felt, as if entangled by the sedge or weeds through which he was dragged. (Henderson, On Jonah.)C. E.]
Jon 2:7. To the extremities, i. e., to the foundations of the mountains, which lie deep under the sea (Psa 104:4 (3); Psa 18:16 (15)), I dived down; the earth her barsthe beams with which her foundation structure is fastened (Psa 104:5)were around me [Hitzig: behind me; then I seemed, thrust out from the land of the living, (Jer 11:19)] for ever; so thought the sinking prophet; for present sufferings and the perils of death made, upon his mind the impression of the everlasting and the inevitable (Psa 13:2 (1)). Thou didst raise my life from the pit (, as in Job 17:14), Jehovah my God (Psa 30:4 (3)).
Strophe III.
Jon 2:8. Casts once more a glance upon his affliction: When my soul (Psa 142:4) fainted to dying (Psa 42:5) within me; in order to include with it directly the deliverance: Jehovah (a beautiful inversion) I remembered (Psa 42:7 (6)), and my prayer came to Thee into Thy holy temple, from which prayers are heard (Psa 18:7 (6)).
The conclusion (Jon 2:9-10) places in an antithetic manner, which is of frequent occurrence in the Psalms, the vow of the pious man, who, through divine grace, has resolved to lead a new life, in contrast with the destruction of the ungodly, whom God does not deliver.
Jon 2:9. Those who observe lying vanitiesthe Piel of like the Hithpael (Mic 6:16), for the intensive degree of the Kal significationforsake their own mercy. The reference to the heathen sailors, which the earlier interpreters, almost without exception, give to this verse, is, according to the description of them in the first chapter, certainly altogether unauthorized. The thought is entirely general, but (from the scope of the whole) with parenetical, secondary application to the Israelites, who in calamity did not seek their help in God, but in idols (, comp. Deu 32:21). These apostates come by the short and energetic expression, in harmony with Gen 24:27, into direct opposition to God, who never abandons his mercy. is the gracious condition of the , the pious (Isa 57:1).
[, lit. their mercy, or goodness; by metonymy for their Benefactor, i. e. God, the author and source of all goodness; the supreme good. Comp. Psa 144:2, where David calls God . The word properly signifies kindness or benignity, and most appropriately designates Him who is good to all, and whose tender mercies are over all his works. (Henderson, On Jonah.) So also Keil and Delitzsch and Pusey.C. E.]
Jon 2:10. But I, says Israel, conformably to Psa 50:14, will sacrifice to thee with the voice of thanksgiving. What I have vowed I will pay. With the joyful ascription, salvation belongs to Jehovah, the whole prayer closes, like Psalms 3. That is the salvation, which He will give to his people, after their affliction, at the time of the consummation, looking to which the true Israel, even in the belly of the fish, in the sorrows of banishment and exile, praises Him (Isa 26:2; Isa 25:10; Gen 49:18).
Jonah 2:11. The Deliverance. Jehovah spake to the fish and it vomited up Jonah on dry land. . Cyril. Cocceius, in order to bring the miracle nearer to the natural understanding, refers to the statements of Gregory Nazianzen and Oppian, concerning certain fish, which swallow their young when danger threatens, and vomit them out again. He refers also to the accounts in Pliny and Athenus, that an entire man clad in armor has been found in the belly of a great sea-monster (Pliny, Canicula, Athen. Carcharias). There were found, says Keil, on the authority of Oken (Animal Kingdom, vol. 3 p. 55 ff., 1836), about a dozen of tunny-fish, undigested, in a shark caught in Sardinia; and in another even an entire horse. (This fish can erect and lay its teeth at pleasure, because they are fastened only in the cellular tissue [Hautzellen]). Rondelet says that he has seen one on the west coast of France, through whose throat a fat man could easily pass. In the year 1758, a sailor, during a storm, fell overboard from a frigate into the Mediterranean sea, and was immediately seized by a shark and disappeared. The captain of the vessel caused a cannon, which was standing on the deck, to be discharged at the shark, the ball of which struck it, so that it vomited out the sailor, who was then taken up alive and only a little injured, into a sloop that had come to his assistance, and thus saved. On the other side, Cornelius a Lapide attempts to explain the vomiting, at least, as a natural occurrence produced by the uncomfortableness of the fish. We think that no service is done either to the matter or to the interpretation [Verstndniss] of the book by this rationalizing apologetic attempt (see above, p. 2), and especially in reference to the latter question we are of the opinion of Theodoret, who calls subtle inquiries concerning these things an , a foolish officiousness.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL12
(See above, pp. 5, 6, 9, 10.)
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Eternal Redemption in Time. Introduction.Israel, a prefiguration of Christendom; Jonah, a type of Israel. Comp. Jon 2:8 with 1Ki 8:46 ff.
1. We still wander in the place of imprisonment, 2, 4, 5a, 6, 7ab. [Daily sins and the common guilt of the human race encompass us within and without; our body is an earthly house, in which our immortal part lies shut up; around us is the sighing of the creature, which longs for, the glorious manifestation of the sons of God.]
2. But we are redeemed, Jon 2:3; Jon 2:5 b, 7c10. [The fact is absolute and eternal: the appropriation is effected in time, and that through faith, which is a certain, confident apprehension of that which is still invisible, 5b, 8. Whoever renounces it [faith] has no part in redemption (Jon 2:9). In the service of God we bring that which is eternal into time, and think as if we were perfected; because the beginning of redemption, planted in us, includes within it its completion (Jon 2:3; Jon 2:10).
Jon 2:1. In that which for the moment seems most painful and most insupportable, the gracious hand of our God is often very near to us. Everything which God sends has its fixed time and appointed end; a time not longer than we are able to bear it. Thou who complainest of affliction, hast thou ever thought what grace it is on the part of God that thou art alive?
Jon 2:2. There is no place so desolate and dark that it cannot be turned into a temple of God by the praying saint.
Jon 2:3. There is no failure in Gods answer, but the failure is in calling upon Him. Can we need human mediators, in order to be heard by Him, who hears the voice of him who cries from the bosom of hell? The invocation of saints is a relapse into a practice, that is far below the teachings of the Old Testament.
Jon 2:4. We ought never to forget, that wherever we are, we are placed there by God [wir von Gott dahin gethan sind], and that all the waves and billows that go over us are his waves and billows. In the Old Testament God sends the tempest of the waves and billows. In the New Testament He commands them to be still; in both they are obedient to Him.
Jon 2:5. With the natural man arises first defiance, then despair: with the redeemed man strength is realized out of despair by the power of the spirit. The declarations of faith are all paradoxes and contrasts. Because I suffer, I shall be glorified.
Jon 2:6 ff. If I descend to hell, behold Thou art there. Such is the anguish of the hour of death that one no longer perceives aught of love around him, but all around the head and on every side waters, which go even to the soul, so that the spirit faints within us. Gods temple is near in all places. But whoever speaks of it as Jonah does here, it is evident that he also loves the visible place, where Gods honor dwelleth. Whoever despises this place, to him that truth will not come to remembrance in the time of trouble. The want of the means of grace is not damnable to him only, whose soul does not despise them.
Jon 2:9. Where lying vanities take up their abode in the heart, there is the contempt of God, or there it grows; it is there also where man either makes earthly things Gods, or forms for himself delusive ideas concerning God. Falling from a state of grace, may happen altogether insensibly; but it certainly commences with a divided heart.
Jon 2:10. The history of Jonah is a shadow of future things; he leaves it to the heathen to bring a sacrifice (Jon 1:16), he himself offers thanksgiving.
Jonah 2:11. Turn the prison of the world into the temple of God, and it will not be able to detain thee. God does not leave his saints in hell (Psa 16:10). We are buried with Christ by baptism unto death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4).
Luther: Jon 2:3. Two great and necessary lessons: 1. That we should before all things run speedily to God, and cry to Him in trouble and make our complaints to Him. Canst thou call and cry, then there is no more danger. For even hell would not be hell, nor continue hell, if in it one could call upon and cry to God. Nature of course cannot do otherwise, nor be otherwise, than as it feels. But now while it feels Gods wrath and punishment, if it regards Him as an angry tyrant it cannot rise above such feelings and press through to God. Therefore, since Jonah has gone so far as to cry, he has won. 2. That we also feel in our hearts, that it is such a cry as God will answer. This is nothing else than to call with true faith of heart. For the head does not erect itself, nor do the hands raise themselves, before the heart is raised. What hell is before the last day, I am not positive. That it is a particular place, where lost souls are now constantly kept, as painters portray and as gluttons preach, I do not believe; for the devils are not yet in hell (Eph 6:12; Joh 14:30). Therefore, the Scriptures use the word Sheol with propriety, for the purpose of designating the last agonies of death. But at the last day it will certainly become a different thing.
Jon 2:5. The idea of his being cast out from Gods countenance, has in the first place a reference to his body; for he felt in his heart that he must die; in the second place, to his soul, as if he were eternally cast out from God.
Jon 2:8. The powers and energies of his soul yielded to despair. But that he thinks of the Lord and begins to believe, is not the work of his soul; the spirit and no one else can think of the Lord. When the remembrance of the Lord enters the heart, then a new light arises; then life once more sheds forth its rays; then the heart again receives courage to call; and then too he is certainly heard. In the Old Testament all prayers were required to come to the mercy-seat; so now in the New Testament all prayers must come to Jesus Christ.
Jon 2:9. Jonah reproves in this verse those devoid of understanding, who seek holiness by their own deeds, and hypocrites, who do not trust in Gods grace alone, but in their own works.
Jon 2:10. Where the saints in the Scriptures speak of paying vows and do not express any one [vow] in particular, we must understand the common vow of all, who are Gods people, namely, that we will have no God but Him alone.
Jonah 2:11. Now everything is reversed: that which before tended to death must now tend to life.
Starke: Jon 2:1. God can preserve a man miraculously against the course of nature (1Ki 17:4 ff.).
Jon 2:2. God is not only the God of all believers in general, but also of each one particularly (Psa 63:2).
Jon 2:3. Nothing can better excite a man to gratitude toward God than to consider diligently the trouble and danger from which God has delivered him.
Jon 2:4. It is great misery to lie in the water; but the greatest is to be cast out from God.
Jon 2:5. When we have bodily trouble, it ordinarily so arouses the guilty conscience, that our distress is doubled. In the hour of death Satan is most active with his temptations, and would like to cast us into despair.
Jon 2:6. God, moved by righteous judgment and wise design, often visits with many trials and afflictions of different kinds those who have already exercised true repentance.
Jon 2:7. It is a special, gracious work of the Holy Spirit, if He gives to believers, in the midst of their troubles, not only a good hope of the divine aid, but also strengthens them in the faith, so that they consider it as already actually attained (Exo 14:13; 2Ch 20:13 ff. ).
Jon 2:8. When we come into the pains of death, and our mouth can no longer speak, then should our heart sigh to God.
Jon 2:10. One should keep his vows (Ecc 5:4).
Jonah 2:11. God gives beyond our asking and our understanding. The almighty, hand of God will one day restore to life those who have perished in the waters (Rev 20:13).
Pfaff: Jon 2:4. O, how good it is for the soul to feel the anger of the Lord and to be driven into straits; for thereby it is brought right to God, and its faith is strengthened.
Jon 2:5. A child of God longs for the temple and public service of God, in order to praise the Lord becomingly in the congregation and to be quickened by the mutual prayer of the pious.
Quandt: Our Lord has interpreted to us, in the New Testament, the history contained in this chapter as a prophecy of Him; as a sign of his death, of his descent to Hades, and of his resurrection. On this account this chapter acquires a glory, which the other three have not.
Jon 2:1. If a man should be received unhurt into a fishs body, according to the course of nature he cannot breathe and live a single hour. At all events the Lord wrought a miracle in the case of Jonah; we can in his case altogether dispense with natural history. With many repentance is a mere speculation on the act of bestowing grace,a speculation that fails, when the Lord leads the soul still deeper into judgment or misery. Not so with Jonah.
Jon 2:2. Jonah was very well acquainted with the Psalter and had committed to memory many a prayer of the saints. This was of great advantage to him now, as his prayer shows. There is good reason why a man should come before the throne of the Merciful One, with his own words, instead of set forms. But in times of spiritual drought a manual has also its advantages.
Jon 2:4. With Thou and Thine Jonah clings to the same Divine hand, which punishes him, and therefore this hand must raise him from the deep to a high place.
Jon 2:8. ff. Jonah trusts that God, who had delivered his soul, would now also do the less and save his body. By faith he sees his deliverance as already accomplished, and for that reason promises to God offerings of thanksgiving.
Augustine: Jon 2:1. Jonah prophesied of Christ, not so much by his words as by sufferings; and evidently more clearly than if he had announced his sufferings and resurrection by words.
Marck: God often makes an end of temptation contrary to human expectation (1Co 10:13), and never denies his favor, because He cannot deny Himself (2Ti 2:13).
Lavater: That Jonah could draw breath in the belly of the fish, or receive as much air as he had heed of, was just as possible as that a child can live in its mothers womb.
Burck: Jon 2:2. Wonderful change (Jon 1:6)he made little haste to pray; he suffered himself to be driven to it. Now in the deepest misery he prays not only most earnestly, but most confidently.
Theodoret: Jon 2:3. I, says he, who heretofore thought that thou dwellest only in Jerusalem, and only there revealest thyself to the prophets, found thee present in the belly of the fish, etc.
Burck: We have in this prayer an example of the right use of the Psalter. Even the holy men of God, who were partakers of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, have not refused to appeal to and to cite formally the books of Scripture, which existed already in their time. A strong argument for the authority of the holy Scriptures.
Rieger: We should in this sign consider Jonah particularly as a type of the deep humiliation of the Son of God in the midst of the earth and of his reviving from the dead, that event, whose light ever afterward falls on all the paths of life, otherwise still so deep and dark.
Rieger: To attain good by means of the wrath which one experiences is no small matter. It is as if one were obliged to pass through nothing but spears and swords. Many expressions in the prayer of Jonah are taken from the Psalms. So in similar circumstances something out of the Scriptures will occur, often only after a long time, to the memory of the sufferer.
Rieger: Jon 2:5. What an eternal sting do all our humiliations carry with them, when three days and three nights can become as long to a man as if he were forever isolated.
Burck: Jon 2:7. Here first, in the end of his prayer, Jonah ventures to use the direct and confident address: Jehovah, my God, doubtless with the most heartfelt delight. Before he had humbly and anxiously abstained from it.
Hieronymus: Jon 2:9. Those who not merely practice vanity (for all is vanity, therefore all practice it), but observe it as if they loved it and found a treasure in it.
Schmieder: Jon 2:10. All help comes from the Lord, even where He helps through means; therefore we should not trust in the means, whether things or persons, but in the Lord, and thank Him first for all help.
Jonah 2:11. The instinct of beasts can be controlled by the will of God. (Comp. Dan 6:22.)
Schlier: What was likely to be the effect upon Jonah, who experienced such a miraculous interposition on the part of his God ! What was likely to be the effect upon others, who heard of it, for the report of the miracle soon spread abroad. Even the heathen fables know something of it. [In the poem, Cassandra, ascribed to Lycophron, and in a fragment of the logographer Hellenicus, cited by the Scholiasts on Homers Iliad, 20:145, it is related, that Hercules delivered Hesione by entering into the belly of a sea-monster, to which she was exposed, whose entrails he tore in pieces and came out again in safety; and the church fathers state that the myth ascribes to his stay in the monsters belly three days continuance.]
[Calvin: 9 (10.) It must be noticed here that the worship of God especially consists in praises, as it is said in Psalms 1 : for there God shows that he regards as nothing all sacrifices, except they answer this endto set forth the praise of his name. It was indeed his will that sacrifices should be offered to Him under the law; but it was for the end just stated; for God cares not for calves and oxen, for goats and lambs; but his will was that He should be acknowledged as the Giver of all blessings. Hence He says there sacrifice to me the sacrifice of praise.
Matthew Henry: Jon 2:2. No place is amiss for prayer. I will that men pray everywhere: wherever God casts us we may find a way open heavenward, if it be not our own fault.
Jon 2:10. Jonahs experience shall encourage others, in all ages, to trust in God, as the God of their salvation: all that read this story, shall say it with assurance, say it with admiration, that salvation is of the Lord, and is sure to all that belong to Him.
Pusey: 7 (8). But when it came to the utmost, then he says, I remembered the Lord, as though, in the intense thought of God then, all his former thought of God had been forgetfulness. So it is in every strong act of faith, of love, of prayer; its former state seems unworthy of the name faith, love, prayer. It believes, loves, prays, as though all before had been forgetfulness.
Jon 2:9 (10) God seems often to wait for the full resignation of the soul, all its powers and will to Him. Then He can show mercy healthfully, when the soul is wholly surrendered to Him. So on this full confession Jonah is restored.C. E.]
Footnotes:
[1][Jon 2:1., Piel of , does not mean to create, but to allot, to appoint.
[2][Jon 2:3. , out of the womb of the under world. The usual derivation of is from , to ask, to demand; but Gesenius says the true etymology is , cavity, from . Compare the German Hlle, hell, originally the same with Hhle, a hollow, cavern.
[3][Jon 2:4., the deep is denned by the heart of the seasthe deepest part of the ocean.
[4][Jon 2:4., stream, current, floodthe current or tide of the sea. Compare Psa 24:2.
[5][Jon 2:6., even to, or to the very soul, i. e., to the extinction of the animal life.
[6][Jon 2:6., alga, or weed, which abounds at the bottom of the sea, and from which the Arabian Gulf takes the name of , the sea of weeds.
[7][Jon 2:7., sections, cuttings, clefts. Vulgate, extrema montium. Septuagint, . The foundations and roots of the mountains, which lie in the depths of the earth, reaching even to the foundation of the sea. (Compare Psa 18:16).
[8][Jon 2:8., to be in a state of faintness, swoon, from , to cover, to involve in darkness. LXX. .
[9][Jon 2:9., their mercy or goodness, by metonymy for God, the author and source of mercy and goodness. (Compare Psa 144:2.)
[10][ Jon 2:10.Henderson says the paragogic in is intensive; but it is merely a poetical form. Compare Psa 3:3; Psa 80:3. It is appended to nouns for the purpose of softening the termination, without affecting the sense.C. E.]
[11][It must be remembered that Dr. Henderson numbers the last verse of the first chapter as it stands in the English Version, as the first verse of the second chapter. This explanation is necessary in order to understand the references quoted above.C. E.]
[12][Reichsgedanken. See note, p. 20.C. E.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
We have here the prayer which Jonah offered up to the Lord in his dreadful distress. The Lord’s gracious answer also in his deliverance.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Let the Reader here learn, and learn with trembling, that sin will bring trouble even to God’s dear children. So runs the charter in the covenant of grace. Psa 89:30-32 . Learn also, that it is nothing for the most part brings the heart home to God, after departures, but the Lord’s sanctifying affliction. And let the Reader learn moreover, that the greatest of all afflictions, is the thought in those afflictions, that they are the Lord’s. A soul deserted of the Lord, or supposed to be so, is the heaviest of all distresses. It was the sense of this which aggravated the Redeemer’s sorrows. Psa 22:1-2 . But Reader! when you have duly pondered those weighty considerations, look at Jonah again, and behold him in this state as a type of the ever blessed Jesus. None but Jonah, among all the sons of men, ever experienced a state like this. It was none but the Lord Jesus that ever experienced the soul agonies of the garden, and the cross. Of the people there was none with him. Isa 63 . And as Jonah remained here the exact time which the Lord Jesus in after ages remained in the heart of the earth, so Christ expressly declared that this was in Jonah a sign of Jonah’s Lord. Mat 12:39-40 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Renewed Confidence
Jon 2:4
The Prophet is a picture of the backslider, of the man who has somehow failed to fulfil his vows of obedience and loyalty to God. Sometimes it is by reason of cowardice when confronted by duty, as in the case of Jonah; or again, by wilful sin when compelled to choice, as in the case of Judas; or yet again by neglect when enjoined by the necessities of the case as well as by the Divine Word to wholeheartedness, as with Peter, that men depart from God. No experience of life is less disputed than the difficulty of maintaining attitudes of obedience and faithfulness to spiritual vows. There are few who do not continually run the risk or becoming cast-away, and each of us needs grace not only to serve God, but to serve Him with fear. For even in the slightest defection from the plain path of His will, there lurks the certain power of eventually putting infinite distance between the soul and God. It is a solemn fact, too, that God’s love, despite its strength and long-suffering, may eventually be conquered by man’s sin and negligence, of which the beginning may be but trifling and insignificant. Hence the history of Jonah’s fall and repentance is full of meaning to us all.
I. ‘I am cast out of Thy sight’ thus he speaks when he is at last brought by adversity of circumstance to recognize his own mistake. Hitherto he has lost the sense of sin just because he has lost the sense of God, for these two are ever simultaneous processes. The extremity of need into which tie Prophet has been brought has, however, brought him to a knowledge of his sin and has also produced a longing for restoration.
II. The same providential ordering which produces this sense of need and sin also creates hope. The knowledge that God is taking note inspires the wandering soul to say, ‘Yet I will look again’. And here the memory of his former looking to the Lord is an encouraging impulse. Nothing was then seen but mercy and love, pity and pardon. And He is still the unchanged Lord. Jonah has found no evil in God at any time, and past experience assures him of the full welcome which awaits the repentant and returning soul. ‘I will look again,’ for, though far away by his own transgressions, the unfaithful servant is not beyond His help. What courage may we not gather from these words, and from this history of the disobedient messenger! However and wherever we have failed, we need not be hopeless so long as there is in us a God-created consciousness of sin and a willingness to return. The feeblest spark of desire for restoration has been kindled by the fire of His love, and conscience and memory unite in constraining us to ‘look again’ unto Him who is both Author and Finisher of our faith. And His restoring grace is not limited to a sevenfold experience, nor to an experience repeated seventy-fold!
J. Stuart Holden, The Pre-Eminent Lord, p. 171.
References. II. 4. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1813. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iii. p. 172. II. 7. Ibid. vol. iii. p. 179. II. 8. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets, p. 184. J. Duncan, The Pulpit and the Communion Table, p. 307. II. 9. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No. 131. III. Ibid. vol. xliii. No. 2544. III. 1, 2. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. ixi. p. 187. III. 1-10. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scrip-lure Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets, p. 189. III. 4. A. G. Mortimer, One Hundred Miniature Sermons, vol. i. p. 216. III. 4, 5, 10. R. E. Hutton, The Crown of Christ, vol. i. p. 303.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
IV
THE BOOK OF JONAH
Jonah is both the author and the hero of the book by this name. He was the son of Amittai, a reference to whom is also found in 2Ki 14:25 : “He [Jeroboam II] restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath unto the sea of the Arabah, according to the word of Jehovah, the God of Israel, which he spake by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher.” There can be no doubt as to the identity of this Jonah and the one mentioned in Jonah I: I since this name occurs nowhere else as the “son of Amittai, the prophet.” This passage not only accords with Jon 1:1 in giving the father’s name but it also gives us Jonah’s place of residence and the times in which he prophesied. The place of his birth was Gath-hepher, a town in Zebulun (Jos 19:13 ) about three, miles northeast of Nazareth which shows that he was a prophet of the Northern Kingdom. The time in which he lived is clearly shown to be the reign of Jeroboam II, the “Indian Summer” of Israel’s history after the division of the kingdom (2Ki 14:23-29 ).
There are several traditions relating to Jonah. (1) It is claimed by some that “Jonah”‘ means grieving and “Amittai” means true, from which arose the improbable opinion that Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath, whom Elijah raised to life, because of what she said when she received him from the dead (1Ki 17:24 ). (2) It is also supposed by some that Jonah was the boy who attended Elijah into the wilderness. (3) There is another tradition that he was the young man sent to anoint Jehu. (4) And singularly enough, there is the tradition that he was the husband of the Shunammite woman who extended hospitality to Elisha. (5) Respecting his burial place, there is a tradition that he was buried pear Nineveh and another, that he was buried at Gathhepher, his birthplace. It is needless to say that these traditions are without foundation in history but they indicate somewhat the impress of this striking character upon the literature of the world.
There is a reference to this prophecy of Jonah in Tobit 14:4-6; Tobit 14:15, an apocryphal book, in which Nineveh is said to have been overthrown according to this prophecy of Jonah. There are three references to Jonah the prophet in the Koran, viz: In chapter X, p. 157, there is a reference to the repentance of the Ninevites at the preaching of Jonah; in chapter XXXVII, p. 338, there is an account of Jonah’s commission, disobedience, and experience in the sea; in chapter LXVIII, p. 421, there is a reference to his sea experience, God’s mercy to him and his election unto righteousness. In Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities IX, 10:1-2, we have an account of Jonah’s prophecies, both to Jeroboam II and his call and prophecy to Nineveh. He adds several items of detail to the story of Jonah’s extraordinary experience in the sea, giving his objective as Tarsus in Cilicia and the point of landing as the Euxine Sea. There is little weight of authority to these statements but they indicate a conviction as to the historicity of the book of Jonah.
There are three legends that illustrate the extraordinary features of the book of Jonah, viz: (1) Hesione and Hercules, (2) Andromeda and Perseus, and (3) Saint George and the Dragon. These legends, the scenes of which are located on the Mediterranean Sea, reflect, perhaps, the impression made upon the ancient mind by this story of Jonah.
There are several scriptural references to the book, viz: 2Ki 14:25 ; Mat 12:39-41 ; Mat 16:4 ; Luk 11:29-30 , the import of which is that the book is historical and that Jonah is typical of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The purpose of this book is threefold: (1) To teach the bigoted Israelites that salvation is for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews; (2) to give a genuine lesson on repentance, as illustrated, (a) in Jonah, (b) in the Ninevites and (c) lad God himself; (3) to typify Christ. I
The occasion of this prophecy against Nineveh was the moral corruption of the Ninevites, “For their wickedness is come up before me” (Jon 1:1 ). To this, other prophets add their testimony: “Woe to the bloody city I” (Nah 3:1 ). “This is a joyous city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none else besides me” (Zep 2:15 ).
The annals of Assyria are nothing but a register of militarycampaigns, spoilations, and cruelties. Their monuments display men of calm and unmoved ferocity, whose moral and mental qualities are overborne by the faculties of the lower, brutal nature.” LATARD, Nineveh and Babylon , p. 631.
The style of this book is simple, pure Hebrew. The author believed that God prepared everything and the book bears the stamp of a simple, truthful narrative. It is not prophecy, in the strict sense of the word, but history, inserted among the prophets because written by a prophet. There is no moralizing I and no reflection. The tale is told graphically and has quite a dramatic interest, advancing in regular stages to the conclusion, and leaving an impression upon the mind as though its various scenes had been enacted before the eyes of the reader.
The miraculous element of the book is twofold: (1) the physical, (2) the moral. The physical miracles are the experience of Jonah in the sea and the incident of the gourd.
The moral miracle is the salvation of the Ninevites. There are three great doctrines illustrated in the incidents of the book. (1) There is the great doctrine of the resurrection set forth in this book symbolically. No one can doubt this who reads Mat 12:39-41 . (2) There is set forth here in the most dramatic action the great doctrine of genuine repentance. Man and beast together wear the symbols of penitence. (3) There is here illustrated God’s great, forbearing mercy, and loving-kindness. See his forbearance toward wicked Nineveh and his great loving kindness as here displayed toward a lost world.
Nineveh, the great city here referred to, was founded by Nimrod, a descendant of Ham (Gen 10:11 ; Mic 5:6 ), as a colony from Babylon which is proved by the monuments of Assyria. After this simple statement in Genesis the record is silent respecting Nineveh for a long time. The next mention of these people we find in the prophecy of Balaam (Num 24:22 ; Num 24:24 ), that Assyria should carry Israel away captive and the ships from Greece should afflict Assyria. The next reference to Assyria is found in Psa 83:8 which finds its historical reality in 2Ch 20:1-4 . This is an account of Assyria under Shalmaneser II joining with Moab and Ammon against Israel under Jehoshaphat at which time the Israelites were victorious. This is the real beginning of Assyria’s strength and greatness. Her power is now beginning to be felt for the first time in her history. This brings us in the Bible account of Assyria up to the time of Jonah and Jeroboam II, where Nineveh again enters by name on the biblical record. This reappearing of the name Nineveh is incidental, and shows that the Bible does not profess to give an orderly and systematic history of the world. The record here in Jonah says that Nineveh was a “great city.” It was located on the Tigris River and in the shape of a parallelogram, sixty miles around and three days’ journey on a straight line through it. Its walls were sixty feet high, with 1,500 towers, 200 feet high. The walls were broad enough on top to receive three chariots driving side by side. It is almost certain that this city was larger than Babylon, especially if we include in the estimate its suburbs. Jonah calls it “an exceeding great city of three days’ -journey” and with 120,000 infants, all of which indicate that Nineveh was no ordinary city.
Nineveh was destroyed by the combined forces of the Medes and Babylonians, the Median king being Cyaxares and the city was complete. Xenophon with 10,000 Greeks passed by it two centuries later and did not even mention it, unless he referred to it as one of the “uninhabited” cities of which he speaks. The remains of this city must have been in evidence in the days of the Roman emperors, since Tacitus refers to a Nineveh on the Tigris, and there is another reference to it as late as the thirteenth century.
The ruins now present a rampart and foss, four miles in circuit, with a moss-covered wall about twenty feet high. The archaeologists in recent years have done much to make Nineveh live before the minds of this generation. Their discoveries of the libraries have thrown a flood of light on the history of these people of the Far East; but the Bible account of Nineveh and the rest of the Oriental empires remains unmolested. The Ninevites worshiped the fish god and in excavating in this vicinity many stone images of a fish have been found with a man coming out of its mouth. There is evidently a connection between Jonah’s experience and these stone images. This seems to be a confirmation of the story of Jonah as a sign to the Ninevites. Since they worshiped the fish god, the Lord accredited Jonah unto them by means of such a miracle as would leave no doubt in their minds as to the superior power of Jehovah over their object of worship.
There is an abundance of literature on this book but I will name only a few of the very best helps to its interpretation. The boat commentaries are Pusey’s Minor Prophets and the “Pulpit Commentary.” The “Expositor’s Bible” is the worst that could be mentioned. Dr. A. J. Rowland’s monograph on Jonah is very fine. The article on Jonah in Smith’s Bible Dictionary is a pretty fair article. Sampey’s Syllabus is fine. A sermon on Jonah by Melville, a Scotch preacher, is able and good. Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, and Matthew Henry are also good.
The chapters constitute the divisions of the analysis of this book, as follows:
I. Jonah’s mission, disobedience, and punishment (Jon 1:1-17 )
1. His call, commission, and flight (Jon 1:1-3 )
2. God’s intervention and Jonah’s revelation (Jon 1:4-10 )
II. Jonah’s prayer, thanksgiving, and deliverance (Jon 2:1-10 )
1. His prayer (Jon 2:1-7 )
2. His thanksgiving (Jon 2:8-9 )
3. His deliverance (Jon 2:10 )
III. Jonah’s recall, obedience, and success (Jon 3:1-10 )
1. His recall (Jon 3:1-2 )
2. His obedience (Jon 3:3-4 )
3. His success (Jon 3:5-10 )
IV. Jonah’s displeasure and correction (Jon 4:1-11 )
1. His displeasure (Jon 4:1-5 )
2. His correction (Jon 4:6-11 )
The word “now” (Jon 1:1 ), is the same word in the Hebrew that is translated “and” at the beginning of several of the historical books and forms a connecting link, thus showing a continuation of history, or, as in this case, connecting revelation with revelation.
We come across the expression, “the word of Jehovah,” in our Bible first in Gen 15:1 and there it means the Son of God, the Logos of Joh 1:1 . There seems to be the same meaning here. The word of Jehovah came “saying.”
We find three parallels in the Bible to Jon 1:2 , “their wickedness has come up before me,” viz: (1) the case of Cain, (2) the case of the flood, and (3) the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, in each of which most solemn judgment followed. The striking difference in this case and those mentioned above is the repentance of the Ninevites which moved God to repentance and averted the awful judgment.
In his going from the presence of Jehovah, Jonah renounced his prophetic office; he went away from “standing before Jehovah”; gave up his credentials and “took to the woods” (waters), to Tarshish, a city in Spain, far away from the Jehovah country. Thus he thought to leave the land of Jehovah was to get away from the call of Jehovah. Alas! many a man has tried the policy of Jonah to his own sorrow. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh, (1) because of his hatred for the idolatrous Gentiles, (2) because of his fear that God would show them mercy and his prediction would be discredited, (3) because of Nineveh’s growing strength and if spared she would become Israel’s rival and (4) because, perhaps, he feared ill treatment at the hands of the cruel and ferocious Assyrians.
In Jon 1:4 , “he paid the fare thereof,” we have a picture of the preacher renouncing his call of God upon which he must pay his own way, a hard fare indeed when one has lost the divine favor. But he sends a messenger after him, viz: a storm, and sometimes the fires of affliction are kindled all about him and sore distress comes upon him. God must be obeyed. See Psa 107:23-32 . But what the significance of “cast forth the wares” (Jon 1:5 )? This expression illustrates the fact that there is something to do besides to pray. Work is the handmaiden of prayer. Jonah’s being asleep is an illustration of a man who is guilty of sin, more especially the backslider. Sin stupefies and therefore they need to be aroused. A fine text: “O sleeper, arise.” Casting lots was one way of finding out the will of Jehovah. Compare Act 1:26 et multa al. This was simply a method of casting the vote. Jonah, understanding fully that the trouble was all on account of him, asked that they dispose of him by casting him into the sea and let him take the chance for his life, but the sailors saw only death for Jonah in such procedure and were not willing to take the risk of having upon them innocent blood. As the last resort they yielded.
There are three distinct things affirmed in Jonah 2:16, which need special notice, viz: (1) that they feared Jehovah, (2) that they offered sacrifice unto Jehovah, and (3) that they made vows, the explanation of which is, that Jonah had convinced them that Jehovah had brought the storm and therefore he was the one who was to be appeased. As to the nature of their fear, sacrifice, and vows we are not told but we are not to suppose that it was the reverential fear that brings salvation. It is probable that they acknowledged Jehovah as one of their gods after this event but there is nothing here to show that they accepted Jehovah as the only God to the exclusion of their own gods.
The fish that swallowed Jonah may have been a whale of the kind found in the Mediterranean Sea which is able to swallow a man whole, or it may have been the white shark of the same waters, as it is sometimes found in this section twenty-five feet long and has been known to swallow a man whole, and even a horse. There have been found in this sea three kinds of sea-animals that could easily swallow a man, viz: the Great Spermaceti Whale, the White Shark, and the Rorqual, one specimen of which has been found in this sea seventy-five feet long. So the contention that no whale or fish that could swallow a man is found in these parts is utterly baseless.
Jonah’s hymn is evidently made up of quotations from other passages of Scriptures which a comparison of the following passages will prove: Jon 2:2 equals Psa 120:1 ; Jon 2:3 equals Psa 42:7 ; Psa 18:4 ; Jon 2:4 equals Psa 31:22 ; Jon 2:5 equals Psa 18:40 ; Psa 18:5 ; Jon 2:7 equals Psa 18:6 (last clause) and Psa 142:3 ; Jon 2:8 equals Psa 31:6-7 . These correspondences could not have been fortuitous: the one poet must have had sounding in his mind the language of the other. Jonah evidently was well acquainted with the Psalms. “Lying vanities” in Jon 2:8 means idolatry and indicates a strong characteristic of heathen worship.
The second commission to Jonah is recorded in Jon 3:1-2 : “And the word of Jehovah came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” The circumstances of this second commission are as follows: Jonah had had his extraordinary experience in the sea and had, doubtless, returned home, allowing sufficient time for the news of this great and singular event to reach Nineveh, thus preparing the way for Jonah’s preaching by accrediting Jonah to them in a way that would impress them with the superiority of Jonah’s God over their fish god. There are three distinct things here relative to God’s relation to the ministry that need to be emphasized, viz: (1) God calls his ministers by a direct appeal to them: “and the word of Jehovah came unto Jonah, saying”; (2) God selects the field of labor for his ministers: “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city”; (3) God gives the message: “and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” This is a fine example of what the preacher ought to be, viz: God-called, God-appointed, and God-instructed. With these three essentials in his life and work the minister knows no failure.
The “yet” in Jon 3:4 indicates an implied promise; that this was not an announcement of an absolute decree of God, but was a conditional decree. God repented when they repented. Note that there are three particular cases of repentance in this book: (1) the preacher repents; (2) the people repent; (3) God repents. Observe the order. When the preacher repents, the people generally repent, and when the preacher and the people repent, God always repents. The “yet” here indicates God’s attitude toward a sinner. Though he thunders the law of Sinai over the sinner’s head, it is only that the sinner may be prepared to hear the voice from Calvary. “Yet forty days and “Nineveh shall be overthrown,” but the “forty days” furnish space for repentance.
“Believed God” in Jon 3:5 is equivalent to “believed on God” and is saving faith, as with Abraham. Fasting and sackcloth are external evidences of repentance. In Jon 3:7 we see the call to real fasting and repentance. In Jon 3:8 the animals lowing for fodder were crying to God. The prayers of the people and the crying of the cattle make a powerful appeal to God. But praying and crying were not enough. “Let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands” and show by this his real earnestness, as in the New Testament exhortation: “Let him that stole steal no more but return what he has stolen.” Restitution is a law of forgiveness. This passage is equalled in the New Testament by John the Baptist’s preaching and Paul’s preaching at Ephesus. This is both a moral and spiritual miracle. It is the biggest case of conversion in the Old Testament on a foreign field. Jonah was the first foreign mission preacher and had but one credential. Some say people cannot be moved religiously by fear but it is a mistake. People are influenced both by the fear of punishment and by the hope of reward. The motive in Luk 15 is “Joy in heaven.” “Ye shall likewise perish except ye repent.” Preach love always, but don’t leave out hell.
Jonah was much displeased with and angry at the Lord’s attitude, but the Lord dealt gently with him giving him the lesson of the gourd (Jon 4:6-11 ). It was not right for Jonah to be angry at what God did, nor is it ever right to be angry at what God does, especially in the salvation of the people. In this connection he gives the reason for his unwillingness to go to Nineveh at the outset, but he was wrong in his attitude toward the people of Nineveh. This attitude culminated in madness at Jehovah’s attitude toward them and went to the extent of wishing for death. But it is a very cowardly thing to wish for death under such circumstances.
To this foolishness of Jonah the Lord answered that Jonah’s regard for the gourd was but a small matter compared to his regard for the 120,000 infants and the much cattle of Nineveh. This is a beautiful lesson of God’s attitude toward the irresponsible and gives us a splendid Old Testament view of God’s attribute of mercy.
As Jonah, after his resurrection, became a missionary to the Gentiles, so Christ after his resurrection declared his “all authority” and commissioned his church to go to the ends of the world. The resurrection had a marvelous effect in enlarging the commission.
QUESTIONS
1. What are the traditions relating to Jonah?
2. Who was Jonah and what the time of his writing?
3. What references to this book in literature and what is the testimony in each case?
4. What three legends may be mentioned as illustrating the extraordinary features of the story of Jonah?
5. What are the scriptural references to the book and what the import of their teaching?
6. What is the purpose of this book?
7. What is he occasion of this book and how is it proved from the history of Nineveh?
8. What of the style and character of the book?
9. What of the miraculous element of the book?
10. What doctrines illustrated by the incidents of the book?
11. Give an account of Nineveh.
12. What the form of idolatry in Nineveh at this time and what the evidence of Jonah’s impress on the Ninevites?
13. What helps on this book commended?
14. What is the analysis of this book?
15. What is the force of the word “now” of verse I?
16. Where do we first find the expression, “the word of Jehovah,” in the Bible and what does it mean there?
17. What parallels to Jon 1:2 , “their wickedness is come up before me,” do we find elsewhere in the Bible and what striking difference in this case?
18. What is the meaning of “Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of Jehovah”?
19. What Jonah’s reasons for not wanting to go to Nineveh?
20. What is the meaning and application of Jon 1:4 , “he paid the fare thereof”?
21. What is the significance in Jon 1:5 of “cast forth the wares”?
22. What is the suggestion from Jonah’s being asleep?
23. What of casting lots in Jon 1:7 ?
24. What is the remedy for the case as proposed by Jonah and how did it meet the approval of the sailors?
25. How do you explain, their fearing Jehovah and sacrificing unto him?
26. What of the fish that swallowed Jonah?
27. What is the relation of Jonah’s hymn to other passages of Scripture?
28. What is the meaning of “lying vanities” in Jon 2:8 ?
29. What Jonah’s second commission, what its circumstances and what three things in this commission, illustrative of God’s relation to the minister and his work?
30. What is the force of “yet” in Jon 3:4 ?
31. What are the points of Jon 3:5-10 ?
32. How did Jonah receive the fact of the conversion of the Ninevites and God’s mercy to them and how did God deal with him?
33. Was it right for Jonah to be angry, what the extent of his madness and what do you think of his wish?
34. What was Jehovah’s answer to all this foolishness of Jonah?
35. How is the relation of the resurrection and the commission of Christ illustrated in this book?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Jon 2:1 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly,
Ver. 1. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God ] i.e. Praised God with this Canticum eucharisticum, this gratulatory song, as Tremellius calleth it. That he prayed in the ship, in the sea, in the whale’s belly, we doubt not; but that he chiefly intendeth to show his thankfulness for the return of prayers and the sweet support he felt in the whale’s belly we do as little doubt, see Joh 2:2 ; Joh 2:6-7 ; yea, that this was the substance (though now better methodized) of what he prayed and praised in the bowels of the fish we have cause to believe from this very verse; and therefore also his deliverance is set down, Joh 2:10 , after his doxology. The word here rendered prayed signifieth also, sometimes, to give thanks, as 1Sa 2:2 ; and who knows not that thanksgiving is a special part of prayer? This therefore is prayer. Jonah having prayed, and perceiving that he was heard, and by the goodness of God preserved safe in body and sound in mind, he grows “strong in faith, giving glory to God,” Rom 4:20 , and being fully persuaded that he should yet walk before him again in the land of the living.
Out of the fish’s belly] Where, though he might seem buried alive, and free among the dead, yet he enjoyed God’s gracious presence, and those strong consolations that made him live in the very mouth of death, and say in effect, as blessed Bradford did, I thank God more for this prison and for this dark dungeon than for any parlour, yea, than of any pleasure that ever I had; for in it I find God my most sweet God always.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jon 2:1-9
1Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish,
2and he said,
I called out of my distress to the LORD,
And He answered me.
I cried for help from the depth of Sheol;
You heard my voice.
3For You had cast me into the deep,
Into the heart of the seas,
And the current engulfed me.
All Your breakers and billows passed over me.
4So I said, ‘I have been expelled from Your sight.
Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’
5Water encompassed me to the point of death.
The great deep engulfed me,
Weeds were wrapped around my head.
6I descended to the roots of the mountains.
The earth with its bars was around me forever,
But You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.
7While I was fainting away,
I remembered the LORD,
And my prayer came to You,
Into Your holy temple.
8Those who regard vain idols
Forsake their faithfulness,
9But I will sacrifice to You
With the voice of thanksgiving.
That which I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation is from the LORD.
Jon 2:1 God had purposely allowed and even structured the predicament in which Jonah found himself (cf. Jon 1:4; Jon 1:17; Jon 2:3).
to the LORD his God These are the two most common names for Israel’s deity, YHWH and Elohim. See the SPECIAL TOPIC: NAMES FOR DEITY .
Jon 2:2 I called out This VERB (BDB 894, KB 1128, Qal PERFECT) is used often in Jonah (8 times) and in two senses:
1. to proclaim, Jon 1:2; Jon 3:2; Jon 3:4-5
2. to pray, Jon 1:6; Jon 1:14; Jon 2:2; Jon 3:8
It is parallel to I cried (BDB 1002, KB 1443, Piel PERFECT) for help (e.g., Psa 30:2-3; Psa 119:146; Isa 58:9).
NASB, NRSV,
NJBout of my distress
NKJVbecause of my affliction
TEVin my distress
This NOUN (BDB 865) comes from the concept of narrow or restricted, meaning to apply pressure (i.e., crushing grapes with ones’ feet, e.g., Psa 18:4-6; Psa 22:11; Psa 25:17; Psa 118:5; Psa 120:1).
depth of Sheol There may be a play on the term depth, which is literally belly (BDB 105) and Jonah’s physical location inside the great fish (BDB 588). The term Sheol refers to the holding place of the conscious dead (parallel to pit, cf. Psa 30:3). As the grave is the resting place of our physical body at death, so Sheol is the place of our personhood. The OT does not provide much information about life after death. From what little is provided we learn
1. there is a conscious life after physical death
2. the dead are with family
3. there is no fellowship or joy
4. both good and evil people are there
5. God is present there, but not worshiped (cf. Psa 6:5; Psa 88:10-12; Psa 115:17; Psa 139:8).
See Special Topic: Where Are the Dead? .
You heard my voice This is a Hebraic idiom for God’s hearing and responding to His covenant people’s prayers.
Jon 2:3 There are many terms in Jon 2:3; Jon 2:5 that relate to the sea. This may be an allusion to the chaotic waters of creation (cf. Gen 1:1). As God brought order in creation from chaos, so too, in Jonah’s life. The waters have separated Jonah from God (cf. Jon 2:4; Psa 69:1-2; Psa 69:14-15; Psa 88:6-7; Psa 88:17), but in reality they (i.e., the fish) become his transport to do God’s will.
There are several sets of parallels.
1. the deep, Jon 2:3 (BDB 846)
2. the great deep, Jon 2:5 (BDB 1062)
3. engulfed, Jon 2:3 (BDB 685, KB 738, Poel IMPERFECT)
4. encompassed, Jon 2:5 (BDB 67, KB 79, Qal PERFECT)
5. engulfed, Jon 2:5 (BDB 685, KB 738, Poel IMPERFECT)
6. the current, Jon 2:3 (BDB 625)
7. breakers, Jon 2:3 (BDB 991)
8. billows, Jon 2:3 (BDB 164)
9. the waters, Jon 2:3 (BDB 565)
You had cast me into the deep This VERB (BDB 1020, KB 1527, Hiphil IMPERFECT) shows that Jonah recognized his well-deserved fate and that it was God who used the storm (cf. Jon 1:4) and the sailors (cf. Jon 1:15) to execute His judgment.
Jon 2:4
NASBI have been expelled
NKJVI have been cast out
NRSVI am driven away
TEVI had been banished
NJBI am banished
This VERB (BDB 173, KB 204, Niphal PERFECT) means driven away by force. It is found only here in the OT. In Aramaic it was used of divorce (BDB 176). Jonah knew this was a consequence of his sin and rebellion at rejecting God’s commission. At this point he did not know the fish was a means of his deliverance (cf. Psa 31:22)!
Jonah (or sage) may have chosen this word because it can also mean the tossing of the sea (i.e., another sea word, e.g., Amo 8:8; Isa 57:20).
NASB, NRSV,
NJBfrom Your sight
NKJVof Your sight
TEVfrom your presence
The connotation of this phrase is from your presence in the temple (cf. parallel in the next line).
NASBNevertheless
NKJVYet
NRSV, NJBhow
TEVand
The question is, Does this line of poetry assert that Jonah believes he will see the temple again (NASB, NKJV) or that he will not (NRSV, TEV, NJB)? Is the word an ADVERB (BDB 32) or an ADVERSATIVE (BDB 36)? Does this line follow Jonah’s sense of impending death (ADVERB) or Jonah’s sense that God will deliver (ADVERSATIVE)? Because Jonah’s plight is described in Jon 2:3-6 and God’s help is described in Jon 2:7-9, it seems that Jon 2:4, in context, should be translated how (ADVERB, BDB 32). However, there seems to be a note of hope in Jon 2:6 c, why not in Jon 2:4 b?
Your holy temple The temple in Jerusalem housed the Ark of the Covenant. The Jews believed that God dwelt between the wings of the cherubim over the Ark (e.g., Exo 25:22; Num 7:89; 1Sa 4:4; 2Sa 6:2; Psa 80:1; Psa 99:1). This was the place where heaven and earth, the spiritual and physical met! Jonah believed he would worship God again in Jerusalem (cf. Jon 2:9).
Jon 2:5
NASBWater encompassed me to the point of death
NKJVthe water encompassed me even to my soul
NRSVthe waters closed in over me
TEVthe water came over me and choked me
NJBthe waters round me rose to my neck
The VERB (BDB 67, KB 79, Qal PERFECT) is often used in the Psalms for a life threatening time of intense suffering from which YHWH delivers (e.g., 2Sa 22:5; Psa 18:4; Psa 116:3).
The word translated me, my soul, my neck (BDB 723) is the term nephesh, which denotes breath or life (e.g., Gen 2:7). Here and in Psa 69:1; Psa 105:18; and Isa 5:14 it has the connotation of a throat (or neck) about to be choked with water (i.e., death of a person).
Weeds This word (BDB 693) can mean salt water, seaweeds, or fresh water reeds. Here it is obviously the first meaning. The sense here is that Jonah is being drowned, choked by water and seaweeds. He is descending into the realm of the dead.
Jon 2:6 I descended to the roots of the mountains The OT uses the physical direction down to describe Sheol (BDB 432, KB 434, Qal PERFECT, cf. Num 16:30; Num 16:33; Psa 55:15; Isa 5:14; Isa 14:19). The term Sheol and pit (BDB 1001) are parallel (cf. Psa 30:3). It is this metaphorical expression of Jonah’s sense of approaching the underworld that makes his experience the object of Jesus’ comment (cf. Mat 12:40-41; Luk 11:30). Jonah believed he was going to die, but God had mercy on him! God’s judgment was not His last word. There was purpose in the punishment.
NASB, NRSV,
TEV, NJBthe roots of the mountains
NKJVthe moorings of the mountains
The term (BDB 891) normally means to cut off or shape, but it cannot mean that in this context. In Sir 16:19 (written about 180 B.C.) it means the foundations of the world. The BDB offers extremity as a translation. Possibly the ancient Jews believed the gate to Sheol was at the bottom of the sea, even below the mountains. Jonah was expecting death and entrance into Sheol, the pit. This term is meant to be a poetic parallel to bars and the pit.
The earth with its bars The term bars (BDB 138) usually refers to gate bars. This is a metaphor for Sheol as a prison holding the dead, which once entered, could not be exited (e.g., 2Sa 12:23; Job 7:9-10; Job 10:21).
You have brought up my life This VERB (BDB 748, KB 828, Hiphil IMPERFECT) is exactly opposite of descended (or to bring down).
Jon 2:7
NASBI was fainting away
NKJVmy soul fainted within me
NRSVmy life was ebbing away
TEVI felt my life slipping away
NJBmy soul was growing ever weaker
The VERB (BDB 742, KB 814, Owen’s Analytical Key identifies it as a Hithpael PERFECT; OT Parsing Guide identifies it as a Hithpael INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT; and the NIV Interlinear by Kohlenberger also identifies it as an INFINITIVE).
The term itself means to grow weak or faint, here in the sense of death (e.g., Isa 57:16).
I remembered the LORD In the OT, humans are reminded again and again to remember (BDB 269, KB 269, Qal PERFECT) the Lord and His goodness (e.g., Deu 8:11-20; Psa 77:11-12). God, on the other hand, is called on to forget mankind’s sin and rebellion (notice all the metaphors for forgetfulness, cf. Psa 103:3; Psa 103:11-13; Isa 1:18; Isa 38:17; Isa 43:25; Isa 44:22; Mic 7:19). See notes at Hos 7:2; Hos 8:13.
Jon 2:8 This verse seems out of context. It may be an allusion to Psa 31:6. It may be a reference to Nineveh’s idolatry. Jonah may be trying to explain why he did not want to preach to the Assyrian capital.
NASB, NRSVidols
NKJV, TEVworthless idols
NJBfalse gods
There are two terms in this phrase with closely related meanings, which intensify the thought.
1. vain (BDB 996) means that which is empty, nothing, or vanity (e.g., Psa 31:6; Jer 18:15)
2. idols (BDB 210) means vapor, breath, which is a metaphor for vanity (e.g., Deu 32:21; 1Ki 16:13; 1Ki 16:26; Psa 31:6; Isa 57:13; Jer 8:19; Jer 10:8; Jer 10:14-15; Jer 14:22; Jer 51:17-18).
NASBForsake their faithfulness
NKJVforsake their own Mercy
NRSVforsake their true loyalty
TEVabandoned their loyalty to you
NJBabandon their faithful love
The VERB (BDB 736, KB 806, Qal IMPERFECT) means leave (e.g., Gen 2:24), forsake (e.g., Deu 28:20; Deu 31:16; Jdg 10:10; Isa 55:7; Jer 1:16), lose.
The contextual question is, Does this phrase refer to
1. lovingkindness humans receive from their God (i.e., context of the book, cf. Jon 4:2) See Special Topic: Lovingkindness (hesed) .
2. the faithfulness humans should show to their God (i.e., the immediate context, cf. Jon 2:7; Jon 2:9)? See Special Topic: Believe, Trust, Faith, and Faithfulness in the OT .
Jon 2:9 I will sacrifice to You,
With the voice of thanksgiving This implies that Jonah’s sacrifice may be verbal, not animal. See note as Hos 14:3.
This VERB (BDB 256, KB 261, Qal COHORTATIVE) and I will pay (BDB 1022, KB 1532, Piel COHORTATIVE), are both strong promises of what Jonah will do when he gets back to the temple in Jerusalem (BDB 623, i.e., offer a thank offering), what the sailors had done to YHWH in Jon 1:16.
Salvation is from the LORD The Hebrew term salvation (BDB 447) referred primarily to physical (e.g., Psa 3:8; but notice Isa 45:17) deliverance, not spiritual salvation (i.e., NT use of concept). Jonah wanted out of the fish! YHWH wanted the Ninevites to know Him (NT sense).
Jonah knew the right theology, he mouthed the right words, but he refused to act on them! See Special Topic: Salvation (OT Term) .
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Then = And See note on Jon 2:10.
the Lord. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
God. Hebrew. Elohim. App-4.
belly = bowels. Compare Jon 1:17.
Note the Figure of speech Exergasia (App-6), as shown by the Alternation in Jon 2:2.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 2
Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly ( Jon 2:1 ),
Jonah must have been a stubborn man indeed that he would wait three days and three nights before he would begin to pray. He was determined not to take the gospel to the Gentiles. He was determined not to go, sitting it out for three days and three nights.
Now he describes the conditions that he was in.
And he said, I cried by reason of my affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I ( Jon 2:2 ),
He thought the conditions… he maybe even thought he died and gone to hell. After all, he was trying to run from God, and it was so hot, 98.6 if it were a whale and it’s a mammal, so it has a 98.6 temperature, body temperature, beside the heat, the humidity that must have been inside that whale. The gastric juices sloshing around him, the seaweed wrapped around his head. “Out of my affliction, out of hell I cried,”
and you heard my voice. For you had cast me into the deep, into the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all of thy billows and thy waves passed over me ( Jon 2:2-3 ).
It is interesting that most of his prayer can be found in the Psalms. Jonah evidently had a very good knowledge of the Psalms, because his entire prayer you can reference back in the Psalms. And that might be an interesting little project for you to take your concordance and reference Jonah’s prayer. And he is jumping all over the Psalms in his prayer. It’s too bad he didn’t get to the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm, and he could have saved himself problems to begin with, because he would know there is no way to escape from the presence of God. For in Psa 139:1-24 , “If I take the wings of the morning and flee to the uttermost parts of the sea, even there You will lead me.” Now he knew the Psalms. He knew them well, because he really quotes them in his prayer, but isn’t it interesting how that so many times we overlook important things.
Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight [ Psa 31:22 ]; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple ( Jon 2:4 ).
You remember when Solomon was dedicating the temple he said, “Lord, if your people get in trouble, if they be taken captive by the enemy, if they be in a strange land or whatever, if they turn towards the temple and pray, then hear Thou from Thy place in heaven and answer their prayer and all.” Now how he knew which direction the temple was I don’t know. He surely had no sense of reference, but he turned in what he evidently thought was the direction of the temple to pray unto the Lord. You know he is going to cover all of his bases.
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the bottom of the mountains ( Jon 2:5-6 );
This thing was sounding and going way down and no doubt would get dark, dark, dark, dark and then surfacing. Oh, what a miserable experience as this movement within. Probably seasick and just horrible.
the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came unto thee, into thine holy temple ( Jon 2:6-7 ).
Now Jonah shares with you the valuable lesson that he learned. He learned it the hard way, but he shares it with you so that you can learn it the easy way.
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies ( Jon 2:8 ).
If you are following after deception or after a lie, you’re only making it hard on yourself and you’re only running away from that which is best for you. It is a lie to think that you know better for your own life than does God. It is a lie for you to think that you can find happiness apart from God. It is a lie for you to think that you can escape from God, or from the call of God, or from the presence of God. And for you to attempt to do so you are only bringing misery and disaster upon yourself. You’re forsaking your own mercy, because God is merciful, God is loving. And whatever God has in mind for you is the very best thing that could ever happen to you, though you may not think it. God may be calling you to something, and you are trying to run. And you think, “Oh, that’s the last thing I want to do. I never want to do that.” And you are trying to run, because you have this fear that to do what God is calling you to do will mean such deprivation and mean all of this, and you think “Oh, I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that.” And you are trying to run from the call of God. Really you are running from what is the very best thing that could ever happen to you. If you are running from the will of God, trying to run from the will of God.
“They that observe these lying vanities are only forsaking their own mercies.” You’re creating your own hell, a misery in which you are going to find yourself sitting, and the misery is of your own making, and it is come from your own foolishness in thinking that you know better than God what is good for you. And yet, haven’t we all been in that position in our lives?
When I think that I know better than God what will make me happy and what is good for me. And as I look back on those instances in my life, when I was observing these lying vanities, and when I had forsaken the path that God had set before me and I thought that I could find greater happiness and greater pleasure by leaving the path of God, I look back upon those experiences today and I realize they were the most miserable experiences of my entire life. The misery that I brought to myself and brought to others when I thought I knew better than God what would make me happy. And I created a hell in which I had to live until with David I confessed my sin before the Lord and received His forgiveness and His cleansing and the blotting out and was restored in fellowship with God. Oh, to be out of fellowship with God is hell itself. That is what hell is all about. It is out of fellowship with God. And to think of being out of fellowship with God eternally is unthinkable.
So he declares,
I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving ( Jon 2:9 );
Now he couldn’t offer a lamb or anything where he was. He could not build a fire and offer a sacrifice to God there in the whale, so he’s gonna have to just be satisfied with offering to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving. This is the offering that we are encouraged to give to God in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews, to offer unto God the thanksgiving of praise unto Him, which is a sacrifice that is well accepted by Him.
I will pay that that I have vowed ( Jon 2:9 ).
Evidently he said, “God, I give up. I’ll go to Nineveh.” So I’ll pay that which I vowed.
And then the acknowledgment,
Salvation is of the LORD ( Jon 2:9 ).
What an important lesson to learn for us, for you, for me. Salvation is not of my own works. It is not of my own efforts. I tried for a long time with my works and my efforts to be pleasing to God. Knowing about the little boy that had to leave Jesus outside when he went to the show, I didn’t go to shows. And I was trying to be righteous in my own works. But what a glorious day when I learned the lesson that Jonah learned: salvation is of the Lord. I learned that after a lot of bitter experiences, bitter experiences of failure, trying to do what was right, unable to always do what was right, feeling this failure before God, living in this yo-yo Christian experience, up and down and up and down, great highs, tremendous lows. Until I came to the truth that Jonah discovered there in the whale-salvation is of the Lord, and I began to rest my salvation with Him. Oh, what a glorious day when I ceased from my labors and I entered into His rest. One of my most happy days in my whole Christian experience when God taught me this truth-salvation is of the Lord. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Jon 2:1. Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fishs belly.
What a strange place for prayer! Surely then is the only prayer that ever went up to God out of a fishs belly. Jonah found himself alive;-that was the surprising thing, that he was alive in the belly of a fish;-and because he was alive, he began to pray. It is such a wonder that some people here should continue to live that they ought to begin to pray. If you live with death so near, and in so great peril, and yet you do not pray, what is to become of you? This prayer of Jonah is very remarkable because it is not a prayer at all in the sense in which we usually apply the word to petition and supplication. If you read the prayer through, you will see that it is almost all thanksgiving; and the best prayer in all the world is a prayer that is full of thankfulness. We praise the Lord for what he has done for us, and thus we do, in effect, ask him to perfect the work which he has begun. He has delivered us, so we bless his holy name, and by implication we beseech him still to deliver us. Notice that it says here, Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God. He was a runaway; he had tried to escape from the presence of God; yet the Lord was still his God. God will not lose any of his people, even if, like Jonah, they are in the belly of a fish, Jehovah is still their God: Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fishs belly,
Jon 2:2. And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me;-
You see that this is not praying, it is telling the Lord what he had done for his disobedient servant. Jonah had prayed, and the Lord had heard him, yet he was still in the fishs belly. Unbelief would have said, You have lived so long; Jonah; but you cannot expect to live to get out of this dreary, damp, fetid prison. Ah, but faith is out of prison even while she is in it. Faith begins to tell what God has done before the great work is actually accomplished; so Jonah said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me;
Jon 2:2. Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
He was like a man in the unseen world among the dead. He felt that he was condemned and cast away; yet God had heard him, and now he sings about it in the belly of the fish. No other fish that ever lived had a live man inside him singing praises unto God.
Jon 2:3. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas;
The word Jonah used implies that God had violently cast him away into the deep. Cast me not off, prayed David, but here is a man who says that God did cast him out like a thing flung overboard into the vast deep: Thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas;
Jon 2:3. And the floods compassed me about:
They rolled all over me, beneath me, above me, around me; The floods compassed me about:
Jon 2:3. All thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
Jonah had evidently read his Bible; at least, he had read the 42nd Psalm, for he quotes it here. It is a blessed thing to have the Bible in your mind and heart so that, wherever you may be, you do not need to turn to the Book because you have the Book inside you. Here is a man inside a fish with a Book inside of him; and it was the Book inside of him that brought him out from the fish again.
Jon 2:4. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
What grand faith Job displayed when he said, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him; and here is another splendid manifestation of faith, I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. If God does not look at me, I will still look towards the place where he dwells. As I am being flung away from him, I will give one more look towards his holy temple.
Jon 2:5. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul:-
They seemed to get right into his spirit; his heart became waterlogged: The waters compassed me about, even to the soul:
Jon 2:5. The depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.
Like his winding-sheet,-as if the cerements of the grave were wrapped about his mouth, and ears, and eyes, and he was consigned to a living tomb. This narrative is a graphic description of the natural motion of the great fish which had swallowed Jonah. When the fish found this strange being inside him, the first thing that he did was to plunge as deep as ever he could into the waters. You will see that Jonah did go down very deep indeed. The next thing was for the fish to make for the weeds; as certain creatures eat weeds to cure them when they feel very ill, this fish went of to the weedy places to see if he could get a cure for this new complaint of a man inside him.
Jon 2:6. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains;-
To the very roots and foundations of the mountains, where the big jagged rocks made huge buttresses for the hills above: I went down to the bottom of the mountains;
Jon 2:6. The earth with her bars was about me for ever:
Down went the fish, as deep as he could go: and, of course, down went Jonah too, and he might well imagine that he was in a vast prison from which there was no way of escape,
Jon 2:6. Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.
And, dear friend, God can bring you up, however low you may have gone. Though, in your own feelings, you feel as if you had gone so low that you could not go any lower, God can, in answer to prayer, bring you up again. O despairing one, take heart, and be comforted by this story of Jonah! God is dealing with you as he was with him. There may be a great fish, but there is a great God as well. There may be a deep seas, but there is an almighty God to bring you up out of it.
Jon 2:7. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD:
It is a blessed memory that serves us faithfully in a fainting fit. Mostly, when the heart faints, the memory fails; but Jonah remembered the Lord when his soul fainted within him.
Jon 2:7. And my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.
Think of Jonahs prayer going right within the vail, and reaching the ear and heart of God in his holy temple. He said that he was cast out of Gods sight, yet his prayer went into Gods temple. Oh, the prevalence of a bold believing prayer! My prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.
Jon 2:8. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
If you trust anywhere but in God, you will run away from your own mercy. God is the only really merciful One who can always help you; but if you trust in your own righteousness, if you trust in priest craft, if you trust in any superstition, you are observing lying vanities, and forsaking your own mercy. God is the source of your mercy; do not run away from him to anyone or anything else.
Jon 2:9. But I will sacrifice unto thee-
I long to do so. I cannot do it just now, but I would if I could; and I will do it when thou shalt grant me deliverance from my present peril.
Jon 2:9. With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.
That is one of the grandest utterances that any man ever made: SALVATION! Write it in capital letters. It is a very emphatic word in the Hebrew, and I might read it, Mighty salvation is of Jehovah. This is real, old-fashioned Calvinistic doctrine spoken centuries before John Calvin was born. The whale could not endure it, and he turned Jonah out directly he said, Salvation is of the Lord. The world does not like that doctrine, and there are many professing Christians who do not like it. They say, Salvation is of mans free will; salvation is of the works of the law; salvation is of rites and ceremonies; and so on. But we say, with Jonah, Salvation is of the Lord. He works it from beginning to end, and therefore he must have all the praise for it for ever and ever.
Jon 2:10. And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
God has only to speak, and even sea-monsters obey him. I know not how he spoke to the fish; I do not know how to talk to a fish, but God does; and as the Lord could speak to that fish, he can speak to any sinner here. However far you may have gone from all that is good, he who spoke to that great fish, and made it disgorge the prophet Jonah, can speak to you, and then you will give up your sins as the whale gave up Jonah. God grant that it may be so this very hour! That is the prayer of an ancient mariner, may it be ours, as far as it is suited to our circumstances, and may we be brought by Gods grace to cry, with Jonah, Salvation is of the Lord!
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Jon 2:1-6
GODS MESSENGER RUNNING TO GOD-
THE PRAYER OF JONAH
TEXT: Jon 2:1-6
Jonahs soul was sorrowful even unto death (cf. Mat 26:38) and he despaired even of life itself (cf. 2Co 1:8). He was so close to death that he considered himself actually dead. Yet the Lord delivered him back to life.
According to the destructive higher critics of the Old Testament this book we know as the book of Jonah was written by an unknown composer who took legends and mythological fairy-tales and formed it into the present book of Jonah. In the course of time this composition is supposed to have received certain changes, the most notable of which was the inclusion of the thanksgiving song (Jon 2:3-10) with Jon 2:2 as an introduction to this song. Those who believe that chapter 2 contains a psalm from a different source than the rest of the book of Jonah give the following arguments:
a. In Jon 2:1 it is said that Jonah prayed, but what actually follows is not a prayer but a psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance. And furthermore, they say, this psalm which suggests its connection with Jonahs experiences. One critic was sure that Jon 2:5 excluded the idea that Jonah was in the fishs belly, because weeds do not grow in a whales belly.
b. The critics say, lastly, that the text reads smoothly without this psalm, if Jon 2:10 be placed immediately after Jon 2:1, this proves it is not a part of the original.
Dr. Edward J. Young, in Introduction To The Old Testament, pp. 280-282, gives a conclusive defense of the unity of the book of Jonah. We include here his defense of chapter 2:
a. In the first place, if Jon 2:2-9 be removed from the book of Jonah, the symmetry of the book is most certainly destroyed.
b. There is no conflict between the statement that Jonah prayed, and a psalm of thanksgiving-for is not thanksgiving of the very essence of prayer??
c. Of course weeds do not grow in whales bellies, but this is not a psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance from a whales belly, but of deliverance from drowning in the depths of the sea.
d. The prayer does not take place before the deliverance when we realize Jonah was saved when he was swallowed by the great fish and that his prayer was made then.
e. That there is nothing in the psalm which connects it with Jonahs experience is so absurd as to merit no answer!
There are some who explain the prayer as simply a fragmented collection of the book of Psalms interpolated here in Jonahs book by an unknown redactor (editor). Moeller makes the following comparisons:
Jonah 2Psalm
Jon 2:3 bPsa 18:7; Psa 120:1
Jon 2:4 bPsa 18:6; Psa 30:4
Jon 2:5Psa 42:8
Jon 2:6Psa 31:23; Psa 5:8
Jon 2:7Psa 18:8; Psa 69:2 f
Jon 2:8Psa 18:17; Psa 30:4; Psa 103:4
Jon 2:9Psa 142:4; Psa 143:4; Psa 18:7; Psa 5:8
Jon 2:10Psa 88:3; Psa 31:7; Psa 26:7; Psa 50:14; Psa 50:23; Psa 42:5; Psa 116:17
This is no evidence, whatsoever, for an unknown redactor interpolating excerpts from the book of Psalms into the book of Jonah. It is evidence that Jonah, the prophet of God, was a student of the Hebrew Scriptures and had written the word of God upon his heart and when in extreme circumstances was able to lift himself up by having hidden this Word of God in his heart.
Jon 2:1-2 THEN JONAH PRAYED . . . I CALLED BY REASON OF MINE APPLICATION UNTO JEHOVAH . . . AND HE ANSWERED ME . . . It was because of his affliction that Jonah was led to cry unto God. This is the purpose of chastening. Our Heavenly Father knows that we have need of chastening and of endurance (cf. Heb 10:32-39; Heb 12:3-11). We should rejoice when it comes (cf. Jas 1:2-4). It is a school wherein we are trained (cf. 2Co 1:3-11). It is only when we see our own helplessness and hopelessness that we are able to turn to God (2Co 1:8-9). It is when we are made weak that we become strong (cf. 2Co 12:7-10). The salvation of Jonah was the affliction the Lord placed upon him.
Zerr: Jon 2:1. Nothing that is right is impossible with God (Mat 19:26). therefore He could preserve Jonah alive and conscious in the bowels of the fish. Being a worshiper of the true God, it was not strange that he would engage in prayer in his unusual surroundings. Aside from being cut off from the normal kind and amount of air, he was unharmed by the act of the fish, and of course the Lord could take care of that situation by His great power. Jon 2:2. And said, I cried. We know that Jonah did not do any writing while in the body of the fish, but wrote his account of the affair afterward as he was composing his book. He was being preserved miraculously but that did not prevent him from feeling the unpleasantness of the surroundings. That experience together with the remembrance of his error in trying to flee from the Lord, placed him In a frame of mind to offer a humble petition to God. The word hell is from snitoL and Strongs definition of it is, “Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat) including Us accessories and inmates.” In the King James version the word is rendered grave 31 times, hell 31 and pit 3; it is the only word for “hell in the Old Testament. It is evident that Jonah used the word only in the sense of its being a subterranean retreat, since he was alive and in good health. The happy fact is stated that the Lord heard the prayer and took a favorable attitude toward Jonah (though we do not have all of his prayer).
Prayer is an act of worship which covers all the attitudes of the soul in its approach to God. Some think there are certain postures necessary for prayer but the Bible shows by example that men may pray in any posture; kneeling (1Ki 8:54; Ezr 9:5); standing (Neh 9:5; Luk 18:13); bowing down upon the earth with face between the knees (1Ki 18:42); lying in a sick bed and turning the face to the wall (2Ki 20:2); falling prostrate upon the ground (Mat 26:39); walking along or standing in public (Joh 11:41-42; Joh 12:28-28). Prayer is more an attitude than it is a formula or a ritual. Jonah could easily have prayed in the belly of the great fish without even opening his mouth. We are to pray without ceasing (1Th 5:17) and the only way this can be done is to be in an attitude of praise, thanksgiving, supplication and dependence upon God at all times whether, silent or aloud, whether lying down, sitting up or standing, wherever we may be.
Sheol is the Hebrew word usually translated in the Old Testament hell. It is also translated pit or grave. The context helps to determine the best translation. The etymology is uncertain. It may have been derived from a root word meaning a hollow place, Sheol means underworld, or nether-world, and is equivalent to Hades in the New Testament. In fact, the Septuagint, or Greek Old Testament, uses the word Hades in Jon 2:2. Jonah cried out from the very grave!
Jon 2:3-4 . . . THOU DIDST CAST ME INTO THE DEPTH . . . THE FLOOD WAS ROUND ABOUT ME . . . I AM CAST OUT FROM BEFORE THINE EYES; YET I WILL LOOK AGAIN TOWARD THY HOLY TEMPLE. Jonah was as good as dead! He had resigned himself to it! As far as he was concerned there was no possibility of saving himself. And this is exactly where God wanted him! One of the great paradoxes of God is that we must die before we can live (cf. Joh 12:20-26).
Jonah had first to realize his estrangement from the Father before he could in all humility and dependent faith turn to the Father for help. Jonah, the Prodigal, recognized this when he said, I am cast out from before thine eyes. But then Jonahs heart turned to Gods Word for its great and exceeding precious promises and in faith cried out that he would, God willing, be restored to the presence of Jehovah.
Zerr: Jon 2:3. Jonah had told the men to cast him into the sea. but here he says the Lord did it. This is a reason for the remarks on Jon 1:12, showing that Jonah gave his instructions to the men on the authority of God. Jon 2:4. Nothing is ever invisible to the eyes of God, so out of thy sight refers to Jonah’s side of the matter. He was hidden from all the scenes of the earth, yet he had faith in the existence of God and now turned to Him in his distress.
Jon 2:5-6 THE WATERS COMPASSED ME ABOUT, EVEN TO THE SOUL . . . THE WEEDS WERE WRAPPED ABOUT MY HEAD . . . BOTTOMS OF THE MOUNTAINS . . . EARTH . . . BARS CLOSED UPON ME . . . YET HAST THOU BROUGHT UP MY LIFE FROM THE PIT . . . The weeds are probably the reeds and grass, the vegetation on the very bottom of the sea. Jonah was down as far as one could go! The word translated bottoms is from a verb which means to cut off, or to shear. It signifies the extreme end. Jonah was at the very bottom of the sea where it seems as if the very foundations of the earth are to be found. That he lived through this experience is indeed a miracle when one considers the short time it takes to drown and the death that can come from extreme pressures of the oceanic depths. The bars of the earth had clanged into place and he would not be permitted access there now. Jonah thought of the earth as a walled city with its gate shut and locked with a bar, preventing him from ever again entering. From all outward appearances, and as far as he could determine, he would never again see the earth.
Yet the Lord did bring up his life. He was resurrected from the grave-saved out from death, Thus he became a sign to his generation and a type of the Messiah Who was a Sign to His generation and all generations. We shall deal more with Jonahs typical relation to the Messiah later.
Zerr: Jon 2:5. The original word for soul generally means any living and breathing creature. Jonah means he felt that his entire being was overwhelmed by the water. He not only was a prisoner on the inside of the fish, but that was a water creature and it was in its natural element which was not a suitable place for man. Weeds is from cuwrH which Strong defines, A reed, especially the papyrus. It is the word for flags in Exo 2:3, and hence refers to the reedy plants growing in the water. Doubtless when Jonah was cast overboard he first felt these reeds about him as he sank beneath the water and the impression was still with him for a time. Jon 2:6. Jonah is describing the way he felt when he was cast out of the boat, not that it is an inspired literal report of what actually happened. Bottoms of the mountains. The hilly land of the vicinity would extend on down into the water and Jonah felt as if he had sunk down to the bases of them. Earth . . . bars . , , for ever. Again Jonah is describing the way it seemed to him as he was shut off from the entire world. This conclusion is justified by his words immediately following that the Lord brought him out of the corruption that threat-ened his life.
Questions
1. Show that chapter 2 is not an interpolation by an unknown editor.
2. Why is it possible that Jonahs words may be quotations of the Psalms?
3. What purpose does affliction serve?
4. What is Sheol?
5. How extreme was the condition of Jonah in the sea?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
In the midst of the strange and awful circumstances in which he found himself, Jonah poured out his soul in anguish to Jehovah. The prayer as chronicled for us consists of quotations from the Book of Psalms. It is exactly the kind of cry which a man familiar with the sacred penitential writings of his people would utter in such circumstances.
Perhaps the most remarkable note about the prayer is its note of triumph. While it is distinctly asserted that he prayed out of the fish’s belly, and while all his quotations indicate the darkness and horror into which he had come, taken as a whole it is an expression of absolute confidence in God and in His deliverance.
The probability is that the prayer as recorded expressed the final stage of Jonah’s spiritual experience in the realm of darkness. “When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto Thee, into Thine holy temple,” is a quotation aptly indicating the period at which it was uttered. In view of the use made by Christ of this experience of Jonah, the prayer becomes all the more interesting, especially in its allusions to what were undoubtedly Messianic psalms.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
a Prayer from the Depths
Jon 1:17; Jon 2:1-10
The great fish was probably a shark. He who sent the storm prepared the fish. Life is full of contrivances on the part of the great Lover of men. To plunge beneath the wave is to fall into His arms. More than once the body of a man has been found in the belly of a shark in the Mediterranean. Even those who hold that this story is an elaborate parable must admit that it is probably founded on such a fact. Our Lords endorsement of this book and incident is very emphatic, Mat 12:39-41.
The psalm which follows is very helpful to those who have brought themselves into the depths by their wrongdoing. God will hear such out of the depths of Sheol. When you think you are cast out of His sight forever, if you will look toward His holy temple, you will find that His love is gradually extricating you from the pit. To trust in your own efforts and expedients is to regard lying vanities and to forsake your own mercy. Salvation is of the Lord. All nature waits upon His word. The big sharks and the tiny minnows are alike at the behest of God for the help of man. Only look again to God, and then be sure to pay your vows when delivered!
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Chapter 2
Out Of The Depths
When the scribes and the Pharisees hypocritically requested a sign that they might know for certain of the Lords Messiahship, He significantly replied: An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here (Mat 12:39-41). In these solemn words He does two important things for us. He authenticates the story of Jonah, and He unfolds a marvelous typical line of truth set forth in that record, which we might otherwise have overlooked. Jonahs experience is sober history. We have the word of the Son of God for it. Moreover, the prophets entombment in the great fish and his subsequent deliverance were intended as a sign to the Ninevites, and a type of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is true that Jonah found his suffering in the path of disobedience, and in Christ we contemplate with adoration the ever-faithful One who suffered to accomplish all His Fathers will; but this is only a proof of the fact that God ever causes the wrath of man to praise Him, and what would not do so He restrains. To the Ninevites Jonah was a man who had passed through death and resurrection. In this he portrays the glorious mystery of the gospel. He who is now set forth as the object of faith, is the One who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification. He went into death, but could not be holden of it. In a fuller sense than Jonah ever knew, He could say, The waters encompassed Me about, even to the soul. But God has raised Him from the dead, thereby testifying His satisfaction in the work of His Son. This is the only sign now set before men. All who trust in the risen Saviour are forever delivered from wrath and judgment-that judgment so rightfully theirs.
But in Jonahs experiences we likewise have to trace Gods dealings with his own soul; and this has a moral lesson of the deepest importance for us. There is also, as previously intimated, the fact that Israel, the unfaithful witness-bearer, refusing the thought of grace going out to the Gentiles, is here pictured. Their present condition answers to this second chapter, as declared by the apostle Paul when he writes of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost (1Th 2:14-16). By and by their deliverance shall come, when they are ready to own that salvation is of the Lord, all undeserved by them. In that day they will become the messengers of the same boundless grace to heathen millions, once hated and despised.
But we turn now to trace out, as intimated above, the exercises of the prophets soul when in his living tomb.
In his affliction he cries to Him from whom he had been seeking to hide. Divine life, like water, seeks its proper level, or sphere. Because, whatever his failings, Jonah is a child of God still, he turns instinctively to the very One he had been grieving, in the hour that he is brought to realize that he is the subject of divine discipline. A man is a long way on the road to recovery when he is ready to own the righteousness of his chastening, and when he sees that he is under the hand of God. Having already acknowledged to the mariners that such is the case, he now cries to Him who hears him even out of the belly of hell.
The floods have compassed him about, even to the soul; the weeds are wrapped about his head; all Gods waves and billows have gone over him; yet he will look again toward Jehovahs holy temple (vers. 1-5). It is blessed indeed when the soul does not faint beneath the discipline of the Lord, nor yet despise it, but looks up to God and counts upon His grace, however the sense of merited affliction may press upon the conscience.
But for deliverance there must be more than this, and for a time Jonah seems to fail to attain to it. He goes down to the bottoms of the mountains, but is able in the anticipation of faith to say, Yet hast Thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. His soul would have fainted within him, but he remembers the Lord, and is assured that his prayers shall be heard, and shall penetrate His holy temple. He is here in the place that the future remnant of Israel shall be in, in their experience, when the blindness of the present condition has passed away; afar off, yet, in accordance with the prayer of Solomon, looking toward the temple of Jehovah, though in ruins, as in the day that Daniel opened his windows toward Jerusalem (vers. 6, 7).
He exclaims, They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. He had forsaken his own mercy when he sought to flee from the presence of the Lord. He knows therefore the condition of the heathen by his own experience. Now, however, he is confident that he will wander no more; though, as we well know, his confidence was as yet misplaced. His heart was no more to be trusted in after he had been in the belly of the fish than before. When he cries, I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving, and when he adds, I will pay that that I have vowed, there is still no response on the part of God. He is not yet at the end of himself. As in the conversion of a sinner, so it is with the restoration of a saint: he must get to the end of himself before the Lord will undertake his case. The sinner must learn that he is without strength, and the erring saint must learn that in himself he is not a whit better or stronger than other men, ere God can manifest His grace.
So it is here, that after prayers, pledges and vows have availed nothing, the crisis is reached when he simply owns, Salvation is of the Lord! Then, and not till then, the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the dry land (vers. 8-10). Jonah has thus, in figure, passed through death and resurrection. He is now ready to go to the great and godless city of the Ninevites and declare the word of God to them.
That he has not yet fully done with self is evident later on; but he is now in Gods school, and he will have a patient and gracious Teacher.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Jon 2:4
Hindrances and aids to prayer.
I. Prayer is founded on knowledge and prayer is prompted by desire. If then for knowledge there be error, and if instead of desire there be coldness, then is prayer hindered. It cannot be denied that we are all prone to error as to God’s character and mind towards us. A wrong idea of God, of His character as unlovely, or of His mind as unloving towards us, is one chief impediment to the work of prayer. The other is a wrong feeling towards Him. Not misconception, not error, but (in the plainest sense of the words) some form or other of sin.
II. Whatever makes us know God better, and love Him more, will be an aid and help to prayer. (i) It is one chief office of the Bible to assist prayer by revealing God. Look upon it as you look upon visiting one who is to you as your own soul; an opportunity of increased knowledge, which increase of knowledge is evermore also an increase of love. (ii) Thus will it be also with the hearing of the Word in public. “Praying’s the end of preaching.” The value of each particular sermon may be estimated, not by the beauty of its language, and not by the power of its argument, but by this question rather, Did it make me pray? (iii) Another of the aids to prayer is what we term comprehensively the discipline of life. (iv) The chiefest of the helps to prayer is prayer.
Pray once, and you will pray again. Fray as you can today to-morrow you shall pray better.
C. J. Vaughan, Voices of the Prophets, p. 177.
References: Jon 2:4.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1813. Jon 2:8.-J. Duncan, The Pulpit and Communion Table, p. 307. Jon 2:9.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii., No. 131; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 57. Jon 2:10.-A. Watson, Sermons for Sundays: Festivals and Fasts, 3rd series, p. 399.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 2
Jonahs Prayer and Deliverance
1. The prayer (Jon 2:1-9)
2. The deliverance (Jon 2:10)
Jon 2:1-9. Some expositors have called attention to the fact that the prayer is not one offered up for deliverance, but it is a thanksgiving for the accomplished deliverance. But this is answered by the opening verse of this chapter, in which we are told that he prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fishs belly. When he found that he had escaped the death he anticipated and that the power of God kept him alive, he realized that the Lord his God would also deliver him; in faith he praised Jehovah for the coming deliverance. His prayer is composed almost entirely of sentences found in Psalms. We give the references. Jon 2:2 reminds of Psa 18:6-7; Psa 120:1. The word hell is the Hebrew sheol, the unknown region. See also Psa 30:3. Jon 2:3 contains a quotation from Psa 42:7, All thy waves and billows passed over me. In connection with Jon 2:4 consider Psa 31:22. Jon 2:5 is found in Psa 18:4, except the seaweed which crowned his head as he went into the deep; also Psa 69:2. The thanksgiving in Jon 2:6, Yet hast Thou brought up my life from the pit, O LORD, my God is closely allied to Psa 30:5. The first part of Jon 2:7 is from Psa 142:3 (marginal reading) and 143:4. The second part is found in Psa 5:7; Psa 18:6. The eighth verse reminds of Psa 31:6 and the ninth verse is to be connected with Psa 42:4.
The last utterance before the Lord commanded the fish is a triumphant shout, Salvation is of the LORD, a truth which many preachers in Christendom do not know.
Jon 2:10. The God of creation manifested His power over His creation by impelling the fish to release its prisoner. The place at which the fish vomited out Jonah is not mentioned; it was probably not very far from the seaport Joppa where he embarked.
The Typical Application
1. As to the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord went into the jaws of death and died the sinners death, the substitute of sinners. Most of the passages from the Psalms which Jonah embodied in his prayer are prophetic predictions of the sufferings of Christ. He cried to God for deliverance and was heard. (See Heb 5:7) The answer was His resurrection. Over His blessed head passed the waves and billows of a Holy God, when as the substitute He hung on the cross. He knew more than Jonah could ever know what it meant, The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The Sixty-ninth Psalm is Messianic and the words Jonah used, I sink in deep mire where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters, where floods overthrow me, tell us of the deep sufferings through which He passed. While Jonahs head was wound about with the seaweeds of the deep, our Lord bore the crown of thorns, the emblem of the curse, upon His blessed head.
It was on the third day that the fish vomited out Jonah. The third day is marked in the Word of God as the day of resurrection. (See Gen 1:11-13; Hos 6:1-11.) On the third day our Lord left the grave behind and rose from among the dead. We quote a helpful paragraph on the question of the three days and nights:
So our Lord Jesus, though by Jewish reckoning three days and nights in the grave, literally lay there but the whole of Saturday, the Sabbath, with the part of Friday not yet closed, and before the dawn of Sunday. For we must always remember in these questions the Jews method of reckoning. Part of a day regularly counted for the twenty-four hours. The evening and the morning, or any part, counted as a whole day. But the Lord, as we know, was crucified in the afternoon on Friday; His body lay all the Sabbath day in the grave; and He arose early on the Sunday morning. That space was counted three days and three nights, according to sanctioned Biblical reckoning, which no man who bows to Scripture would contest. This was asserted among the Jews, who, fertile as they have been in excuses for unbelief, have never, as far as I am aware, made difficulties on this score. The ignorance of Gentiles has exposed some of them when unfriendly to cavil at the phrase. The Jews found not a few stumbling blocks, but this is not one of them; they may know little of what is infinitely more momentous; but they know their own Bible too well to press an objection which would tell against the Hebrew Scriptures quite as much as the Greek. (Wm. Kelly, Jonah)
2. As to the Nation. The prayer for deliverance and Jonahs deliverance by the power of God foreshadows the coming experience of the remnant of Israel. There is coming the time of Jacobs trouble in the closing years of this age. Then a part of the nation will call upon the Lord. Their prayers are also pre-written in the book of Psalms, and when finally they acknowledge that salvation is of the LORD, and He appears in His glory, to turn away ungodliness from Jacob, the Lord will bring them out of their spiritual and national death. He will speak to the fish, the nations, and they will give up the Jews. Then comes the third day of their restoration. (See Hos 6:1-3)
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
great fish
No miracle of Scripture has called forth so much unbelief. The issue is not between the doubter and this ancient record, but between the doubter and the Lord Jesus Christ. Mat 12:39; Mat 12:40. Science, “falsely so called” 1Ti 6:20 failing to take account of the fact that it deals only with the outward phenomena of a fallen race, and of an earth under a curse Gen 3:17-19 is intolerant of miracles. To faith, and to true science, miracle is what might be expected of divine love, interposing God in a physically and morally disordered universe. Rom 8:19-23.
prepared
Four prepared things. Jon 4:6; Jon 4:7; Jon 4:8
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
prayed: 2Ch 33:11-13, Psa 50:15, Psa 91:15, Isa 26:16, Hos 5:15, Hos 6:1-3, Jam 5:13
out: Job 13:15, Psa 130:1, Psa 130:2, Lam 3:53-56, Act 16:24, Act 16:25
Reciprocal: Jdg 16:28 – remember me 1Ki 22:32 – Jehoshaphat Job 5:8 – seek Job 16:16 – on my eyelids Psa 77:2 – In the Isa 38:9 – writing Mar 5:19 – Go home Act 9:11 – for 1Ti 2:8 – pray
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jonah, in the School of Affliction
Jon 2:1-9
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
When we think of Jonah in the whale’s belly, we are thinking of the Lord in the heart of the earth. When we think of Christ in the heart of the earth, we think of the “underworld”; the abode of the wicked, and the former “paradise” of the saved of Old Testament fame.
A brief study of these things will furnish us a profitable theme for the introduction of today’s study.
1. The abode of the righteous dead in the Old Testament. In thinking over this matter, our danger will be in a failure to take God at His Word, without seeking to change it to meet our own conceptions of things. We have never been into the heart of the earth, and know but little of what is down there. Scientific men tell us that the solid crust of the earth is comparatively thin, and that there is molten fire deeper in. Still deeper down, they cannot go.
Let us turn, therefore, to the Bible, the Word made sure in Heaven.
When Abraham and Jacob and Aaron died they were, in each case, gathered to their fathers (Gen 25:8; Gen 37:35; Gen 49:33; Num 20:26). When David lost his child, born unto him by Bathsheba, he cried that he could not bring him back: He said, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
What do these things mean? Certainly there is not one word in them about departing to be “with the Lord.” The fact is that the saints of old went into a place prepared, a paradise. This is the meaning of the words of Christ on the Cross, when He said to the repentant thief: “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
On this same line we read that Christ “also descended first into the lower parts of the earth.” He went to paradise; He went into the lower parts of the earth; therefore “paradise” was in the lower parts of the earth.
It was there that the Old Testament saints gathered to await the resurrection of the Lord, and His victorious ascent into Heaven.
2. The abode of the wicked dead, prior to and since the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Relative to Korah and those connected with him in his rebellion, Moses said, Let “the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up.” Thus it was, that, as Moses spake, “The earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, * * and all * * went down alive into the pit.”
In Isaiah we read, “Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming.” In Ezekiel we read, “They are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.”
3. Wherein the Old Testament saints were translated into Heaven. Here it is in the Bible,-“Wherefore He saith, When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.” This should have been enough; however, the Lord made it more positive, when the Word of God added, “(Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things).”
4. Paradise as it now is. We have seen paradise in the lower parts of the earth. We now see it in the third heaven. Hear the Word of the Lord: Paul is speaking: “Such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) how that he was caught up into paradise.” The preceding verse says, “Such an one caught up to the third heaven.”
One thing is established: Paradise is now with Christ in the Glory. Of this Paul wrote, “Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.” Thank God for such a wonderful future for us, and for such a glorious position for all of the redeemed, who have died in Christ.
I. PRAYING IN THE HOUR OF TROUBLE (Jon 2:1)
1. There are some men who never pray, except in trouble. You will all be willing to grant me that men ought always to pray. They should pray in the time of joy, of success, and also in the time of difficulty. He who prays only when he is besieged by engulfing waters can never pray victoriously. The reason Abraham and David and Moses had power in prayer when the waters of trouble overthrew them, was because they always prayed. They lived with God and walked with God, and as a result they talked with God.
He who waits until he is sick and about to die can never pray the prayer of faith, as can he who has known the power of prayer in his daily experiences. Prayer should not be like mountain peaks, with great valleys lying between. Prayer should rather be a high plateau where one is always on the mountain tops.
2. There are some men who pray in the hour of need with a victorious faith, because they learned how to pray in the hours of no special crisis. Thank God we have One who can hear us in our need. He is able not only to hear, but to undertake.
“The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, tho’ all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake!”
God heard Jonah out of the belly of the great fish, and He will hear us, when we are carried deep down into the waters of despair.
Our Lord prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prayed with supplications, with strong crying, and tears, “Unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared.”
Our Lord prayed again from Calvary’s Cross. He said, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He certainly was heard. God had been well-pleased to bruise Him. He had made His soul an offering for sin, but now that the shadows were passing, and He once more saw His Father’s face, He shouted one great, victorious cry, “It is finished!” Then into His Father’s hands He commended His spirit and gave up the ghost.
II. JONAH’S DEEP AFFLICTION (Jon 2:2)
Our key verse says, “I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and Thou heardest my voice.”
1. The afflictions of the righteous often come from their perverse ways. That Jonah was afflicted, we have no doubt; but he was afflicted because he had fled from the presence of the Lord.
We must guard our statements here, and remember that all afflictions do not come because of the believer’s sin. This was the conception which the friends of Job tried to place upon him. They said that he suffered because he was a hypocrite, and a sinner.
While suffering and sickness may not be a result of our sins, it is also true that many of our afflictions are because of our sin. It is whom the Lord loveth that He chasteneth. The story of the Bible is a story relative to stumbling saints.
Even the best of men, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Moses, sinned, and sinned terribly. Each of them, in turn, was chastened by the Lord who loved them. We can even now hear David crying to God for mercy. He too, like Jonah, felt that he was cast off from God. The 51st Psalm voices his prayer. He said, “Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.” He also said, “Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.”
We can imagine something of the terrible grief that had been David’s. Now, however, he was coming forth into the place of restored joy and service. When the Book of James tells saints who are sick, to pray; it also says, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” James further says, “If he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”
2. The afflictions of the Lord come from our perverse ways. When we think of Christ upon the Cross going down, as it were, into the belly of hell, as Jonah went; we do not think of His death as due to His fleeing from the presence of the Lord. When Christ died, He who knew no sin, was made sin for us.
Jonah suffered for his own sins. Christ suffered for our sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. His sufferings, therefore, were for us. Jonah’s sufferings were personal, for his own perverseness. The sufferings of Jonah, however, typically set forth the sufferings of Christ, inasmuch as the substitute suffers on an equality with the sinner for whom he suffers.
III. GOD, THE INSTIGATOR OF JUDGMENT (Jon 2:3)
1. Jonah acknowledged God as the Author of his trouble. He said, “For Thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas.” The fact of the matter was that Jonah had been cast into the sea by the sailors aboard the ship. Jonah, however, threw this to one side. He knew that the wind which followed him, had been sent of God. He knew that the waves which were about to engulf the ship, were God’s waves. He knew that the hands which lifted him up, and cast him overboard were God’s hands.
Blessed is that man who, in the hour of his afflictions, can see the hand of God in it all.
Let us not, for one moment, complain to God, for we know what Jonah soon learned, that the wind, the waves, and the casting overboard were all done in love. God was seeking to bring back a disobedient child.
In other words, God was casting Jonah into the deep, in order that He might lift Nineveh out of the deep. Jonah was being carried down into the throes of death, in order that Nineveh might be brought up to the joys of light. We can almost hear the Prophet saying, “With His stripes we are healed.” Christ died that we might live; He suffered that we might sing.
In all this was fulfilled that which is written (Heb 12:11).
2. God was the Author of Christ’s troubles. We are seeking to bring the comparison between Jonah and Christ. We are doing this under the authority of Christ’s own statement: “As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Since it is true that God cast Jonah into the deep, it is also true that God cast Christ into the deep. Have you not read Psa 69:1-36? There we find a parallel to Jonah, chapter 2, and Jon 2:3. Jon 2:3 says, “The floods compassed me about: all Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me.” Psa 69:15 says, “Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me!”
Three things are similar: The waters which overflowed the earth in the days of the Flood; the waters that overflowed Jonah in the days of his disobedience, and the waters which overflowed Christ in the days of His sufferings upon the Cross.
When the waters of baptism also overflow, and sweep across the face of a believer, he is baptized, joining in with the flood, and with Jonah, in setting forth the anguish of Calvary.
IV. JONAH’S FAITH IN THE HOUR OF HIS PASSION (Jon 2:4)
1. An expression of Jonah’s confidence. Here is the way our key verse reads: “Then I said, I am cast out of Thy sight; yet I will look again toward Thy Holy Temple.” The breathing of this prayer shows the depth of Jonah’s confidence in God.
When Jonah was first approached by the seamen on the fateful ship, they asked him, saying, “Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?” With these questions upon him, Jonah replied, “I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of Heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.”
Now, Jonah, in the belly of the fish, continues to demonstrate his faith, Abroad ship we might say he set forth his creed; from the whale’s belly, he set forth his confidence in the One in whom his creed was centered.
Jonah cried, “Yet I will look again toward Thy Holy Temple.” This is almost as epochal as was the great faith-cry of Job, when, in the hour of his sore trials and afflictions, he cried, “Though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, * * and not another.”
2. An expression of Christ’s confidence as He hung upon the Cross. There is a remarkable Scripture in Psa 22:1-31. We believe that the very words of this Psalm were quoted upon the Cross. We know the 1st verse was quoted, because Christ said, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Whether the later verses were actually quoted or not, they do at least express the triumphant trust of the Son of God as He hung upon the Cross. Here are the words which He said, “I will declare Thy Name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.” Thus the Psalmist, Job, and Jonah, in their victorious shouts of faith, expressed the same spirit of confidence and the same far-flung vision of faith which Christ Himself expressed on the Cross.
V. THE ANGUISH OF THE PROPHET (Jon 2:5-6)
1. The depth of bitterness, which encompassed Jonah. He said, “The depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever.” There is no bitterness comparable to that which fills the soul of one who is cast off from the sight of God.
Let us think of Jeremiah, of his anguish, and of what he said (Jer 4:23-26).
In line with the above quotations, Jonah felt that he, too, was cast off forever. Everything was cut off from him, and he was cut off from everything. Such anguish cannot be weighed in the scales of human reckoning.
2. The depth of bitterness which encompassed Christ. Wrapped up in the words, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” are contained all the miseries and anguish of hell. It was not the physical anguish, it was not the mocking crowd, that brought to Christ the depth of His sufferings. It was the fact that He was left, by the Father, to travel His weary way around the cycle of His sufferings.
In the Book of Jude is this expression, relative to the angels, who left their own habitation: “He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” Of the “certain men” who crept in unawares, God said, “Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.”
Let us make these comparisons: The great sorrows and anguish of Jonah was the blackness of the darkness which shrouded him in the whale’s belly, as he felt himself cast off from God forever! The great sorrow which befell the certain angels who sinned was that they were put into everlasting chains of darkness. The great punishment which lies ahead of all unbelievers is that there is reserved unto them the blackness of darkness forever.
Such a darkness as that which befell Jonah, as that which befell the angels who sinned, as that which befalls the apostate deniers of the faith, was the darkness that fell upon the Lord Jesus Christ as He suffered, the Just for the unjust.
VI. THE WONDERFUL JOY THAT FOLLOWS SORROW (Jon 2:9)
1. The sacrifice of thanksgiving. Jonah said, from the whale’s belly, “I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving.” Thus it was, in the hour of his darkness, he saw the possibility of light. He knew that God could and would turn his sorrows into songs of joy and into laughter.
Blessed is the saint who can turn his clouds about! Blessed is the saint who can see the silver lining to the dark clouds.
In the days of Nehemiah, and of Ezra, their sorrow was turned into singing. We read that they “Kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy: for the Lord had made them joyful.” Is it not true that, “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing”?
In the 126th Psalm, it is written, “When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing.” Thus it was that Jonah, from the depth of despair, foresaw himself lifted up into the heights of glory.
2. The experience of our Lord. The Prophet wrote, “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.” What joy will be our Lord’s when He receives unto Himself the raptured hosts of the redeemed! It is no wonder that He comes with a shout.
What joy will it be to our Lord when, in His Kingdom, He sits in the midst of His redeemed. The Book of Zephaniah, so describes that hour: “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing.”
3. The experience of all saints. Christ said to us, “Ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.” Truly our sorrow shall be turned into joy! If Christ shall rejoice when He sees the raptured saints coming up to meet Him, will we not also rejoice when we see raptured saints whom we have led to Christ? Perhaps Paul had this in mind when he wrote: “What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord?”
VII. SALVATION IS OF THE LORD (Jon 2:9 b)
1. When David was pursued by Absalom, he passed over the Brook Kedron and went up by the way of the Mount of Olives. Quickly he sought the Lord in prayer. His memorable petition is set forth in Psa 3:1-8 : “Lord, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me.” Then David said, “But Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me out of His Holy Hill.” Then, with exultant faith, David cried, “I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about.” Finally, David said, “Thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; * * Salvation belongeth unto the Lord.”
Thus did Jonah, in the hour of his anguish, cry out, “Salvation is of the Lord.” With this final statement from Jonah, this cry of faith, we read, “And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.”
2. The Psalmist David said in prophetic language concerning Christ, mid the anguish of His suffering, “I am poor and sorrowful: let Thy salvation, O God, set Me up on high!” Then He added, “I will praise the Name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. * * For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah.”
Thus it was that Christ saw what David saw, and what Jonah saw; He saw that the fruitage of His death would be salvation. How happy are we to know that “there is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Truly salvation is of the Lord, not for David only, nor yet for Jonah; salvation is the lot of every one who believes on Christ.
That salvation, however, is not to be found in the Christ of Nazareth, but in the Christ of Calvary. It is not obtained by the marvelous ministry of our Lord, as He moved among men. Salvation comes to us through the bitterness of the cup which He drank upon the Cross. It was there that He suffered, and it was there that He sang.
All Heaven shall yet be ablaze with the glory of the Christ of Calvary. To Him will be ascribed all honor, and glory, and might, and power, because He was the Lamb that was slain.
AN ILLUSTRATION
An experience never to be forgotten is that of those who have encountered prairie fires on the western plains. In the distance they have seen the clouds of smoke, and have smelled the burning grass. If the winds be blowing from the direction of the fire, their position is one of extreme danger. The swiftest horse can scarcely outrun the flames. On they sweep with the fury of the hurricane, consuming everything in their path. In such circumstances, the only safety is to set fire to the grass at one’s feet and when it has burned an open space, stand where the fire had been. The surging waves of flame must cease at the border of the newly-burnt zone.
Now, says a writer, in a very graphic way this illustrates the work of Christ, He interposes Himself between the sinner and the waves of destruction that were bearing down upon Him, In His own body He bore the penalty of sin. Sin, so to speak, burnt over Him; and in the Gospel He is calling men to come to Him for safety. Having spent its fury upon Him, it cannot harm those who stand with Him.
It was on the Cross of Calvary that the fire burnt fiercest. It was the hour of the prince of darkness. The fury of Satan exhausted itself on the “Sinless Sufferer” there. And “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” Standing where the flames have been, the sinner need not fear the fires of sin. They have no power over him. He has a life that is hid with Christ in God. No power on earth or in hell can pluck him out of the Father’s hands. What an assurance of safety! How gladly ought men to avail themselves of it!-Publisher Unknown.
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Jon 2:1. Nothing that is right is impossible with God (Mat 19:26). therefore He could preserve Jonah alive and conscious in the bowels of the fish. Being a worshiper of the true God, it was not strange that he would engage in prayer in his unusual surroundings. Aside from being cut off from the normal kind and amount of air, he was unharmed by the act of the fish, and of course the Lord could take care of that situation by His great power.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jon 2:1-2. Then Jonah prayed Those devout thoughts and feelings which he had at that time, he afterward digested into the following prayer, and added a thanksgiving for his deliverance at the end of it. So several of Davids Psalms were probably composed after his trouble was over; but in a manner suitable to the thoughts he had at the time of his affliction; and with a grateful sense of Gods mercies for his deliverance out of it: see Psalm 54. and 120. And he heard me He thanks God that, in consequence of his prayer, his life is wonderfully preserved. Out of the belly of hell cried I The word signifies the state of the dead. So it may most properly be rendered the grave here, as the margin reads: the belly of the fish was to Jonah instead of a grave.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jon 2:4. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight. After what we have heard of the misguided and offending conduct of Jonah, we need not wonder to find him sinking into deep dejection and distress. He is now in the stomach of the fish, at the bottom of the mountains, crying to the Lord, while his reflections upon his past conduct are filling him with the bitterest anguish. He was an Israelite, but now cast away, and fearing it will be his lot to die among the heathen, where no eye will pity him. He was a prophet, an ambassador of the Lord of hosts, but is now cast off and rejected, and God will employ him no more. He had enjoyed communion with heaven, and cherished the hope of eternal life; yet he now finds himself in the belly of hell. Poor Jonahwhat a situation, and to what a length did his fears lead him. All this he said: but happily for him it was not so. It was the language of his fears, which had brought him to this extremity. The Lord had not cast him off, though he was cast into the sea, and would in due time send him deliverance.
Good men in all ages are as much distinguished by their fears as by their hopes, by what they deprecate as by what they possess and enjoy. The unhappy prophet is distressed by the thought of banishment from God. I said, I am cast out of thy sight. I must see his face no more. He was in effect cast out of the world, and out of the sight of men. This however did not so much affect him: but oh, I am cast out of thy sight! This to a pious mind is the greatest of all conceivable ills, the very essence of misery itself, and can nohow be estimated but by the love of God having been shed abroad in the heart.
Yet will I look again toward thy holy temple. Perilous as was his situation, and great as had been his misconduct, he would still indulge a little hope, and once more look towards the temple, the altar, and the mercy seat sprinkled with atoning blood. Praying towards the temple, when in distant lands and in deep distress, had the promise of acceptance; thither therefore would he direct his groans and his sighs. 1Ki 8:38-39.
This was not the first time that Jonah had looked for mercy from the bleeding altar, and he was therefore now encouraged to look again, hoping it might not be in vain. He who has once tried this means of relief will try it again: and oh how good it is, not to be a stranger to prayer, but to know where to look and what to do in a time of trouble. Jesus is now to us all that the temple and the altar were to the Hebrews; he is the true propitiatory, able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him.
Jon 2:5. The weeds were wrapped about my head. The prophet was some time in the seas before his deliverance came.
Jon 2:9. I will pay that which I have vowed; a sacrifice in Jerusalem with thanksgiving; for he knew when he composed this eloquent song that God would save him.
REFLECTIONS.CHAP. 1, 2.
The reprieve of Nineveh is one of the most instructive events of national history. The patriarch Assur, advancing up the Tigris, found a hill on the eastern shore on which he built the city, calling it Nineveh, or beautiful; a salubrious and inviting abode.
This city flourished and encreased for thirteen hundred years. Ninus built, or rather began the walls, eighteen miles in length, and twelve in breadth, which included the villas and the pleasure grounds, as well as the city. Its walls were a hundred and twenty feet high, and the projecting towers fifteen hundred in number, twice as high as the walls. Nineveh was the northern metropolis, and Babylon the winter metropolis of the great Assyrian empire. She had extended her conquests and cruelties as far as Troy in the north, and Ecbatana in the east, and latterly had began to conquer all the powers of western Asia. Her own historians admit that she branded her slaves in the forehead; and the Hebrew prophets call her the bloody city, the city full of lies, full of robbers, from whose mouth the prey departed not. They warn her by the fall of No-hammon, the Thebes of Egypt, a ceval city, that she should fall also by siege and storm; yea, fall to rise no more. See on Nahum, and on Eze 30:15.
But oh, shall heaven strike without a full and open warning, and take advantage of worms of the dust! Shall the guilty perish in ignorance, as in crime? Oh no: the prophet Jonah, famed in Israel for prayer, and learned in languages and in posy, was called of God to go and cry against the guilty city. His mission was that of terror and destruction, the gracious words of Christ, except ye repent, being understood. But these treasures of grace were hid, even from Jonah himself. Jonah shrunk at the terrific mission; for he knew by praying for Israel in the time of extremity, that God was merciful and gracious. Jonah however was not the only prophet that had shrunk. Moses feared to go to Pharaoh, and Elijah had requested to die, that he might cease from conflicts with those who had killed the prophets.
Jonah, to avoid the pursuing calls of his God, went down to Joppa, and embarked for Carthage, a city as far to the west as Nineveh was to the east. But Messiah, ever with his servants, would allow of no delinquency in the high duties of a prophet. He made him an example to other ministers, who shrink from the harsher duties of their office. The tempest gathered black, and the waves fought against the ship. The seamen having exhausted their strength, threw the cargo into the sea to save their lives. Necessity is a hard weapon. Each was warned to pray to his god. Jonah, poor Jonah meanwhile was in his berth, fast asleep, for it is likely that his eyes had long been strangers to sleep. The master of the vessel roused him, as a profane person, insensible of danger, and unprepared for death.
Some of the more experienced seamen now began to have their thoughts, that this was no common storm; and that they had some notorious culprit on board. The hint was no sooner dropped than believed, for in extremities we think of our sins. Each being conscious of purity from innocent blood, boldly called for the lot,and the lot fell upon Jonah. Ay, and it shall fall on every other Jonah, who seeks in vain to fly from God.
He was summoned to the bar on the open deck, and each with eager looks began to read awful things in the countenance of a murderer, a robber of the temples, or one outrunning his country with the bread of widows and orphans. They scarcely breathed, awaiting the extraordinary confession. But behold, it was the countenance of piety in error, of virtue in distress, of wisdom under a cloud. The confession is truly astonishing.I fear God, and am a prophet of the Hebrews. The Lord bade me go and cry against Nineveh, but my fears have conquered me, and I flee from the presence of the Lord to a land of exile. Oh most strange, but ingenuous confession.
The strong tide of passion, in all the ships company, now turned by the force of truth. They believed his words, and asked what they should do with him. Take me, said he, and cast me into the sea, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is come upon you. The sailors, fearing God, made another effort to save the ship, but all in vain: justice would accept of no compromise. So they were compelled to give the deep the required sacrifice, imploring mercy, and offering sacrifice for blood.
Think of this, thou slumbering sinner, on the verge of hell. Think of this, thou apostate professor, departing from a God, from whom thou canst not flee. And thou temporising pastor, who sometimes castest thy regards on the proud, on the oppressors, on the seducers, on the infidel; why dost thou shrink from duty for fear of the Assyrians. Why dost thou sometimes dine with that Herod, and art silent about his bosom sin? Art thou not afraid of the abyss, deeper than the sea. Dost thou get bread for the cure of souls, and deny them the heavenly bread? Wilt thou destroy thy soul, and the souls committed to thy care, through the fear of man?
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jon 1:1 to Jon 2:1, Jon 2:10. Jonah vainly Seeks to Evade the Mission to which God Appoints Him.Jonah is bidden by Yahweh to proclaim judgment on Nineveh for its sin, but he hurries in the opposite direction, to Tarshish (p. 381). Why he refused to proclaim such congenial tidings appears only in the sequel (Jon 4:2). In a very striking way the author indicates the intellectual limitation of Jonahs conception of Yahweh. He rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Three times the phrase occurs, and where every word is meant to tell, the repetition is significant. It is true that Jonah believes that Yahweh can destroy or save Nineveh, and he even confesses Him as the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. But this formal confession of monotheism was cancelled by the localising of Yahweh, which made it possible for the prophet seriously to contemplate getting away from Him, if he only went far enough. This state of mind was characteristic of Judaism, which, asserting monotheism, yet by its particularism really denied it. Jonah cannot, however, get away from Yahweh, who sends a storm, so that the ship is in peril. The description of the sailors is very significant. They are representatives of the heathen world. When the storm threatens to break their vessel, they act up to the measure of the religion they possess, and each cries unto his god. At the same time they do their utmost to save the ship by sacrificing its wares. Jonah had, before the storm broke, gone into the innermost part of the ship, and while the heathen were praying and working he was fast asleep. The captain, like the crew, is deeply religious, and is amazed that in such straits any should neglect to pray. The character of the sailors comes out also in their treatment of Jonah. It would not have been surprising if, in harmony with ancient superstition, they had inferred at once the strangers guilt, and sought to save their lives by casting him into the sea. But they become convinced of it only when the lot has fallen upon him. When they learn the nature of his sin they are terrified, and since he is the prophet of so powerful a God, they ask him what they must do. In Jonahs answer, bidding them cast him to the waves, we are tempted to see the one redeeming feature in his career; but it would probably be a mistake to lay stress on it. It was necessary for the development of the story that Jonah should be thrown into the sea, and the author would be unwilling to represent the sailors as taking the initiative in this. Jonah recognises that his plan of escape from Yahweh has failed, but Sheol may furnish a refuge he has not been able to find in Tarshish. Even after they have learnt that Jonah must be cast into the sea, they refuse to do it except as a last resource. They strain every nerve to get to land, but the tempest increases, and their efforts to save the prophet prove unavailing. But before they carry out his bidding they pray to Yahweh that He will not lay innocent blood to their charge, and indicate that it is only in obedience to His clearly expressed will that they sacrifice the prophet. The sea at once grows calm when Jonah as been cast into it, and the sailors fear Yahweh exceedingly, and sacrifice to Him and make vows. In this way the writer impresses two lessons on his reader. One is the high moral and religious excellence that exists in the heathen world, the other is the readiness of the heathen to turn to Yahweh. Against this background the character and conduct of Israel stand out in most unattractive colours. It may further be pointed out that the writer is in line with earlier prophets when he suggests that the political convulsions which overwhelmed other nations in the victorious advance of Assyria and Babylon occurred on account of Israel.
When Jonah is cast into the sea, Yahweh instructs a great fish to swallow him. Here we may touch the mythological conception of the dragon of the lower ocean. But this is of no moment for the general idea of the book. The episode of the fish is clear enough when we remember that Jonah is Israel and compare Jer 51:34; Jer 51:44. There it is said that the king of Babylon has swallowed Israel like a dragon, and again that Yahweh will compel Bel to disgorge that which he has swallowed. In other words, the story of the fish represents the Exile and the Restoration. In exile Israel prays to Yahweh and is released from captivity.
Jon 1:5 b. Marti brings out the contrast with the sleep of Jesus during the storm on the lake (Mar 4:35-41): Jonah was tranquil since he thought he was far from Gods hand, Jesus confident since He knew Himself to be hidden in Gods hand.
Jon 1:9. I fear: read perhaps I am fleeing from.
Jon 1:17. prepared: render ordered.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
2:1 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God {a} out of the fish’s belly,
(a) Being now swallowed up by death, and seeing no remedy to escape, his faith broke out to the Lord, knowing that out of this very hell he was able to deliver him.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
This is the first mention of Jonah praying (cf. Jon 4:2). In both this verse and Jon 4:2 the usual Hebrew word hitpallel, "to pray," appears. In Jon 1:5 and Jon 3:8 the Hebrew word qara’, "to call," occurs. Until now Jonah had been fleeing from God and hiding from Him. Now in his great distress he finally sought the Lord. Being willing to die by drowning was one thing (Jon 1:12), but death by gradual digestion was something Jonah had not anticipated. We do not know how long Jonah struggled in the sea before the fish swallowed him. Perhaps that terror also contributed to his repentance. Some interpreters believe that Jonah’s repentance is a type of the repentance of the Jewish remnant that will occur prior to the beginning of the Millennium. [Note: E.g., J. Dwight Pentecost, Thy Kingdom Come, p. 328; and Feinberg, pp. 28-29.]
God often has to discipline His rebellious children severely before we turn back to Him.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE GREAT FISH AND WHAT IT MEANS-THE PSALM
Jon 2:1-10
AT this point in the tale appears the Great Fish. “And Jehovah prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”
After the very natural story which we have followed, this verse obtrudes itself with a shock of unreality and grotesqueness. What an anticlimax! say some; what a clumsy intrusion! So it is if Jonah be taken as an individual. But if we keep in mind that he stands here, not for himself, but for his nation, the difficulty and the grotesqueness disappear. It is Israels ill-will to the heathen, Israels refusal of her mission, Israels embarkation on the stormy sea of the worlds politics, which we have had described as Jonahs. Upon her flight from Gods will there followed her Exile, and from her Exile, which was for a set period, she came back to her own land, a people still, and still Gods servant to the heathen. How was the author to express this national death and resurrection? In conformity with the popular language of his time, he had described Israels turning from Gods will by her embarkation on a stormy sea, always the symbol of the prophets for the tossing heathen world that was ready to engulf her; and now to express her exile and return he sought metaphors in the same rich poetry of the popular imagination.
To the Israelite who watched from his hills that stormy coast on which the waves hardly ever cease to break in their impotent restlessness, the sea was a symbol of arrogance and futile defiance to the will of God. The popular mythology of the Semites had filled it with turbulent monsters, snakes, and dragons who wallowed like its own waves, helpless against the bounds set to them, or rose to wage war against the gods in heaven and the great lights which they had created; but a god slays them and casts their carcasses for meat and drink to the thirsty people of the desert. It is a symbol of the perpetual war between light and darkness; the dragons are the clouds, the slayer the sun. A variant form, which approaches closely to that of Jonahs great fish, is still found in Palestine. In May, 1891, I witnessed at Hasbeya, on the western skirts of Hermon, an eclipse of the moon.
When the shadow began to creep across her disc there rose from the village a hideous din of drums, metal pots, and planks of wood beaten together; guns were fired, and there was much shouting. I was told that this was done to terrify the great fish which was swallowing the moon, and to make him disgorge her. Now these purely natural myths were applied by the prophets and poets of the Old Testament to the illustration, not only of Jehovahs sovereignty over the storm and the night, but of His conquest of the heathen powers who had enslaved His people. Isaiah had heard in the sea the confusion and rage of the peoples against the bulwark which Jehovah set around Israel, {Isa 17:12-14} but it is chiefly from the time of the Exile onward that the myths themselves, with their cruel monsters and the prey of these, are applied to the great heathen powers and their captive, Israel. One prophet explicitly describes the Exile of Israel as the swallowing of the nation by the monster, the Babylonian tyrant, whom God forces at last to disgorge his prey. Israel says: {Jer 51:34} “Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me and crushed me, he hath swallowed me up like the Dragon, filling his belly, from my delights he hath cast me out.” But Jehovah replies: {Jer 51:44-45} “I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed My people, go ye out of the midst of her.”
It has been justly remarked by Canon Cheyne that this passage may be considered as the intervening link between the original form of the myth and the application of it made in the story of Jonah. To this the objection might be offered that in the story of Jonah “the great fish” is not actually represented as the means of the prophets temporary destruction, like the monster in Jer 51:1-64, but rather as the vessel of his deliverance. This is true, yet it only means that our author has still further adapted the very plastic material offered him by this much-transformed myth. But we do not depend for our proof upon the comparison of a single passage. Let the student of the Book of Jonah read carefully the many passages of the Old Testament, in which the sea or its monsters rage in vain against Jehovah, or are harnessed and led about by Him; or still more those passages in which His conquest of these monsters is made to figure His conquest of the heathen powers-and the conclusion will appear irresistible that the story of the “great fish” and of Jonah the type of Israel is drawn from the same source. Such a solution of the problem has one great advantage. It relieves us of the grotesqueness which attaches to the literal conception of the story, and of the necessity of those painful efforts for accounting for a miracle which have distorted the common-sense and even the orthodoxy of so many commentators of the book. We are dealing, let us remember, with poetry-a poetry inspired by one of the most sublime truths of the Old Testament, but whose figures are drawn from the legends and myths of the people to whom it is addressed. To treat this as prose is not only to sin against the commonsense which God has given us, but against the simple and obvious intention of the author. It is blindness both to reason and to Scripture.
These views are confirmed by an examination of the Psalm or Prayer which is put into Jonahs mouth while he is yet in the fish. We have already seen what grounds there are for believing that the Psalm belongs to the authors own plan, and from the beginning appeared just where it does now. But we may also point out how, in consistence with its context, this is a Psalm, not of an individual Israelite, but of the nation as a whole. It is largely drawn from the national liturgy. It is full of cries which we know, though they are expressed in the singular number, to have been used of the whole people, or at least of that pious portion of them, who were Israel indeed. True that in the original portion of the Psalm, and by far its most beautiful verses, we seem to have the description of a drowning man swept to the bottom of the sea. But even here, the colossal scenery and the magnificent hyperbole of the language suit not the experience of an individual, but the extremities of that vast gulf of exile into which a whole nation was plunged. It is a nations carcass which rolls upon those infernal tides that swirl among the roots of mountains and behind the barred gates of earth. Finally, Jon 2:9-10 are obviously a contrast, not between the individual prophet and the heathen, but between the true Israel, who in exile preserve their loyalty to Jehovah, and those Jews who, forsaking their “covenant-love,” lapse to idolatry. We find many parallels to this in exilic and post-exilic literature.
“And Jonah prayed to Jehovah his God from the belly of the fish, and said:”-
“I cried out of my anguish to Jehovah, and He answered me; From the belly of Inferno I sought help-Thou heardest my voice. For Thou hadst cast me into the depth, to the heart of the seas, and the flood rolled around me; All Thy breakers and billows went over me. Then I said I am hurled from Thy sight: shall I ever again look towards Thy holy temple? Waters enwrapped me to the soul; the Deep rolled around me”;
“The tangle was bound about my head. I was gone down to the roots of the hills; Earth and her bars were behind me forever. But Thou broughtest my life up from destruction, Jehovah my God! When my soul fainted upon me, I remembered Jehovah, And my prayer came in unto Thee, to Thy holy temple. They that observe the idols of vanity, They forsake their covenant-love. But to the sound of praise I will sacrifice to Thee; What I have vowed I will perform. Salvation is Jehovahs.”
“And Jehovah spake to the fish, and it threw up Jonah on the dry land.”