Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jonah 2:10
And the LORD spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry [land].
And the Lord spake unto the fish – Psa 148:8. Wind and storm fulfill His word. The irrational creatures have wills. God had commanded the prophet, and he disobeyed. God, in some way, commanded the fish. He laid His will upon it, and the fish immediately obeyed; a pattern to the prophet when He released him. Gods will, that anything should be completed, is law and fulfillment and hath the power of law. Not that Almighty God commanded the fish, as He does us or the holy angels, uttering in its mind what is to be done, or inserting into the heart the knowledge of what He chooseth. But if He be said to command irrational animals or elements or any part of the creation, this signifieth the law and command of His will. For all things yield to His will, and the mode of their obedience is to us altogether ineffable, but known to Him. Jonah, says Chrysostom, fled the land, and fled not the displeasure of God. He fled the land, and brought a tempest on the sea: and not only himself gained no good from flight, but brought into extreme peril those also who took him on board. When he sailed, seated in the vessel, with sailors and pilot and all the tackling, he was in the most extreme peril: when, sunk in the sea, the sin punished and laid aside, he entered that vast vessel, the fishs belly, he enjoyed great fearlessness; that thou mayest learn that, as no ship availeth to one living in sin, so when freed from sin, neither sea destroyeth, nor beasts consume. The waves received him, and choked him not; the vast fish received him and destroyed him not; but both the huge animal and the clement gave back their deposit safe to God, and by all things the prophet learned to be mild and tender, not to be more cruel than the untaught mariners or wild waves or animals.
For the sailors did not give him up at first, but after manifold constraint; and the sea and the wild animal guarded him with much benevolence, God disposing all these things. He returned then, preached, threatened, persuaded, saved, awed, amended, stablished, through that one first preaching. For he needed not many days, nor continuous exhortation; but, speaking these words he brought all to repentance. Wherefore God did not lead him straight from the vessel to the city; but the sailors gave him over to the sea, the sea to the vast fish, the fish to God, God to the Ninevites, and through this long circuit brought back the fugitive; that He might instruct all, that it is impossible to escape the hands of God. For come where a man may, dragging sin after him, he will undergo countless troubles. Though man be not there, nature itself on all sides will oppose him with great vehemence.
Since the elect too at times strive to be sharp-witted, it is well to bring forward another wise man, and show how the craft of mortal man is comprehended in the Inward Counsels. For Jonah wished to exercise a prudent sharpness of wit, when, being sent to preach repentance to the Ninevites, in that he feared that, if the Gentiles were chosen, Judaea would be forsaken, he refused to discharge the office of preaching. He sought a ship, chose to flee to Tarshish; but immediately a tempest arises, the lot is cast, to know for whose fault the sea was troubled. Jonah is taken in his fault, plunged in the deep, swallowed by the fish, and carried by the vast beast thither whither he set at naught the command to go. See how the tempest found Gods runaway, the lot binds him, the sea receives him, the beast encloses him, and, because he sets himself against obeying his Maker, he is carried a culprit by his prison house to the place whither he had been sent.
When God commanded, man would not minister the prophecy; when God enjoined, the beast cast forth the prophet. The Lord then taketh the wise in their own craftiness, when He bringeth back to the service of His own will, that whereby mans will contradicts Him. Jonah, fleeing from the perils of preaching and salvation of souls, fell into peril of his own life. When, in the ship, he took on himself the peril of all, he saved both himself and the ship. He fled as a man; he exposed himself to peril, as a prophet . Let them think so, who are sent by God or by a superior to preach to heretics or to pagan. When God calleth to an office or condition whose object it is to live for the salvation of others, He gives grace and means necessary or expedient to this end. For so the sweet and careful ordering of His Providence requireth. Greater peril awaiteth us from God our Judge, if we flee His calling as did Jonah, if we use not the talents entrusted to us to do His will and to His glory. We know the parable of the servant who buried the talent, and was condemned by the Lord.
And it vomited out Jonah – Unwilling, but constrained, it cast him forth as a burden to it . From the lowest depths of death, Life came forth victorious. He is swallowed by the fish, but is not consumed; and then calls upon God, and (marvel!) on the third day is given back with Christ. What it prefigured, that that vast animal on the third day gave back alive the prophet which it had swallowed, no need to ask of us, since Christ explained it. As then Jonah passed from the ship into the fishs belly, so Christ from the wood into the tomb or the depth of death. And as he for those imperiled in the tempest, so Christ for those tempest-tossed in this world. And as Jonah was first enjoined to preach to the Ninevites, but the preaching of Jonah did not reach them before the fish cast him forth, so prophecy was sent beforehand to the Gentiles, but did not reach them until after the resurrection of Christ . Jonah prophesied of Christ, not so much in words as by a suffering of his own; yet more openly than if he had proclaimed by speech His Death and Resurrection. For why was he received into the fishs belly, and given back the third day, except to signify that Christ would on the third day return from the deep of hell?
Irenaeus looks upon the history of Jonah as the imaging of mans own history . As He allowed Jonah to be swallowed by the whale, not that he should perish altogether, but that, being vomited forth, he might the more be subdued to God, and the more glorify God Who had given him such unlooked for deliverance, and bring those Ninevites to solid repentance, converting them to the Lord Who would free them from death, terrified by that sign which befell Jonah (as Scripture says of them, They turned every man from his evil way, etc. …) so from the beginning, God allowed man to be swallowed up by that vast Cetos who was the author of the transgression, not that he should altogether perish but preparing a way of salvation, which, as foresignified by the word in Jonah, was formed for those who had the like faith as to the Lord as Jonah, and with him confessed, I fear the Lord, etc. that so man, receiving from God unlooked for salvation, might rise from the dead and glorify God, etc. … This was the longsuffering of God, that man might pass through all, and acknowledge his ways; then, coming to the resurrection and knowing by trial from what he had been delivered, might be forever thankful to God, and, having received from Him the gift of incorruption, might love Him more (for he to whom much is forgiven, loveth much) and know himself, that he is mortal and weak, and understand the Lord, that He is in such wise Mighty and Immortal, that to the mortal He can give immortality and to the things of time eternity.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 10. And the Lord spake unto the fish] That is, by his influence the fish swam to shore, and cast Jonah on the dry land. So the whole was a miracle from the beginning to the end; and we need not perplex ourselves to find out literal interpretations; such as, “When Jonah was thrown overboard he swam for his life, earnestly praying God to preserve him from drowning; and by his providence he was thrown into a place of fish-a fishing cove, where he was for a time entangled among the weeds, and hardly escaped with his life; and when safe, he composed this poetic prayer, in metaphorical language, which some have wrongly interpreted, by supposing that he was swallowed by a fish; when dag should have been understood, as a place of fish, or fishing creek,” c. Now I say the original has no such meaning in the Bible: and this gloss is plainly contrary to the letter of the text to all sober and rational modes of interpretation; and to the express purpose for which God appears to have wrought this miracle, and to which Jesus Christ himself applies it. For as Jonah was intended for a sign to the Jews of the resurrection of Christ, they were to have the proof of this semiosis, in his lying as long in the heart of the earth as the prophet was in the belly of the fish; and all interpretations of this kind go to deny both the sign and the thing signified. Some men, because they cannot work a miracle themselves, can hardly be persuaded that GOD can do it.
The text, and the use made of it by Christ, most plainly teach us that the prophet was literally swallowed by a fish, by the order of God; and that by the Divine power he was preserved alive, for what is called three days and three nights, in the stomach of the fish; and at the conclusion of the above time that same fish was led by the unseen power of God to the shore, and there compelled to eject the prey that he could neither kill nor digest. And how easy is all this to the almighty power of the Author and Sustainer of life, who has a sovereign, omnipresent, and energetic sway in the heavens and in the earth. But foolish man will affect to be wise; though, in such cases, he appears as the recently born, stupid offspring of the wild ass. It is bad to follow fancy, where there is so much at stake. Both ancients and moderns have grievously trifled with this prophet’s narrative; merely because they could not rationally account for the thing, and were unwilling (and why?) to allow any miraculous interference.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And, or, as the particle is sometimes rendered,
Then, i.e. after Jonah had prayed, and acted his faith, though in the whales belly.
The Lord, who made heaven and earth, and commandeth both, who is God of salvation.
Spake; commanded, signified it to be his pleasure; as the same word prepared the fish, and brought it to give attendance to receive the prisoner, so now it doth discharge the keeper, and requires him to set his prisoner at liberty.
Unto the fish: though fishes are destitute of reason, and understand not as man, yet they have ears to hear their Creator, and readily obey.
It vomited out Jonah; it presently obeys the word, it could no longer keep Jonah a prisoner.
On the dry land: the command required this, nor could it be a deliverance without this; had he been cast out of the whales belly any where else in the sea he had been drowned, but now that which was his danger shall be his safety, a ship now to land him which before was like to be his grave. The Scripture doth not say where he was thus set on shore, but considering he was to go to Nineveh and preach repentance to them, it is a very obvious conjecture that any man might make, that the whale set Jonah on shore in some place of the Syrian shore nearest to Nineveh; and on view of the charts any indifferent geographer would conjecture that it was some where on the bay or gulf of Lajazzo, anciently the Sinus Issicus, or somewhat near to Alexandette, as the French, or Scanderoon, as the Turks call it, whence, though a long, yet by the maps appears to be the straightest, journey to Nineveh. As for some who conjecture it was on the Euxine Sea, they consider not the strait passage of the Propontis, nor the length of one thousand six hundred miles from Joppa to that part of the Euxine which is next to Nineveh, nor the length and difficulty of the passage thence by land to Nineveh: but he that said Jonah was landed on Ninevehs shore was much wider out in his guess, and never considered that Nineveh was built on Tigris some hundreds of miles by land from Joppa, and if the fish brought him thither, it was by a compass of many thousand miles, which would require some months to run over, besides that the fish would be too great to swim up the river. Their conjecture biddeth fairest who confine it to some places of the Syrian sea, and not far from Scanderoon.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. upon the dry landprobablyon the coast of Palestine.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the Lord spake unto the fish,…. Or gave orders to it; he that made it could command it; all creatures are the servants of God, and do his will; what he says is done; he so ordered it by his providence, that this fish should come near the shore, and be so wrought upon by his power, that it could not retain Jonah any longer in its belly. It may be rendered h, “then the Lord spake”, c. after Jonah had finished his prayer, or put up those ejaculations, the substance of which is contained in the above narrative:
and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry [land] not upon the shore of the Red sea, as some; much less upon the shore of Nineveh, which was not built upon the seashore, but upon the river Tigris; and the fish must have carried him all round Africa, and part of Asia, to have brought him to the banks of the Tigris; which could not have been done in three days’ time, nor in much greater. Josephus i says it was upon the shore of the Euxine sea; but the nearest part of it to Nineveh was one thousand six hundred miles from Tarsus, which the whale, very slow in swimming, cannot be thought to go in three days; besides, no very large fish swim in the Euxine sea, because of the straits of the Propontis, through which they cannot pass, as Bochart k from various writers has proved. It is more likely, as others, that it was on the Syrian shore, or in the bay of Issus, now called the gulf of Lajazzo; or near Alexandria, or Alexandretta, now Scanderoon. But why not on the shore of Palestine? and, indeed, why not near the place from whence they sailed? Huetius l and others think it probable that this case of Jonah gave rise to the story of Arion, who was cast into the sea by the mariners, took up by a dolphin, and carried to Corinth. Jonah’s deliverance was a type of our Lord’s resurrection from the dead on the third day, Mt 12:40; and a pledge of ours; for, after this instance of divine power, why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead?
h So is sometimes used, and is so rendered, Psal. lxxviii. 34. Job x. 10. See Noldius, p. 308, 309. i Antiqu. l. 9. c. 10. sect. 2. k Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 5. c. 12. col. 744. l Demonstr. Evangel. prop. 4. p. 294.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“Then Jehovah spake to the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry land.” The nature of God’s speaking, or commanding, may be inferred from the words . Cyril explains the thought correctly thus: The whale is again impelled by a certain divine and secret power of God, being moved to that which seems good to Him.” The land upon which Jonah was vomited was, of course, the coast of Palestine, probably the country near Joppa. According to Jon 2:1, this took place on the third day after he had been swallowed by the fish.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Jonah’s Deliverance. | B. C. 840. |
10 And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
We have here Jonah’s discharge from his imprisonment, and his deliverance from that death which there he was threatened with–his return, though not to life, for he lived in the fish’s belly, yet to the land of the living, for from that he seemed to be quite cut off–his resurrection, though not from death, yet from the grave, for surely never man was so buried alive as Jonah was in the fish’s belly. His enlargement may be considered, 1. As an instance of God’s power over all the creatures. God spoke to the fish, gave him orders to return him, as before he had given him orders to receive him. God speaks to other creatures, and it is done; they are all his ready obedient servants. But to man he speaks once, yea, twice, and he perceives it not, regards it not, but turns a deaf ear to what he says. Note, God has all creatures at his command, makes what use he pleases of them, and serves his own purposes by them. 2. As an instance of God’s mercy to a poor penitent, that in his distress prays to him. Jonah had sinned, and had done foolishly, very foolishly; his own backslidings did not correct him, and it appears by his after-conduct that his foolishness was not quite driven from him, no, not by the rod of this correction; and yet, upon his praying, and humbling himself before God, here is a miracle in nature wrought for his deliverance, to intimate what a miracle of grace, free grace, God’s reception and entertainment of returning sinners are. When God had him at his mercy he showed him mercy, and did not contend for ever. 3. As a type and figure of Christ’s resurrection. He died and was buried, to lay in the grave, as Jonah did, three days and three nights, a prisoner for our debt; but the third day he came forth, as Jonah did, by his messengers to preach repentance, and remission of sins, even to the Gentiles. And thus was another scripture fulfilled, After two days he will receive us, and the third day he will raise us up, Hos. vi. 2. The earth trembled as if full of her burden, as the fish was of Jonah.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
The deliverance of Jonah is here in few words described; but how attentively ought we to consider the event? It was an incredible miracle, that Jonah should have continued alive and safe in the bowels of the fish for three days. For how was it that he was not a thousand times smothered or drowned by waters? We know that fish continually draw in water: Jonah could not certainly respire while in the fish; and the life of man without breathing can hardly continue for a minute. Jonah, then, must have been preserved beyond the power of nature. Then how could it have been that the fish should cast forth Jonah on the shore, except God by his unsearchable power had drawn the fish there? Again, who could have supernaturally opened its bowels and its mouth? His coming forth, then, was in every way miraculous, yea, it was attended with many miracles.
But Jonah, that he might the more extol the infinite power of God, adopted the word said. Hence we learn that nothing is hard to God, for he could by a nod only effect so great a thing as surpasses all our conceptions. If Jonah had said that he was delivered by God’s kindness and favor, it would have been much less emphatical, than when he adopts a word which expresses a command, And Jehovah spake, or said, to the fish.
But as this deliverance of Jonah is an image of the resurrection, this is an extraordinary passage, and worthy of being especially noticed; for the Holy Spirit carries our minds to that power by which the world was formed and is still wonderfully preserved. That we may then, without hesitation and doubt, be convinced of the restoration which God promises to us, let us remember that the world was by him created out of nothing by his word and bidding, and is still thus sustained. But if this general truth is not sufficient, let this history of Jonah come to our minds, — that God commanded a fish to cast forth Jonah: for how was it that Jonah escaped safe and was delivered? Even because it so pleased God, because the Lord commanded; and this word at this day retains the same efficacy. By that power then, by which he works all things, we also shall one day be raised up from the dead. Now follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
JONAHS GOSPEL
Jon 2:10 to Jon 3:10
THE last we heard of Jonah was voiced in his wonderful speech made in the belly of the fish while in the bowels of the deep, Salvation is of the Lord. Whether Jonah anticipated that God was so soon to save him out of his perils we may not affirm; but the fact remains that the very next reading is, And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land (Jon 2:10).
We believe what is written. No matter how much of quibble a man might make concerning the unlikelihood of such a thing, faith accepts the historicity of this text,And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. To be sure if a man is bent on criticism he could raise a number of questions here. He could ask why a great fish came so near to the shore, since that is not the habit of these monsters; and he could ask how it happened that the fish threw Jonah out on the dry land instead of in water over his head. But the sufficient answer is, The Lord who prepared the fish to swallow up Jonah was still in control of the monster when he threw him up. As one listens to the criticisms of this and other Books of the Bible it gives occasion at least to think upon an illustration employed a while ago by Russell Conwell.
He told the story of a man in Kentucky who lived in the region of the Mammoth Cave. Across the fields of this prosperous farmer there ran a beautiful stream. It quenched his thirst, irrigated his farm and turned his mill, but he was ill-content and decided to have a well dug hard by his door; and at once he was blasting, blasting, blasting; down, down, down and deeper still. At last he put in an overcharge of dynamite which blew the bottom out of the well, for it was a cavernous region, and all the water ran now into the depths below. In a little while the brook began to dry up, and it was found that it seeped through crevices in the rocks into this same bottomless well, and lo, the farm was ruined, its land parched, its mill was motionless, and its owner without water to slake his thirst.
Conwell saw, in this, a picture of those students of the Bible who, instead of drinking therefrom, having their lives irrigated thereby, and all the wheels of human energy turning under the power of the same, go at the Word with pick and dynamite, and dig after Hebrew and Greek roots, and blast in the hope of uncovering its origin, until they have lost the very blessing they once enjoyed.
For my own part I am content with the stream of life flowing through the Book of Jonah; life-giving, rising from beneath the everlasting throne.
Four truths in this third chapter are worthy of attention:
JONAH IS RE-APPOINTED
And the Word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time.
There is such a thing as a Divine appointment to preach. In the Old Testament every Prophet claimed that appointment. In the New Testament every preacher had his commission from Christ. Even the Apostle Paul, entering into the ministry after Christs ascension, stoutly affirmed that he had seen the Risen Christ and received from Him his commission to preach. This record of the Acts, he reaffirmed in his Epistles to the Churches, saying to the Romans, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God; to the Corinthians, I am, Paul, called to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God; to the Galatians, Paul, an Apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, and so on!
Men who are to preach the Gospel today can only hope for success in the same by being sure that the Word of the Lord has come to them in a call to preach.
Pastor Stalker says that the soul-winner must be conscious that he is doing Gods work and that it is Gods message that he bears to men.
Unless a man has that conviction there will come to him trials that will take away his foundations; there will come to him such evidences of non-appreciation and ingratitude, and even malignant opposition as will raise in his mind the question, Are men worth ones devotion? Unless he can fall back upon the plain command of God, unless he can find in his own heart an abiding conviction that he must do what he is doing, and say what he is saying, and that God can no more leave his labors unblessed than God Himself can lie, he is unfitted to preach.
I have had people ask me why I entered the ministry, and my answer has been The Word of the Lord came unto me saying, Go and preach the preaching that I bid thee; and in the midst of every temptation, and in the experience of every trial known these fifty years past, the plain consciousness of a call from God has been to me at once foundation and inspirationstanding-ground and secret of strength.
Our chapter also suggests that mans indisposition to preach does not rid him of obligation.
And the Word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time.
God had called Jonah before he ever shipped to Tarshish, but Jonah was unwilling and thought to make an end of the Divine command by refusing obedience to the same, Jonah is not alone in this. There are many men in the ministry who ought to be pleading law, practicing medicine, running a grocery, shaving the faces of their fellows, or plowing corn. They have put themselves in their places, or been put there by over-pious parents. It is quite impossible for one to believe that God has picked out all the preachers who are now filling pulpits. The old farmer had the right of it, whose ambitious boy reported to him that he was going to preach; and when the father asked why he thought he was called to preach, the young man pointed to Mar 16:15, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. To which John Ploughman replied, Oh, yes, my boy, the Scripture do say, Preach the Gospel to every crittur; but it dont say Every critter shall preach the Gospel.
While there are men in the ministry who ought to be in other professions, there are men out of the ministry, not a few of them, who well know that God has called them to preach. But, like Jonah, they did not want to do it. They were ambitious for a higher station than the ministry might bring them, for more money than is promised in a ministerial salary, or for more worldly living than is consonant with one who is under command from the Lord.
Fifty years ago I sat on the porch of a country home and talked with a young man, who was on his vacation from college, about this call to the ministry. After we had retired he communicated to me his own conviction of a call to preach and his deliberate purpose not to do it. As I tried to show him the folly of fighting against God, he desperately replied, God gives me no peace about this thing and sometimes I think if I dont preach He will never permit me to enter Heaven. But I am determined to practice law even though it results in sending my soul to perdition. He went on in the practice of law; he lost his faith, drank, gambled, and in his dealing with men was generally regarded as a rascal; finally landed in an insane asylum.
Mr. Moody said, If God should offer me whatever I willed, it would not take me a minute to say, Lord, I dont will anything; but Thy will be done, for I know Thy will for me is best.
Do you know that, my brother? Do you, my sister? Are you ready now to say, Oh, God, show me the way of life that I may walk in it?
It is written to the eternal credit of Jonah, So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the Word of the Lord.
A second truth!
JONAH PREACHED IMPENDING JUDGMENT
Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days journey.
And Jonah began to enter into the city a days journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown (Jon 3:3-4).
His message was not man-made.
He cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
That was exactly what God had commissioned Him to say. The only ministry that is true is that of the preacher who is preaching according to the Word of the Lord; who is preaching the preaching that God has bidden him preach. A minister is a messenger, As it is written in the Prophets, Behold, I will send My messenger before Thy face. What is the business of a messenger?
One came to my house the other night and brought a message. It was a sad message; it was a message that I would much have preferred not to hear. It contained the announcement of the death of one of my dearest friends, of one of the Lords most efficient servants. But I knew the messenger-boy was not responsible. He had merely performed his part of medium in bringing it to me. He had changed it in nowise, but delivered it just as he received it; and that is the business of every minister. It is ours to carry to men what God has said.
There are two ways of receiving this message; the one is to hold the messenger responsible for it, and if it does not suit you, behead him. That is the way Herodias did with John the Baptist, Gods messenger, who brought to her Gods Word regarding chastity.
The other way to receive it is illustrated in the life of the old Prophet Eli, who, you remember, called young Samuel into his presence and said, Samuel, my son, * * What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee? I pray thee hide it not from me. When Samuel told him all that God had said regarding him, how he was going to come against the Prophet in judgment, to perform against Eli all the things which had been spoken concerning his house, how God declared that when He began a judgment He would make an end, Eli answered, It is the Lord.
That is the better way to treat Gods messenger. That is the better way to receive Gods message. The most unwelcome message may be the most needful one; and, if it comes from God, it is the most needful one.
You have a right to quarrel with a minister who brings you a man-made gospel, but you have no right to object to his message, however unwelcome it may be, however deeply it may wound your pride, however clearly it may uncover your evil purposes, however severely it may condemn your evil practices, if it is according to the Word of the Lord.
In one of my former pastorates there was an exceptionally sweet woman whose husband owned and operated a saloon. Many a time she sat through an arraignment of the bad business, and the preacher sympathized with her unfortunate station, and sorrowed to speak the words that he knew must wound. But one day she gave indisputable proof of her Christianity. At the close of a sermon in which Gods woe to the man who put the bottle to his neighbors lips had been urged, she sought me out and said, Pastor, you can hardly understand the shame I feel whenever this subject of the saloon is mentioned, but I want you to know that however much I may suffer, I would not have you change or curtail what God has said.
Jonahs message gave no promise of mercy.
Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. There are those to whom a preacher has no right to present mercy. They are subjects for justice. They have so long rejected God; they have gone so deeply into iniquity that justice is the very Gospel to be preached to them. I have met men, ere now, who had been Gospel-hardened by hearing of Gods love and Gods grace. Universalism is the natural outcome of such one-sided preaching, and even the vilest sinner comes to feel that his conduct is no occasion of fear.
The longer I live the more I am impressed with the necessity of presenting judgment. Since I came to this pulpit there have been two or three tragic instances of men listening to the Gospel of mercy in this very room, and going out feeling God is good and He will forbear yet a little, and, ere they dreamed it, death was doing its work and they were being dragged by his merciless hand before the Judge of all the earth; and as I have thought upon their going, unprepared, as some of them have been, I have felt that it was my business to preach judgment as well as mercy. I think there are some men who must come to Sinai and hear the thunderings and threatenings thereof before they will ever see the necessity of Calvary.
At one time when Mr. Moody was holding a meeting in New York he found in the inquiry room a personal worker pleading with a skeptic, and as Mr. Moody stopped and listened to the proud defiance of this man, and read in his face the evident pleasure he was getting from the argument, Moody said to the worker, If that is the way he feels, dont waste your time on him. There is no hope for him. Instantly the skeptic was alarmed and said, Do you really think there is no hope for me? None whatever, said Mr. Moody, while you feel that way. The man went to his room, fell down upon his knees and began to plead with God, and ere morning dawned the light of an everlasting day had broken in upon his darkened heart.
NINEVEH REPENTS IN SACKCLOTH
So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
The whole city was convicted of sin.
We have long talked of Pentecost, and supposed it to have occurred at Jerusalem ten days after our Lords ascension; and we have long held up Peter as the peerless evangelist. But the Pentecost of Acts 2 fades to insignificance before the Pentecost of Jonah 3, and the result of Peters preaching that day was small indeed when compared with the consequences of this days work on the part of this so-called minor Prophet. Three thousand convicted of sin, asking Men and brethren, what shall we do? is a sight to astonish mortals; but six hundred thousand brought to sackcloth and ashes in a single day in consequence of the preaching of one man, is a sight to astonish angels! And yet that is the record, All Nineveh, from the least to the greatest.
It was a walled city sixty miles in circumference. Jonah could just walk across it in a single day. One hundred and fifty stadia, or nineteen miles, was a days journey. One cannot read the words of Jonah in the original, Od arbaim yom venineveh nehpacheth without being reminded of Daniels words, Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. While Daniels words struck terror to the heart of the king, this single sentence from Jonah alarmed the Ninevites from the greatest of them even unto the least of them.
Repentance reached even to the throne.
For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God (Jon 3:6-8),
It is a great revival when it reaches even to the throne. There are a great many people in this country discussing the question, How to reach the common people; how to reach the laboring men; how to reach the working girls. That is not the difficult question. It is comparatively easy to reach these. A free church, a cordial reception, and a plain, pungent Gospel will answer that question for these classes. The hard question is, How to reach the self-constituted upper ten.
When Mr. Moody began his work in this country the common people heard him gladly. It took twenty years, however, for him to get any hearing from the educated and wealthy. It was only after he became world-famed that they were interested in him, all of which makes one afraid that the interest was not spiritual but secular instead; the interest of standing alongside of and being associated with a man of a great name.
If there is any one thing we need to pray for in this country it is a revival that shall reach up and bring to humility and repentance the proud, and the scholarly, the queens of fashion and the kings of finance. We ought to pray for such a revival, for the souls of these are precious in the sight of our God, and their sins are the sins of Nineveh: fraud, violence, worldliness in every form. Oh, for a revival that might reach to the kings of finance, and to the queens of fashion!
We are told that when Maud Ballington Booth lectured in one of the popular theaters of Paris, the fashionable habitues of the place went to hear her out of idle curiosity, and she reached their hearts and humbled them to their knees in penitence and prayer. Oh, that we might see it so in our day and in our land!
The genuineness of this repentance is proven by reformation. The kings decree was let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands (Jon 3:8).
Sardanapalus understood that God could not be deceived, that no repentance would be accepted of him, save that which reformed a life. Every now and then people come to me and say with reference to some one who has just confessed Christ, Do you think he is converted? It is not my business to answer that question. Wait a few weeks or months and the individuals themselves will answer that question. If the repentance is genuine, it will manifest itself in reformation. The sinful habits will be given up and the Spirit of God will get right of way in the heart, and by their fruits ye shall know them99,
GOD RESPONDS IN MERCY
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not (Jon 3:10).
God is merciful in character.
This heathen king seems to have understood that fact, for when he called upon his people to turn from their evil ways he added, Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not? (Jon 3:9). No man who knows anything of the mighty Jehovah can call in question the mercifulness of His character.
Do you remember in Hugos Les Miserables what he makes the good priest to say? It was a note on the margin of one of Myriels books, Oh, thou who art! Ecclesiastes names Thee Almighty; Maccabees names Thee Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians names Thee Liberty; Baruch names Thee Immensity; the Psalms name Thee Wisdom and Truth; John names Thee Light; the Book of Kings names Thee Lord; Exodus calls Thee Providence; Leviticus, Holiness; Esdras, Justice; creation calls Thee God; man names Thee Father; but Solomon names Thee Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all Thy Names.
God is merciful in practice.
Even in the preaching of judgment by Jonah His message was, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Why this withholding of judgment for forty days? They were Gods days of grace. They were Ninevehs opportunity for repentance. It was according to Gods practice. Go back, if you will, to that first time when the world was filled with sin in Genesis 6, to that time when the sons of God lusted after the daughters of men, and the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with men. Yet, yet! This same little word yet. Yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
Gods practice of mercy; even Sodom had her chance of repentance and her preacher of righteousness. But Jesus Christ said of the cities of His time that they had enjoyed better opportunities still, and upon them rested the greater condemnation.
I must remind many of you of my Gods provision for your repentance. Nineveh heard but one Prophet. To how many of Gods prophets have you been privileged to listen? Nineveh was privileged only a single warning; how many hundreds have you known already? Nineveh was proffered forty days in which to get right. Some of you have already wasted twenty, thirty, and even forty years! And yet you feel your lives to be wrong before God. My friend, in the day of judgment what shall you answer for having refused His grace, for having closed your ears to His warning, for having let the time set for repentance pass unimproved?
It is penitence and penitence only that puts one in the way of salvation. Sardanapalus, the king, understood that, and you understand it.
Go over to that fifteenth chapter of Luke and read the parable of the prodigal son, and no matter who you are, you will find your picture there. If you are just starting out to enjoy the world by indulging in its wickedness, you are portrayed by the words, Father, give me the portion * * that falleth to me. If you have been some time in the swirl of iniquity, wasting your substance with riotous living, you are pictured there; if you have spent all and are in want; if you have come even to hunger; if you have gone into the basest employment and unto swinish associations, still you may see yourself in that marvelous parable; and, if tonight you realize your situation; if, like that younger son, you have come to yourself and are thinking upon Gods great bounty; if in your heart you are saying, I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son, still you have only to look into this text to see the reflection of your own face; and, if there are those who have the good sense and the courage to resist Satan, and in true purpose turn back to God, then that parable contains a picture, precious above any known to the galleries of earth or ever imagined by the mind of man. It is the picture of the compassionate Father running to meet His unworthy child, falling upon his neck in the fullness of His affection, His heart overflowing in kisses!
And that is the picture I would have you to see God standing ready to receive every repentant one.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
GODS MESSENGER RUNNING TO GODTHE PRESERVATION OF JONAH
TEXT: Jon. 2:10
10
And Jehovah spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
QUERIES
a.
How does God communicate with fish?
b.
Where did Jonah land?
PARAPHRASE
And the Lord commanded the fish to spit up Jonah on the beach and the fish obeyed the command of the Lord,
SUMMARY
Jonah is delivered with a second opportunity to carry out his commission from the Lord.
COMMENT
Jon. 2:10 . . . JEHOVAH SPAKE UNTO THE FISH, AND IT VOMITED OUT JONAH . . . God has set the whole creation, except man, to function through orderly laws and instincts imposed upon it by His will. Man He created in His own spiritual image with a will free to make moral choice. But God, impels by a certain divine and secret power, as Cyril says, animal and inanimate creation to do His will in a miraculous way when it serves His purpose to do so, (cf. Balaams ass, Num. 22:21-30; the star of Bethlehem, Mat. 2:2; Mat. 2:9). The land upon which Jonah was spewed out is not known for certain but we assume it to be the coast of Palestine or Syria (K & D think it was near Joppa where he boarded the ship to run away).
QUIZ
1.
Cite other incidents where God has imposed His will on animals to use them miraculously.
2.
How long was Jonahs life preserved by God in the belly of this fish?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
‘And YHWH spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the dry land.’
Then the large fish approached land, no doubt under God’s direction, and YHWH then spoke to it and it vomited Jonah out on the dry land. Now at last Jonah knew where he had been, in the innards of a large fish.
The message was clear to all. Whether it was a matter of the sea, or of the denizens of the deep, YHWH was in full control of His creation, which did what He bid.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jon 2:10. And the Lord spake unto the fish The power of the Almighty is frequently represented in Scripture, as bringing things to pass by his bare word and command; he speaks, and it is done. Various are the traditions of the Orientals, respecting the place where Jonah was disembogued; but, as Calmet well observes, amidst such doubt and obscurity, the best part is absolute silence, and the sincere declaration that the matter is entirely unknown. Bishop Huet supposes, that Jonah’s deliverance from the fish’s belly gave occasion to the famous Greek fable of Arion, who, after he was cast into the sea, was conveyed, as the story goes, by a dolphin into the port of Corinth; and it is certain that a great part of the heathen mythology was borrowed from the Scripture history.
REFLECTIONS.1st, Never, to appearance, was situation more desperate than when Jonah was cast into the stormy ocean, unless it were when he descended into the fish’s belly: yet even in the lowest state of misery God can save; and Jonah now is as safe in the monster’s stomach, as if he were on dry land; and finds both power to pray, and fervent desires after the Lord his God, who thus plainly shewed him that he had not abandoned him to destruction, and thereby engaged him to exercise faith in his pardoning grace and preserving providence. Note; (1.) No place can shut out the soul from communion with God; wherever we are, the way to a throne of grace is open. (2.) Our encouragement to draw near to God is, the humble persuasion that he is our God, reconciled to us, and willing to hear and help us in every time of need.
1. He cried and was heard: I cried by reason of mine affliction. This was the blessed means of driving him to God. Out of the belly of hell cried I, out of the belly of the fish, where he seemed buried as in his grave; and thou heardest my voice, for no prayer of faith returns without an answer of peace.
2. He describes his distressed situation, sunk in the deep, buried in the midst of the seas, compassed with the floods, and all the waves and billows running over him. And this was God’s doing. His life appeared in the most imminent danger: he was inclosed with waters, and his head wrapped with sea-weeds; he went down to the bottoms of the mountains, when the fish descended; and the bars of the earth, so deep he sunk, appeared to be about him for ever: his state helpless and hopeless. To such distress are God’s dearest children sometimes reduced, to shew them more eminently the power and grace of God engaged for their deliverance.
3. His heart began to fail him. God’s displeasure, seen in his wretched case, discouraged him, and he feared that he was abandoned, and cast out of God’s sight, as he knew that he had justly deserved to be. Thus when outward trials oppress us, we too often give way to unbelief, and are sore beset with inward fears, as if God had utterly forsaken us, and hid his face in displeasure: but it is our privilege to be always happy: the faithful soul is not thus cast down.
4. His heart is encouraged, notwithstanding, to trust still in God; and, in the exercise of faith he directs his prayer to heaven, whence alone his help could come. When his soul fainted, he remembered the Lord, thought upon his power to save, reflected on the riches of his grace, and his own past experience; and thus his hopes revived, his fears were silenced. And in the same way must every child of God overcome his unbelieving fears; remembering his power and love, who has engaged to save to the uttermost all that trust in him.
5. His prayer was answered; it entered into the holy temple above, and God in mercy regarded his suffering servant, as he gratefully acknowledges to the glory of the Lord his God. Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption; either this he said in the fish’s belly, and it speaks the language of his faith, assured that God would interpose to save him; or when he afterwards was cast on the land, and wrote down this prayer and complaint, he added this to the praise of the glory of God, and for the confirmation and encouragement of others in the like case; that they might see that none ever trusted God, and were confounded.
6. He gives a warning to others of the vanity of idols, and declares the blessedness of dependence upon God. They that observe lying vanities, forsake their own mercy: no idols can save after this sort. Perhaps he intended also herein to reflect upon his own folly in flying from God, whose work would have been its own reward, while misery is the sure attendant on every departure from him.
7. He solemnly engages to offer the grateful sacrifice of praise, and to discharge the vow that he had made in trouble; which might be, some sacrifice that he would offer at the temple of Jerusalem, or his resolution to go without delay to Nineveh in obedience to God’s command. Note; (1.) Thanksgiving and praise are a tribute that we owe, and should without ceasing pay to the God of our mercies. (2.) Every truly penitent backslider who rises from his falls, should set himself with redoubled earnestness to the work and service of God.
8. He concludes with ascribing glory to God, Salvation is of the Lord, and from him alone the temporal, spiritual, and eternal salvation of the faithful is to be expected, even from his power and love, and to be acknowledged to his glory. And they who depend on him for all, shall find, by blessed experience, that he has never failed them who trust him.
2nd, In answer to his prayer, he is discharged from his prison. He who commanded the fish to receive him, now obliges him to disgorge his prey; and once more the prophet is safe on shore, as one raised from the dead. Thus God restores the poor broken-hearted sinner, when he is often ready to despair of himself; and raises him from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. Jonah’s deliverance was also a type of the resurrection of Jesus, and is a pledge of ours. When we see what God has done for him, we need not think it incredible that he should raise our bodies from the dust: and this miracle, astonishing as it is, appears the less wonderful, when we recollect that it was intended as a very peculiar type of Christ’s resurrection, the ground of all our hopes. The greater exertion of Omnipotence may be expected, where the mission of the Saviour of the world, who is the great Creator and Supporter of the universe, was to be in any measure established thereby.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
See! what a gracious prayer-hearing, and prayer-answering God our’s is! Sweetly did another Prophet bear testimony to the same. Psa 130:1-3 . But, Reader! do not lose sight of the typical representation in all this to the person and work o f the Lord Jesus. As the belly of the whale could not detain Jonah, when the Lord commanded his deliverance, so neither could the grave detain Christ, when he had paid the debt of our sins, and satisfied both law and justice. Jesus was justified in the Spirit, it is said, when he came forth from the tomb; and God the Father took to himself the glorious name of the God of peace, when bringing again from the dead the Lord Jesus Christ, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. Such, and so blessed, are the great events of the Redeemer’s deliverance from the grave, as typified by the Prophet’s detention in what he calls the belly of hell. See 1Ti 3:16 ; Heb 13:20 ; Hos 6:2 .
REFLECTIONS
READER! let us pause over this wonderful subject, and behold the miracle here related with fixed attention and regard. Many are the blessed instructions, simply as an history of the Lord’s dealings with his people, which it holds forth; and which, under the Holy Ghost’s teachings, may and will be profitable. Surely it is consolatory to a deserted soul, to behold in this instance, that his case is not singular. The Lord may, and the Lord will correct the backslidings of his Children. They may during the sharp exercises of correction, fear, that they are cast out of the Lord’s sight. But in the midst of all they still possess precious testimonies, could they but see them, that the union with Jesus is still the same, and cannot be lost. Else how would they resolve still to look to the holy temple? Else how would they groan under a sense of sin, and earnestly pant for a deliverance from it. Evidently Jonah had the same views of God’s rich mercy in Christ as ever; and was alive to proclaim the Lord’s honor while dishonoring himself. Reader! make application of these things to your own case and circumstances, and those of the Church at large, and the improvement will be blessed.
But chiefly, dearest Jesus, and above all other considerations in the history of Jonah, may our souls be led to behold in him thy type. And oh for grace to bless thee, and adore thine holy name, that in an age so remote and distant, the great event of thy detention in the heart of the earth, for the salvation of thy people, should have been so wonderfully set forth! Cause the heart both of the Reader and Writer to be often meditating on Jonah’s history, and there in figure behold by faith the wonderful mystery of thy humiliation, when for us and our salvation, thou didst condescend to lay in the grave until the morning of thy glorious resurrection! Amen.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jon 2:10 And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry [land].
Ver. 10. And the Lord spake unto the fish ] He spake the word and it was done: he is the great centurion of the world, that saith to his creature, Do this, and he doth it. Dei dicere est facere (Aug.). Yea, he is the great, great Induperator, Imperator to whom everything saith, Iussa sequi tam velle mihi quam posse necesse esse (Lucan.): I am wholly at thy beck and check. Jonah spake to God, and God to the fish. It may be said of faithful prayer, that it can do whatsoever God himself can do; since he is pleased to yield himself, overcome by the prayers of his people, and to say unto them cordially, as Zedekiah did to his courtiers colloquingly, The king is not he that can deny you anything. Prayer is of that power that it can open the doors of leviathan, as we see here (which yet is reckoned as a thing not feasible, Job 41:14 ), yea of the all devouring grave, Heb 11:35 . If the Lord, pricked on by the prayer of his people, set in hand to save them, and shall “say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth,” Isa 43:6 , they shall come amain, and none shall be able to hinder them; “Come, therefore” (with those good souls in Hosea, who had smarted for their folly, as well as Jonah), “and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight,” Hos 6:1-2 . A time we must have to be in the fire, in the fish’s belly, as in God’s nurturing house; but he will take care that we be not there overly long; what is two or three days to eternity? Hold out, faith and patience: “Yet a very little, little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry,” Heb 10:37 .
And it vomited up Jonah upon the dry land
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jon 2:10
10Then the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.
Jon 2:10 the LORD commanded the fish In Jonah YHWH commands and uses (1) a wind and storm; (2) a great fish; (3) a plant; (4) a worm; and (5) a desert wind. These are used to show God’s (1) sovereignty; (2) love for Gentiles; and (3) His anger against Jewish exclusivism.
vomited This is a very strong negative term in Hebrew (BDB 893, KB 1096, Hiphil IMPERFECT, cf. Isa 19:14; Isa 28:8). This may have been YHWH’s reaction to the flowery prayer of Jonah!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
And, &c. Jonah’s rapid thought and words before he died were subsequently written down by him; for all the verbs are in the past tense, not the present. Compare Jon 2:6, “didst bring”, &c. See notes on p. 1247.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Jon 2:10
GODS MESSENGER RUNNING TO GOD-
THE PRESERVATION OF JONAH
TEXT: Jon 2:10
Jonah is delivered with a second opportunity to carry out his commission from the Lord.
Jon 2:10 . . . JEHOVAH SPAKE UNTO THE FISH, AND IT VOMITED OUT JONAH . . . God has set the whole creation, except man, to function through orderly laws and instincts imposed upon it by His will. Man He created in His own spiritual image with a will free to make moral choice. But God, impels by a certain divine and secret power, as Cyril says, animal and inanimate creation to do His will in a miraculous way when it serves His purpose to do so, (cf. Balaams ass, Num 22:21-30; the star of Bethlehem, Mat 2:2; Mat 2:9). The land upon which Jonah was spewed out is not known for certain but we assume it to be the coast of Palestine or Syria (K & D think it was near Joppa where he boarded the ship to run away).
Zerr: Jon 2:10. Strong says the original for spake is “used with great latitude. A fish is not an intelligent creature, but God could induce it to perform any act suitable to His will. Dry does not necessarily mean absolutely without moisture, but ground not covered or saturated with water on which a man could stand with sure footing. The fish could float out to the brink of the sea and spue Jonah from bis mouth onto the place where the ground was not covered with water.
Questions
1. Cite other incidents where God has imposed His will on animals to use them miraculously.
2. How long was Jonahs life preserved by God in the belly of this fish?
Bible Questions for Jonah Chapter Two
Jon 2:1 What was Jonah’s situation? What did Jonah do?
Jon 2:2 What was Jonah’s situation? Whom did Jonah expect to be able to help him? What happened?
Jon 2:3 How does Jonah describe his situation?
Jon 2:4 What did Jonah think had happened to him?
Jon 2:5 What had been Jonah’s situation?
Jon 2:6 What does Jonah describe? Whom does Jonah speak to? Why?
Jon 2:7 What happened to Jonah? What did the *Lord do?
Jon 2:8 When you *worship something other than the *Lord God, what happens?
Jon 2:9 What promises did Jonah make to the *Lord? What did Jonah say about the *Lord?
Jon 2:10 What did the fish know of the *Lord? How did the fish show it understood?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Jon 1:17, Gen 1:3, Gen 1:7, Gen 1:9, Gen 1:11, Gen 1:14, Psa 33:9, Psa 105:31, Psa 105:34, Isa 50:2, Mat 8:8, Mat 8:9, Mat 8:26, Mat 8:27
Reciprocal: Gen 1:21 – great Exo 2:5 – when she Mat 17:27 – and take Luk 11:30 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jon 2:10. Strong says the original for spake is “used with great latitude. A fish is not an intelligent creature, but God could Induce It to perform any act suitable to His will. Dry does not necessarily mean absolutely without moisture, but ground not covered or saturated with water on which a man could stand with sure footing. The fish could float out to the brink of the sea and spue Jonah from bis mouth onto the place where the ground was not covered with water.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jon 2:10. And the Lord This should rather have been rendered, For the Lord; because what follows was not done after the preceding thanksgiving, but before it; and it is mentioned here only to show the cause or subject of the thanksgiving. The Lord spake unto the fish, &c. Gods almighty power is represented in Scripture as bringing things to pass by his bare will and command: see Gen 1:3. He willed that the fish should cast Jonah up on the dry land, and the fish did so. Various are the traditions of the Orientals respecting the place where Jonah was disembogued; but, as Calmet well observes, amidst such doubt and obscurity, the best part is absolute silence, and the sincere declaration that the matter is entirely unknown. The fame of Jonahs deliverance appears to have spread among the heathen nations; and the Greeks, who were accustomed to adore the memory of their heroes by every remarkable event and embellishment which they could appropriate, added to the fictitious adventures of Hercules, that of his having continued three days, without injury, in the belly of a dog, sent against him by Neptune. Grays Key. Huetius (Demonst. Evang., Prop. 4) supposes that Jonahs deliverance from the whales belly gave occasion to the Greek story of Arion, who, after he was cast into the sea, was conveyed by a dolphin to the port of Corinth.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
G. Jonah’s deliverance from the fish 2:10
Again the writer glorified Yahweh by attributing control of this formidable sea creature to Him (cf. Jon 1:17). The first and the second chapters both close on this note. The Hebrew text says, "The Lord spoke to the fish" (cf. Jon 1:1). Unlike Jonah, the fish obeyed God and vomited the prodigal prophet onto dry land. Jonah had spoken to the Lord in confession (Jon 2:1-9), and now God responded by speaking to the fish in deliverance. Having gained a preview of Sheol (Jon 2:2) Jonah was now prepared to go to the Ninevites whose destiny was Sheol.
The Hebrew word for salvation is yeshua, here used in its intensive form. The Hebrew name Joshua means "Yahweh is salvation." The Greek name Jesus is the translation of Joshua. Thus we can see a close connection between what Jonah declared ("salvation is of the Lord") and what all Scripture declares, namely, that salvation is through Jesus Christ.
"This miracle has also a symbolical meaning for Israel. It shows that if the carnal nation, with its ungodly mind, should turn to the Lord even in the last extremity, it will be raised up again by a divine miracle from destruction to newness of life." [Note: Keil, 1:385.]
"When Israel turns to the Lord, when the veil is removed from the heart, when they cry out in truth to the Lord from the midst of their distresses, the Lord will restore them not only to their own land but also to the commission of witnessing to the Lord [cf. Rev 7:1-8]." [Note: Feinberg, p. 38.]
We do not know where on the coast Jonah landed. Unfortunately several interpreters have made applications based on their speculations.