Jonah 2

Jon 2:1 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,

Jonah prayed - The prayer which follows (Jon_2:2-9) is not a petition for deliverance, but thanksgiving and praise for deliverance already received. 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, 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 fish’s belly,’ we perceive that, after he felt himself safe in the fish’s belly, he despaired not of God’s mercy.”

Jon 2:2 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.

Out of the belly of hell cried I. - The deep waters were as a grave, and he was counted “among the dead” Psa 88:4 I am counted with those who go down to the Pit; I am like a feeble man; Death seemed so certain that it was all one as if he were in the womb of hell, not to be reborn to life until the last Day. So David said Psa 30:3 O Jehovah, You have brought up my soul from the grave; You have kept me alive, so that I should not go down to the Pit. Psa 18:5 The sorrows of hell surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me.

Out of the belly of hell - Among the Hebrews sheol means the grave, any deep pit, the place of separate spirits, etc. Here the prophet represents himself as in the bottom of the sea; for so sheol must be understood in this place.

I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord - A time of affliction is a time for prayer; it made Jonah cry to his God; and his cry was powerful and piercing, it reached the heavens, and entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts, though out of the depths, and out of the belly of a fish, in the midst of the sea.

I cried to Jehovah from my distress. And He answered me - The first clause recalls to mind Psa 120:1 A Song of degrees. In my trouble I cried to Jehovah, and He heard me. The expression is a poetical figure used to denote the danger of death, from which there is apparently no escape; like the encompassing with snares of death in Psa 18:5 The sorrows of hell surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me, and the bringing up of the soul out of sheol in Psa 30:3 O Jehovah, You have brought up my soul from the grave; You have kept me alive, so that I should not go down to the Pit.

Jon 2:3 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.

all thy billows and thy waves passed over me - The sons of Korah had poured out to God in these self-same words the sorrows which oppressed them. The rolling billows and the breakers , which, as they burst upon the rocks, shiver the vessel and crush man, are, he says to God, “Thine,” fulfilling Thy will on me. Psa 42:7 Deep calls to deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; all Your waves and Your billows have gone over me. This could be understood literally; while the fish, in whose belly he was, sought its pleasure or sustenance in the paths of the deep, the waves and billows of the sea were rolling above.

For thou hadst cast me into the deep - Though the mariners did this, yet Jonah ascribes it to the Lord; Jonah recognizes the source whence his sufferings came. It was no mere chance, but the hand of God which sent them.

Jon 2:4 Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.

I am cast out of Thy sight - literally, “from before Thine eyes.” Jonah had willfully withdrawn from standing in God’s presence. Now God had taken him at his word, and, as it seemed, cast him out of it. Psa 31:22 For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Your eyes; surely You heard the voice of my cries, when I cried to You. He thought he was no longer under the eye of his providence; and that he would no more care for him, but leave him in this forlorn condition, and not deliver him; and especially he concluded that he would no more look upon him with an eye of love, grace, and mercy, pity and compassion: these are the words of one in despair, or near unto it; Now that he has got his desire, he feels it to be his bitterest sorrow to be deprived of God's presence, which once he regarded as a burden, and from which he desired to escape. He had turned his back on God; so God turned His back on him, making his sin his punishment.

Thy holy temple - Jerusalem was not yet destroyed, for the temple was standing. In the confidence of faith he anticipates yet to see the temple at Jerusalem, the appointed place of worship ( 1Ki_8:38), and there to render thanksgiving. However it could refer to Jonah looking upwards and heavenwards; he was looking up to God in his holy temple in heaven; and though he was afraid he would not look down upon him in a way of grace and mercy, he was resolved to look up to God in the way of prayer and supplication; and particularly, for the further encouragement of his faith and hope, he looked to the Messiah, the antitype of the temple, ark, and mercy seat, and for whose sake he might hope his prayers would be heard and answered.

Jon 2:5 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.

The waters compassed me about even to the soul - Words which to others were figures of distress Psa 69:2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me were to Jonah realities. Sunk in the deep seas, the water strove to penetrate at every opening. To draw breath, which sustains life, to him would have been death. There was but a breath between him and death.

the weed was wrapped around my head - The weed was the well known seaweed, which, even near the surface of the sea where man can struggle, twines round him, a peril even to the strong swimmer, entangling him often the more, the more he struggles to extricate himself from it. But to one below, powerless to struggle, it was as his winding sheet. This may be understood literally also. He found himself in the fish’s stomach, together with sea weeds, and such like marine.

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.

I went down to the bottoms of the mountains - (literally “the cuttings of,” the “roots,” the hidden rocks, which the mountains push out, as it were, into the sea, and in which they end. Such hidden rocks extend along the whole length of that coast. These were his dungeon walls; “the earth, her bars,” those long submarine reefs of rock, his prison bars, “were around” him “forever:” the seaweeds were his chains: and, even thus, when things were at their uttermost, “Thou hast brought up my life from corruption,” to which his body would have fallen a prey, had not God sent the fish to deliver him.

The earth with her bars - He represents himself as a prisoner in a dungeon, closed in with bars which he could not remove, and which at first appeared to be for ever, the place where his life must terminate. The earth with its cliffs and rocks on the seashore, which are as bars to the sea, that it cannot overflow it; these were such bars to Jonah, that could he have got clear of the fish's belly, and attempted to swim to shore, he could never get to it, or over these bars, the rocks and cliffs, which were so steep and high:

yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption - Or the pit, a description of the state of the dead. Herein likewise he was a type of Christ, who, though laid in the grave, was not left there so long as to see corruption, Psa 16:10 For You will not leave My soul in hell; You will not allow Your Holy One to see corruption. Hezekiah seems to have incorporated Jonah's very words in his just as Jonah appropriated the language of the Psalms. Isa 38:17 Behold, I had great bitterness for peace; but You loved my soul from the pit of destruction. You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

Jon 2:7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.

When my sold fainted - literally “was covered, within me,” he was dizzied, overwhelmed. Covered with grief; overwhelmed with sorrow; ready to faint and sink at the sight of his sins; and under a sense of the wrath and displeasure of God, and being forsaken by him: The word is used of actual faintness from heat, Jon 4:8 And it happened when the sun shone, God ordained a scorching east wind. And the sun beat on the head of Jonah, so that he fainted. And he asked for his life to die. And he said, Better is my death than my life thirst, Amos 8:13 In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst exhaustion, Isa 51:20 Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the street like a wild antelope in a net, filled with the fury of Jehovah, the rebuke of your God.

And my prayer came in unto Thee - No sooner had he so prayed, than God heard. Jonah had thought himself cast out of His sight; but his prayer entered in there. Here prayer is personified, and is represented as a messenger going from the distressed, and entering into the temple of God, and standing before him.

into thine holy temple--into heaven itself, the habitation of God's holiness, the temple where he dwells, and is worshipped by holy angels and glorified saints; the prayer the prophet put up in the fish's belly, encouraged to it by remembering the mercy and goodness of God, ascended from thence, and reached the ears of the Lord of hosts in the highest heavens, and met with a kind reception, and had a gracious answer; Psa 3:4 I cried to Jehovah with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill. Selah.

I remembered the Lord - his covenant and promises, his former mercies and loving kindness, the gracious experiences he had had of these in times past; he remembered he was a God gracious and merciful, and ready to forgive, healed the backslidings of his people, and still loved them freely, and tenderly received and embraced them, when they returned to him:

Jon 2:8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

They that observe lying vanities - They that trust in idols, follow vain predictions, permit themselves to be influenced with foolish fears, so as to induce them to leave the path of obvious duty, forsake their own mercy. In leaving that God who is the Fountain of mercy, they abandon that measure of mercy which he had treasured up for them.

forsake their own mercy - God, who would be mercy to them, if they would. Abraham’s servant praises God, that He “hath not forsaken His mercy” Gen 24:27 And he said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham, who has not left my master destitute of His mercy and His truth. Jehovah led me, I being in the way to the house of my master's brothers. Psa 59:17 Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing: for God is my defence, and the God of my mercy. In order to express the thought emphatically, that salvation and deliverance are only to be hoped for from Jehovah the living God, Jonah points to the idolaters, who forfeit their mercy.

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.

I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving - Without a further miracle of God, he could do nothing. But he says, that he would nevermore forsake God. The law appointed sacrifices of thanksgiving; Lev_7:12-15. These he would offer, not in act only, but with words of praise. He would “pay what he had vowed,” and chiefly himself, his life which God had given back to him, the obedience of his remaining life, in all things.

Salvation is of the Lord - It is wholly His; all belongs to Him, so that none can share in bestowing it; none can have any hope, save from Him. He uses an intensive form, as though he would say, strong “mighty salvation”. 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.

Salvation is of the Lord - All deliverance from danger, preservation of life, recovery from sickness, and redemption of the soul from the power, guilt, and pollution of sin, is from Jehovah. He alone is the Savior, he alone is the Deliverer; for all salvation is from the Lord.

salvation is of the Lord - There is one letter more in the word rendered "salvation" than usual, which increases the sense; and denotes, that all kind of salvation is of the Lord, temporal, spiritual, and eternal; not only this salvation from the devouring waves of the sea, and from the grave of the fish's belly, was of the Lord; but his deliverance from the terrors of the Lord, and the sense he had of his wrath, and the peace and pardon he now partook of, were from the Lord, as well as eternal salvation in the world to come, and the hope of it.

that which I have vowed - The prophet’s prayer ends almost in promising the same as the mariners. They made vows; Jonah says, I will pay that I have vowed.

I will pay that I vowed - when he was in distress; as that he would sacrifice after the above manner, or behave in a better manner for the future than he had done; and particularly would go to Nineveh, if the Lord thought fit to send him again:

But I will sacrifice unto thee - I will make a sincere vow, which, as soon as my circumstances will permit, I will faithfully execute; and therefore he adds, I will pay that which I have vowed.

I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving - Not only offer up a legal sacrifice in a ceremonial way, when he came to Jerusalem; but along with it the spiritual sacrifice of praise, which he knew was more acceptable unto God; and thus Christ, his antitype, upon his deliverance from his enemies, Psa 22:22 I will declare Your name to My brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise You.

I will sacrifice - In the believing anticipation of sure deliverance, he offers thanksgivings already. So Jehoshaphat ( 2Ch_20:21) appointed singers to praise the Lord in front of the army before the battle with Moab and Ammon, as if the victory was already gained. God honors such confidence in Him.

Jon 2:10 And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

And the Lord spake unto the fish - God commanded the fish. He laid His will upon it, and the fish immediately obeyed; a pattern to the prophet when He released him.