And Jonah prayed unto Jehovah his God out of the fish's belly;
Jonah had refused to pray through a storm, through his own confession, and through his drowning. Now, inside a fish, he prays. Two questions follow: what turns a runaway back, and does his prayer save him?
The striking thing is not that Jonah prayed, but how long he had gone without praying.
We noticed something in the first chapter of Jonah. The shipmaster woke Jonah out of his sleep and told him to call on his God. Even then, Jonah made no attempt to pray. He was fleeing from the presence of Jehovah, and that is no time to pray to Him. We saw that he even made a frank confession of his sin to the whole ship's company, but still he did not pray... It is amazing. Even as Jonah was about to die, he seems to have made no effort at all to come to God in prayer. Yet his soul had surely begun to be restored. It often takes some time to bring about full restoration.
Wind, waves, and the prospect of drowning left Jonah unmoved. Something else broke him.
How wonderful are the ways of God. The storm, the raging waves, even death itself could not do it. God now brought it about by His own ways. Jonah was alone in the belly of the fish, in awful darkness and dead silence, with no hope of rescue by any human hand. And Jonah prayed... The proud, rebellious spirit bowed at last, and Jonah prayed.
What broke Jonah is a warning to anyone who has stopped praying.
God can make the proudest spirit bow, and can bring a prayer from the hardest heart... Suppose we keep walking in the paths of rebellion and self-will. Then we may be quite sure that we too will find "trouble and sorrow" — trouble and sorrow so great that they force us to our knees.
The verse does not say Jonah prayed to God, but to his God.
"His" God, note that; not all sense of relationship was lost... Prayer has gone up to God from many unlikely places through the ages. But never anything quite like this. Prisons, caves, mountains and the like have echoed with cries of anguish, but not the belly of a fish. The chastened prophet owned the divine hand in what had happened to him... Deliverance comes to souls in distress only when they own the hand of God.
Chapter one is a man walking away. This first line of chapter two reverses the direction.
The chapter begins with a significant statement. Jonah prayed, and his face is now in the right direction. He had turned his back on Jehovah. But now the divine rod falls on him. It not only stops him; it draws his eyes upward to the One he had tried to flee. Blessed effect of chastisement, when the soul owns its dependence and humbles itself under the mighty hand of God... just as a song of praise is the channel of the soul's joy, prayer is the vehicle of its sorrow.
Jonah prays here, but he is still inside the fish.
The first thing an awakened soul does is to pray, and "Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish." But I want you to see that it is not his prayer that brings him deliverance... In the history of his soul, Jonah had gone down into the depths of hell, and therefore he never went there in reality.
Wolston traces the steps, and release comes at one sentence.
He prays (Jonah 2:1). He cries (Jonah 2:2). He promises, "I shall again look upon your holy temple" (Jonah 2:4). He moralises (Jonah 2:8). He sacrifices and he vows (Jonah 2:9). But he is still in the belly of the great fish. At last he says, "Salvation belongs to the LORD!" and at once he is out on dry land.
Those hidden hours have a meaning larger than one prophet's recovery.
But now we have the silent and secret dealings of God that went on during those three days and three nights when Jonah lay in the depths and spread his misery before God.
Jonah is called to rejoice in this salvation of God. But it gets all its authority from the mystery of the cross. One who was able to do so went down, for us sinners, under the dominion of death and under the judgment of sin. He was in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. Jonah, in the belly of the fish for the same length of time, is the type of Him in that condition.
- Cornered. The storm and even death did not bend Jonah. The darkness and silence of the fish, with no human help in sight, did.
- Turned. God's rod turns his face back toward the One he fled from. Chastening works when the soul owns its dependence.
- Owned. He prays to his God. The relationship survived his running, and he owns God's hand in what happened to him.
- Emptied. Prayers, vows and sacrifices leave him still inside the fish; only "Salvation belongs to the LORD!" puts him on dry land.
- Fulfilled. Those three days and nights are the type of One who went down under the judgment of sin. This salvation draws all its authority from Him.
and he said I cried by reason of my distress unto Jehovah, and he answered me; Out of the belly of Sheol cried I thou heardest my voice.
A runaway prophet is swallowed by a great fish. Inside it he finally speaks to the God he was running from, and his first words are that God answered him. Two questions follow. What made a man who would not pray on the ship pray in the deep? And what does he mean by the belly of Sheol?
Jonah does not dress up his motive.
Honest Jonah — he frankly confessed that it was because of his distress that he was finally forced to cry to God. He could face death without a tremble, but there are worse things than death, as he found out. Now such distress came upon him that there was nothing else for it, he had to pray... If we persist in walking the paths of rebellion and self-will, we may be sure that we too will find trouble and sorrow — such trouble and such sorrow that it will force us to our knees.
One writer draws a general rule from Jonah's case.
Affliction quickens the spirit of prayer; Jonah was asleep in the ship, but at prayer in the whale's belly. Perhaps in a time of health and prosperity we pray in a cold and formal manner... God sends some trouble or other to make us take hold of Him. "They poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them" (Isaiah 26:16); now their prayer pierced the heavens.
Jonah gives his prison a name: the belly of Sheol.
Alone in the belly of the fish, in that awful darkness and deathly silence, with no hope of rescue by any human hand — Jonah prayed. "Out of the belly of Sheol (or the grave) I cried." Those long hours — three days and three nights "in the belly of Sheol" — were far worse to Jonah than a few short moments under the stormy waves and then death. The proud, rebellious spirit bowed at last, and Jonah prayed.
Commentators set Sheol against qeber, the word for the burial grave that holds the body:
Sheol is always connected with the soul, never with the body... Sheol is connected with distress such as is shown by crying aloud with the voice... Qeber has no such thought connected with it. A dead body cannot cry aloud or feel distress.
One small word in the chapter's opening line survives all Jonah's rebellion.
"Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish." "His" God, note that; for the sense of relationship was not entirely lost... From many unlikely places prayer has gone up to God through the ages, but never anything quite like this. Prisons, caves, mountains and the like have echoed with cries of anguish, but not the belly of a fish... This is very beautiful. It shows that even a believer who slides back knows Whom to turn to in trouble. He is confident that God will not forsake him.
Notice the tense. Jonah is still inside the fish, yet he speaks of the answer as already given.
What could more strikingly show the grace of God, or display the tenderness of His heart! His dealings have done their work, and He answers the cry of His servant at once. In the folly of our unbelief, we are often tempted to think that He cannot forgive us after our sinful and rebellious wanderings. But His grace never fails. More than that, He waits on His people, His ear always open to their cry. His attitude towards us does not depend on what we are, but only on what He is in Himself... And it is just because of His unchanging love that He deals with us in chastening and affliction.
Jesus applied Jonah's three days and nights to Himself. The likeness has a limit.
For the believer there can be no doubt that Jonah is a type of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. He too was three days and nights, as He said Himself, in the heart of the earth — the crucified Messiah. But then how different! Jonah's strange fate came from his sin — his open refusal to obey God. Christ suffered for others only. It was for the sins of His people... Jonah then cries, and Jehovah hears. He feels deeply the position he found himself in; and this was right. Discipline is meant to be felt, though grace should not be doubted.
- Affliction — distress squeezed the prayer out of Jonah. The man who slept through a storm prayed in the fish.
- Sheol — he names his prison the belly of the grave, a place of conscious anguish where a voice can still cry out.
- His God — even a runaway keeps the relationship; the word "his" shows he knew whose ear he was reaching for.
- Heard — Jonah speaks of the answer as already given, before any rescue comes. God's attitude rests on what He is, not on what we have been.
- Sign — the same three days and nights point to Christ in the heart of the earth. But Jonah went down for his own sin; Christ went down for the sins of others.
For thou didst cast me into the depth, into the heart of the seas, And the flood was round about me All thy breakers and thy billows are gone over me.
Jonah is inside the fish, praying about the moment he hit the water. He does not call it an accident. He does not blame the sailors. He tells God, "You cast me." The whole verse turns on that "You."
The story itself says the crew picked Jonah up and threw him overboard. Jonah's prayer tells it another way. One writer sees his recovery start right there.
Jonah 1:15 says of the sailors, "they took up Jonah, and threw him into the sea." But in Jonah 2:3, Jonah says to God, "You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas." So he acknowledged the hand of God, and humbled himself under it. He put into practice 1 Peter 5:6-7 several centuries before those verses were written. He was in this way on the road to recovery. Deliverance can only come to souls in distress when the hand of God is acknowledged.
The same claim runs through the two possessive words in the verse — your billows, your waves.
In all true spiritual exercise the soul has to do with God Himself, and knows it. So we find Jonah treating everything as God's direct dealing with him. "You" — not the sailors — "have cast me into the sea." "Your billows and waves": the sea is His, and He made it. It is His by creation, and now, in Jonah's case, His by commission as well.
Jonah invents no new language in the fish. He prays in the words of songs he already knew.
Almost every sentence in his prayer comes from the Psalms… Verse 3 quotes Psalm 42:7: "All your waves and billows passed over me."
If God is the one who threw him in, the obvious question is whether that was cruel. One writer answers by pointing to where the deep led.
"For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas." There is not a hint that it was the sailors who threw him into the sea. No, Jonah knew better than that. It was God, and God only, who had cast Jonah into the sea, and he acknowledged it. Why would God do such a thing? Was it cruel of Him? Oh, no! This was the way home, and the only way home, for this particular prodigal son. It was not until he got inside the fish, and had been there for three days and nights, that "he came to himself." Whether it is pigs or a fish, God has ways to make His people come to themselves.
So the depths are not only ruin. They also carry a warning for anyone who would hurry a person through them.
Jonah, before his deliverance, had to cry, "For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas." The deeper a soul gets down before God under the sense of its sin, the more certain it is to come into a remarkable and glorious deliverance. So no one should ever try to cut short the inner searching of a soul that feels its guilt. There cannot be too deep a sense of how sinful sin is.
Jesus called Jonah a sign of Himself. Commentators read this verse in that light. The waters rose higher over Him than over the prophet.
"And the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me." These words remind us of our Lord's own words, spoken in prophecy, in Psalm 69:1-2… Remember that the Lord Himself tells us Jonah is a sign, or type, of Himself. The flood was wilder around Him. Deeper, darker, more terrible breakers and billows rolled over His holy soul. He suffered for sins that were not His own, but mine and yours.
The likeness only goes so far. One writer marks where Jonah and Christ part.
For the believer there can be no doubt at all: Jonah is a type of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. He too was three days and nights in the heart of the earth, as He said Himself — the crucified Messiah. But how different! Jonah's strange fate was because of his sin, his open refusal to submit to God. Christ suffered for others only. It was for the sins of His people.
- His hand. Jonah leaves the sailors out and speaks to God. A runaway names who is dealing with him.
- His waves. The billows belong to the One who made the sea. He owns them, and in Jonah's case He sent them.
- His way home. The deep was not cruelty but the road home, where a prodigal came to himself. No one should cut short a soul's time there.
- His words. Jonah prays in borrowed words. Verse 3 echoes Psalm 42:7. Scripture he had already learned came back when he had nothing else.
- His Son. Deeper billows went over the greater Jonah. One difference decides all: Jonah went down for his own sin, Christ for the sins of others.
And I said, I am cast out from before thine eyes, Yet will I look again toward thy holy temple.
Jonah prays these words from inside the fish. They hold two opposite things at once. He believes God has shut him out, yet he still turns his face toward God's house. Is this the end of the relationship, or the start of restoration?
Jonah had spent the whole first chapter running from God. His complaint here is the answer to his own request.
Jonah, when imprisoned inside the fish, said, "I am cast out of Your sight" (Jonah 2:4). He surely had no ground for complaint about this, since he fled to Tarshish precisely to get away from the presence of Jehovah! He even told the sailors that this was the reason for his voyage in their ship (Jonah 1:3, 10). Perhaps Jonah, who knew the Psalms well, had David's words in mind in Psalm 31:22 about being cut off from God's sight. But David said that in haste! The rest of the verse adds that God still heard his pleas for mercy when he cried. It is not our God's way to cast off His saints, however deeply they fail. He is always willing to hear their pleas when they cry.
Jonah is telling us what he said. But what he said was not a true account of where he stood.
"Then I said, 'I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.'" Thank God, it was not true of Jonah. He was not cast out from before the eyes of God. On the contrary, God's eyes were watching His poor servant closely, even in the belly of that fish. When the right moment came, the command went out at once to deliver him from his dreadful prison. Jonah thought he was cast out from before God's eyes. He knew well that he deserved to be, but thank God, He does not give His servants what they deserve in cases like this.
Despair and hope here are not separated by weeks of recovery. They stand in one sentence.
But notice what follows. Does God's servant give up his hope in God? If there ever was a hopeless situation, it was this one. No. The same gracious but holy God had moved His prophet into the solitude of that strange grave. He did it not to kill him, but through deep exercise of soul to make him more fit for His service. That same God also knew how to strengthen the faith of His seemingly cast-away servant. The same voice cries out in deepest distress, "I am driven away from your sight." In the same breath, so to speak, it goes on, "yet I shall again look upon your holy temple."
Why look toward the temple? One writer points to a promise made when that house was dedicated, and to the turn in Jonah's eyes.
Jonah's mind surely turned back to Solomon's prayer at the dedication of that temple, in 2 Chronicles 6. God promised there to hear His people when they pray toward that house from the land of their captivity, and to forgive them. On the ground of words like these, Jonah had the Lord's own authority to count on God's mercy to forgive his sin and deliver him.
Jonah's eye had been westward, to Tarshish. But now, down in the belly of Sheol — the place of the dead — there is true repentance, a real turning round. His eyes looked eastward, back to the holy temple he had so wickedly forsaken. That is just what repentance means. People often think it means great sorrow for sin. That may well be included, but it is not the real meaning of the word. It is turning round; the literal meaning is "thinking again." Jonah "thought again." Instead of looking west, he looked east.
This look is Jonah's own act. One writer marks what it could not do.
"I shall again look upon your holy temple" — now that is all the man himself. That does not bring him deliverance. He is not delivered because he says it. That is the man; that is Jonah, looking toward God's holy temple.
Jonah's words are often laid alongside the cry from the cross. The likeness has a limit.
Some people would tell us that the Lord Jesus only thought God had forsaken Him, as in Jonah's case: "I am driven away from your sight." It was, however, very different with our Lord and Saviour. There on the cross He bore our sins; and with all those mountains of sins upon Him, God had to turn away from Him, and it was in very truth that He uttered that dreadful cry, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
- Cast out — Jonah fled to get away from God's presence, then complained that God had shut him out.
- Not true — his feeling lied to him. God watched him the whole time and sent the order to release him at the right moment.
- Yet — despair and hope stood in one breath. God was strengthening faith in the very place where He was training His servant.
- Turned round — that look was repentance itself. Eyes off Tarshish, face toward the house God had promised to hear from.
- Still waiting — the look was Jonah's resolve, not his rescue. And Jonah only thought he was shut out; on the cross Christ was truly forsaken as He bore our sins.
The waters encompassed me, to the soul The deep was round about me, The weeds were wrapped about my head.
Jonah prays from inside the fish and looks back at the moment he sank. The words fit a drowning man exactly. Commentators also read them as the low point of a runaway prophet and as a picture of the death of Christ.
The verse turns inward. It is not only the sea around him. The words "to the soul" point past what water can do to a body.
Here we find desperate reality. It was not only the waters about him on the outside, but those dark waters of death entered into his very soul… Words like "The waters encompassed me, to the soul" tell of an even deeper suffering than the outward sufferings that came from man.
G C Willis (older translations read "even to the soul"; the ESV renders it "the waters closed in over me to take my life")
Jonah does not blame the storm or the sailors who threw him overboard. He looks straight past them to God.
Jonah at this moment thought neither about the storm nor about the sailors. It was the Lord who had cast him into the deep… All the figures he uses — the seas, the floods, billows and waves — were literally true in his case, and they also show that the Lord's hand was upon him for judgment. Everywhere in the Scriptures these are the symbols of God's judicial wrath. The effect was that he felt cast out of God's sight, and his soul fainted within him… He came to see his utter nothingness before God, and all the more so because of his own sin.
Jonah keeps going down. At this point, though, he is no longer the one choosing the direction.
Three steps, says Jonah, I took myself — down to Joppa, down to the ship, and down into its sides to sleep. But when God took hold of me, I went deeper down still — "down to the bottoms of the mountains."
Jonah had refused to preach to Nineveh, a foreign city he looked down on. Now look where his flight has landed him.
Could Gentile Nineveh be in a worse plight? … A Jew and a prophet in the depths of the sea, with the weeds wrapped about his head, because of the displeasure of Jehovah! Surely someone in such a state may well stop his boasting, and no longer despise others. Could anyone sink lower? Proud Adam was behind the trees of the garden; proud Jonah is at the bottom of the sea… In the belly of the fish he finds out that, Jew as he was, he needed the salvation of God just as much as any Gentile could need it.
Jonah's prayer borrows its words from the Psalms, and one writer follows those words to the cross. He draws the parallel down to what was on the head.
Our Lord went into the jaws of death and died the sinner's death, the substitute of sinners. Most of the Psalm passages Jonah wove into his prayer foretell the sufferings of Christ. He cried to God for deliverance, and God heard Him. The answer was His resurrection. … While Jonah's 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.
The parallel has a limit. What Jonah said about himself, Christ endured in fact.
Some people would tell us that the Lord Jesus only thought God had forsaken Him, as in Jonah's case: "I said, I am driven away from Your sight." But it was very different with our Lord and Saviour. There on the cross He bore our sins. With all those mountains of sins upon Him, God must turn away from Him. He truly did utter that awful cry, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"… Here, indeed, the waters surrounded Him, to the soul.
- Down — Jonah took three steps away from God. Then God's hand took over and carried him lower still.
- Deeper — the water did not stop at his skin. It reached the soul, and that is the suffering the verse is about.
- Judgment — in Scripture, seas and floods picture God's wrath. Jonah is describing a sentence, not just a shipwreck.
- Levelled — pride ends at the sea bed. A prophet with weeds round his head needs God's salvation as much as the city he despised.
- Deeper still — Christ went into far deeper waters. Jonah only thought he was shut out of God's sight. Christ, bearing our sins, was forsaken in fact.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; The bars of the earth [closed] upon me for ever But thou hast brought up my life from the pit, O Jehovah my God.
Jonah 2:6 is the lowest point of the book: a man sunk to the roots of the mountains, shut in by bars for ever. In the same breath he praises God for bringing his life up out of the pit.
Jonah's descent had a pattern. He chose the first three steps himself. God took the rest, lower than his own will ever planned — and low enough to be saved.
We must notice one more step down for poor Jonah. He had gone down of his own accord, down to Joppa, down into the ship, down into the sides of the ship: three sad steps down. God had brought him down into the sea, then down into the fish, and now God brings him down further still: "I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever." Now Jonah was down about as far as he could go. It is well for us when we are down… It is when God brings us down, when He brings our pride low, that He is able to save us. As soon as Jonah reached the very bottom he said this. Then at once we read, "yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God." Jonah's pride was broken. He was as low as he could get.
"The earth with her bars" is the language of a locked prison. One writer notes the word appeared — the permanence was real to Jonah's feelings, not to his God, and his eyes went upward anyway.
The prophet's eye of faith was looking from the depth of his prison and his distress straight upwards, to a higher temple — to God's sanctuary. He "lifted up his eyes to the hills," the only place his help could come from, and it did come… He had gone down to the roots of the mountains, and the earth with its bars appeared to be around him for ever. His soul fainted within him. He was very close to hopeless despair.
Jonah never blames the storm or the crew. Every image he piles up — sea, floods, billows, waves — carries one meaning throughout Scripture, and he takes it from God's hand.
He did not get tangled up in second causes, as we so often do — and by that we lose all the blessing of the Lord's dealings with us… And what rest of soul it gives to take everything that happens to us from the hand of the Lord Himself! It stills every complaint. It opens the ear to God's voice. It puts the soul in a fit state to profit from the discipline it is passing through. He also confesses that the Lord's hand was on him in judgment. All the figures he uses — the seas, the floods, billows and waves — were literally true of him, and they explain this too: everywhere in Scripture they are symbols of God's judicial wrath.
Notice the tense: "you brought up my life." Jonah says this while still inside the fish. The quote below uses the older wording "corruption" where the ESV has "the pit."
Like every city of refuge, the whale's belly was Jonah's shelter in the middle of judgment — the place of life to him in the region of death. And there he talks of salvation. "You have brought up my life from corruption," he says, "O Lord, my God… salvation belongs to the LORD." Earlier, in the ship, he had heard the thunder of judgment. Now, in the fish's belly, it is the still small voice of mercy. He knows salvation with as much certainty of heart, though not with the same comfort, as if he were on dry land again.
One writer sets Jonah's depth beside a far deeper one.
The waters God sent the prophet Jonah into were deep indeed… But the waters of death that the obedient Son of God went down into for our disobedience were deeper — deeper beyond compare. "Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls." Not only were the waters of death beneath Him and around Him; all the waves and billows of God's wrath went over Him.
The bars could not hold Him either, and for a reason Jonah never had:
But, blessed be God, Christ went down into death. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so the Son of Man went down into the heart of the earth for the same length of time. But who could prevent His rising again? It was death here that was without strength, and not man.
One writer reads the sign of Jonah on two levels at once: the Saviour, and the nation.
Jonah, as a sign, suits both the Lord Himself and Israel as a nation, as the Gospels let us know. Israel must go through death and resurrection… Jonah's own death and resurrection is a real picture, a pattern, of his nation's history and of his Saviour's history.
- Down — Jonah chose the first three steps. God took the last ones, lower than his own will ever planned.
- Bottom — the low place is not the end of the story. When pride is broken, God can save.
- Bars — the prison only appeared to hold him for ever. Faith looked up from inside it.
- Up — Jonah praises for rescue while still in the fish. The place of judgment had become a shelter: life in the region of death.
- Higher — the Son of God went down further, under wrath as well as water. Death had no strength to hold Him. The same sign covers Israel's resurrection too.
When my soul fainted within me, I remembered Jehovah; And my prayer came in unto thee, Into thy holy temple.
Jonah speaks this line from inside the fish. His own strength has run out and his life is slipping away. In one breath two things happen. A man at the end of himself turns to God, and his prayer reaches God's holy temple from the bottom of the sea.
Everything before this verse is downward. Jonah names the sea, the floods and the billows. Those words carry more than weather. His fainting is where they end.
He confesses that the Lord's hand was upon him for judgment. All the figures he uses — the seas, the floods, billows and waves — show this. They were true of his actual situation. But throughout the Scriptures these are the symbols of God's judicial wrath. The effect was that he felt God had cast him out of His sight, and his soul fainted within him. He came to a sense of his utter nothingness before God, all the more because his own sin had brought him there. The rebel who fled God's presence becomes a penitent. He has no excuse for what he did. He takes the place of having nothing, and deserving nothing but the judgment he is suffering. This is the only true place for a soul, whether a sinner's or a backslidden believer's. It is the only place where God can meet the soul with forgiveness and restoring grace, on the ground of accomplished atonement.
Jonah turns to God at the exact point where he has nothing left to lean on. One writer sees a pattern in that.
As long as we have our own strength to lean on, we do not remember Jehovah. But when our strength is gone, when we are helpless and hopeless, when we faint, then in our desperate need we "remember Jehovah." Man's extremity is God's opportunity.
Jonah says his prayer reached God's holy temple. Yet he was under water, inside a fish, with no way to know which way Jerusalem lay.
Jonah was in the belly of the fish, at the bottom of the sea. How could his eyes find the direction of the spot where the holy city and its glorious temple still stood? The answer is very simple. The prophet's eye of faith was surely looking straight upwards from the depth of his prison and his distress. He looked to a higher temple, to God's sanctuary. He "lifted up his eyes to the hills," from where alone his help could come and did come.
Jonah does not say he hoped God would hear his prayer. He says it came in. He could follow it the whole way.
Now he remembered Jehovah, and he prayed. There was no other hope, no other way, nothing else he could do, so he prayed. He did more than pray. Faith rose from that strange "prayer room." By faith he could see right into "Your holy temple," the temple toward which he had looked. He saw that his prayer had entered in — right inside the veil, to the very presence of God.
Jonah still calls God his own God. That small word survived the disobedience.
"His" God, note it well; for all sense of relationship was not lost. From many unlikely places prayer has gone up to God through the ages, but never anything quite like this. Prisons, caves, mountains and the rest have echoed with cries of anguish, but not the belly of a fish… This is very beautiful. It shows that even when a believer falls into a backsliding condition, he still knows Whom to turn to in his trouble. He is confident that God will not forsake him.
The verse says Jonah remembered the Lord. One writer will not let the reader stop there.
"When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD." But, my friend, it will not do to merely remember the Lord. You must believe in Him too.
Others hear more than one man in this prayer. They hear Israel, and Christ, who came down into that place too.
This is the just lot of Israel, unfaithful to the testimony of God and unable to give it. Christ, in His infinite grace, came down into this place. He was rejected because He was faithful. We see the spirit of the remnant of Israel most clearly in Jonah's prayer. Verses 7-9 of chapter 2 prove it beyond doubt.
- Down. The billows and floods picture God's judicial wrath. Jonah reaches the bottom, and the rebel who fled God's presence becomes a penitent.
- Fainting. While our own strength holds, we do not remember Him. When it fails, our extremity becomes God's opportunity.
- Upward. No compass could find Jerusalem from the sea floor, so the eye of faith looked straight up to a higher temple.
- Inside. Faith followed the prayer past every wave and saw it enter within the veil, into the very presence of God.
- Still His. Even in backsliding, a believer knows Whom to turn to. But remembering the Lord is not the same as believing in Him.
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
Jonah speaks these words from the lowest point of his life — sunk in the sea, inside the fish, with nothing left of his own plans. There he states a principle that fits everyone: whatever a person clings to instead of God costs him the very mercy that could have saved him.
The phrase may point back to the ship. One writer suggests Jonah had watched the sailors cry out to their gods in the storm. It struck him only later, once he stood before the true God.
It may be that Jonah had watched the sailors, as each man called on his own god. They bowed down to vain idols, sought help from them, and prayed to them. It may not have affected him much at the time. One gets used to these things… Now, in the very presence of Jehovah his God, the very thought of such a thing was utterly hateful to Jonah's soul. He saw it all in its true light. He did not say, "It doesn't matter how they worship, as long as they are sincere." No, indeed! He knew how terrible it was… There is mercy for all who turn to the Lord. But no one should fool himself: vain idols can never bring mercy to a sinner, however sincere the worshipper.
This is Jonah's verdict on the road he had just travelled. One writer asks every reader to test it against his own experience.
Now restored, the prophet can testify to the folly of sin. "Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love." And surely this witness is true. Will not all our hearts agree with it? Whenever the empty lies of the flesh, the world or the devil have lured us away, have we not proved the prophet's teaching true? … Mercy is never found in the path of sin.
An idol need not be carved from wood. One writer names the emptiest thing a person can trust. He also names the people God keeps His mercy for.
There is no greater vanity than our wretched self — our heart, deceitful by nature and desperately wicked. It always resists the grace and mercy of God towards us or towards others, as it did with Jonah. That mercy is a tender, compassionate, divine pity. It never fails to take up those who fear God and who, knowing their own helplessness and weakness, make Him their only refuge. But to the man who trusts in his own plans and schemes and strength, God says, My mercy is for such as are helpless. My wisdom is for those who have become fools in themselves.
Jonah did not reach this insight on the deck of the ship. The same writer marks the difference between what the storm taught him and what the depths taught him.
On the surface of the sea, during the mighty storm sent by God, Jonah might learn to fear the Lord… But he had to learn the great truth that "Salvation belongs to the LORD!" in the depths of the sea. There he had the sentence of death in himself. Stripped of every human help, he had learnt that great truth: those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. Once Jonah had fully learnt that lesson, he learnt the second one as a matter of course.
Jonah has judged his old life honestly. One writer traces what he tried next, and why it left him where he was.
That Jonah did this is clear from his next words… This is the judgment he passes on his former life and the world that had lured him. Repentance, however real and deep, is not deliverance… Sacrifices and vows cannot deliver. Have you learned this? Jonah did. He pulls up short and exclaims, "Salvation belongs to the LORD!" At once deliverance comes. Many a soul is in the state Jonah was in before he said that. Such are saying, "I will sacrifice, I will vow, I will pay." Ah! you are in the belly of hell still.
One writer applies this verse to Israel as a nation. Christ came to His own people, and they made the same exchange.
Christ came to those who were especially "His own," but "His own people did not receive him"… They rejected the purpose of God for themselves and despised the mercies given them. So they crucified the Son of God and put Him to open shame.
- Vanity named. A "vain idol" is anything we trust instead of God — the sailors' gods, or our own plans, wisdom and strength.
- Vanity costs. Mercy is never found in the path of sin; whoever holds the idol has let go of the help he needed.
- Vanity dies deep. The storm taught Jonah to fear God; only the depths, with every human help gone, taught him this lesson.
- Vanity exposed is not vanity's end. Seeing the folly, praying, sacrificing and vowing left Jonah still inside the fish.
- Vanity replaced. The moment self was let go and he said salvation belongs to the LORD, deliverance came.
But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation is of Jehovah.
Jonah prays from inside the fish, and his prayer ends with an offering, a vow, and a confession. Only the confession opens the door: deliverance came the moment he said it, not a word earlier. (The quotes below use the older wording, "Salvation is of the Lord.")
One writer splits the verse in two. The offering and the vow still keep Jonah at the centre; the closing words do not.
In verse 9 he says, "But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay." That is Jonah still. That is the man still going through this exercise about himself, and he gets no deliverance for that. But at the last part of the verse, these words escape his lips: "Salvation is of the Lord." He has given up himself now, and he is delivered.
The same reading is pressed home to anyone who has tried to buy their way out of trouble with God by good intentions.
But Jonah has to drop his vows. They do not take him out. You say, I will give up everything. That will not take you out... It is God only who can save you, my friend. Not your prayers or tears. Your prayers can no more save you than your sins.
Not every writer treats the vow as worthless. One notes the daring of promising a thanksgiving sacrifice while still in the dark, and ties it to the peace offering.
Faith grew bolder; now Jonah could say that he would yet sacrifice to Jehovah with the voice of thanksgiving. How could he have hoped for this while he was still in the belly of the fish? Only by faith. This sacrifice of thanksgiving is the "peace offering"... It was a voluntary offering, a pleasing aroma to Jehovah... In this sacrifice, God had first His own special share, and the man who offered it had his share too.
The confession says nothing about Jonah getting better. It says where salvation comes from, and that makes a man's condition irrelevant.
"Salvation is of the Lord," that is, it is entirely of God's grace. It may meet my need, and thanks be to God, it does meet it; but the condition I am in, whether better or worse, in no way affects the grace of God. In fact the worse a man is, the fitter he is for salvation. He then has nothing of his own to rest on, and cannot fool himself that he is better than his neighbours.
Jonah resented God's mercy going to a foreign city. Inside the fish he learned he stood on the same ground as the people he despised.
In the belly of the fish he finds out something. Jew though he was, he needed the salvation of God just as much as any Gentile could need it. Gentile Nineveh had been unclean and despised in his eyes, and he grudged her God's mercy. What would become of himself now but for that mercy? He was in prison, and he deserved to be there. What could help him, what could reach his condition, but mercy — free, full, and sovereign? "Salvation is of the Lord," he has to say. He will not rejoice now in himself as a privileged Jew or a gifted prophet, but only in Him to whom it belongs to bring salvation.
One writer lines this up with the cry and the answer in Romans 7, and notes what this truth does to a person.
All the exercises of Jonah's soul lead him up to this beautiful conclusion: "Salvation is of the Lord." At once he is set free. So with the soul in Romans 7: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord" is the answer... It brings peace into the soul. It stills all doubts and questions. It ends self-occupation, and it turns the eye upward to the only source of blessing and deliverance.
The salvation Jonah confesses rests on the cross, and his three days in the fish picture it.
But this salvation of God, in which Jonah is called to rejoice, gets all its authority from the mystery of the cross. For us sinners, One who could do so went down under the dominion of death, under the judgment of sin. He was in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. Jonah was in the belly of the fish for the same length of time, and so he is made the picture of Him.
- Of the Lord — not of Jonah. The sacrifice and the vow left him where he was; only the last line of the verse let him out.
- Of the Lord — so it is grace. Salvation rests on God's grace, not on the state of the person who needs it. Having nothing of your own to rest on is an advantage.
- Of the Lord — so it reaches everyone. The prophet learns he needs the same mercy as the city he despised.
- Of the Lord — so it rests on the cross. Jonah's three days in the fish are the sign of the One who went down under the judgment of sin for sinners.
- Of the Lord — so the soul rests. The truth quiets doubts, ends self-occupation, and turns the eye upward to the only source of deliverance.
And Jehovah commanded the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry [land].
Three days in the dark end in a single sentence: God speaks to the fish, and the prophet is back on solid ground. So what freed him — and why at that moment?
The rescue takes no struggle. Everything in this story obeys God at once — except the man He had sent.
As soon as Jonah really learned that salvation is of Jehovah, then Jehovah brought salvation. And how did He do it? By a word. He spoke and the fish obeyed. We have already seen the stormy wind obeying His word, both in rising and in being still. Now we find the great fish equally obedient. The only disobedient one in this book was Jonah, a man, God's highest creation, a man who was God's servant and His prophet; and yet he ventured to disobey.
The same contrast runs through the whole story, and it embarrasses the man telling it.
Everyone shines brightly in the book of Jonah but the writer. The heathen mariners were reluctant to deliver him up to death... The King of Nineveh, with his nobles and people, trembled at the word of God, and humbled themselves before Him, and so turned aside the threatened judgement. The fish was obedient to its Creator, for when Jehovah spoke to it, "It vomited out Jonah upon the dry land."
Inside the fish Jonah prayed, wept and made vows. None of it moved him an inch. The change comes at one line.
"But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving, I will pay what I have vowed." That is Jonah still. That is the man still busy with himself, and he gets no deliverance for that. But at the end of that verse this escapes his lips: "Salvation is of the Lord." He has given up on himself now, and he is delivered. God spoke to the fish, and the fish threw Jonah out onto dry ground.
Another writer turns this on the reader. What we offer God to buy our rescue is the very thing that cannot save us.
Jonah has to drop his vows. They do not take him out. Prayer does not take him out, and tears do not take him out of the belly of hell. You say, I will give up everything. That will not take you out. Though you gave all that you had for the salvation of your soul, that would not do... It is God only that can save you, my friend. Not your prayers or tears. Your prayers can no more save you than your sins.
The verse does not only say Jonah got out. It says where he landed.
Not into the mud. Many people get into the mud, I think. They live in uncertainty. They settle down for good in doubt. They go about with doubts and fears. What, then, is dry land? The sunny shores of resurrection, the knowledge of a risen Christ, a triumphant Saviour. Jonah was on dry land, everything speaking of deliverance and safety.
Being vomited out sounds like rejection. One writer sets this scene beside Laodicea, where the same picture means judgment.
This vomiting out of Jonah is very different from the spitting out of Laodicea. Laodicea said, "I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing." She did not know that she was wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked! The fish threw the prophet out of its mouth onto the shore of safety. But the Lord will spit Laodicea out of His mouth in judgment.
The sailors on the ship never saw Jonah again. They knew only half of what happened.
Those men saw Jonah no more; he had perished while they were saved. That was all they knew; but one greater than Jonah is here. "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." "And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land." And just as surely our Lord came out from the dead. "He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
One writer sees the same sign covering more than the death and resurrection of Christ.
Jonah is, in general, the witness of burial and resurrection... But the sign of Jonah also sets out the history of Israel. That nation is now doomed to the judgment of death and the grave. Yet God's love has destined it to be called out from under the power of death, and to rise again into the life and liberty of God's people.
- Word. No struggle freed Jonah. God spoke, and the fish obeyed at once, as the wind had obeyed before it.
- Confession. Deliverance waited for "Salvation is of the Lord." Prayers, tears and vows had left him exactly where he was.
- Ground. He landed on dry land, not mud — safety and certainty, not doubt. The fish threw him out in mercy; the Lord will spit Laodicea out in judgment.
- Christ. The three days and the return are the sign the Lord claimed for Himself. He was raised for our justification, so we have peace with God.
- Nation. The same sign covers Israel: in the grave now, but God's love has destined the nation to rise again.