Did Jonah die while he was in the belly of the fish (Jonah 2)?

Jonah sacrificed himself in order to save those who were about to perish. But how much greater His sacrifice! Jonah's fate came upon him on account of his sin and disobedience. The Lord Jesus Christ did not suffer for His sins, for He had none, being the Holy, the Sinless One. He died exclusively for others and died for the ungodly. But did Jonah actually die? Did death fasten upon him? Was his body miraculously preserved so that it did not see corruption? Was it a literal resurrection when the fish vomited him out? Jonah did not die physically. But his experience typifies the death and the burial of Christ, and also His physical resurrection. How could Jonah have prayed and cried to the Lord out of the belly of the fish if his physical life had ceased? It was a miracle, however, that Jonah was kept alive.

Startling as the news was, the like of which had never before been known, in three days’ time news of a far more startling and wonderful nature was passed from lip to lip. Jonah was alive and well. Incredible! At first news of this it would be promptly disbelieved as a thing impossible. But the witnesses to His being cast into the tempestuous sea were many. There could be no doubt as to his fate. Humanly speaking nothing could save him from being drowned. But Jonah was actually alive and well. The God of the Hebrews had ordained a great fish to be at the exact spot when Jonah sank into the water to swallow him, and convey him for three days and nights through the sea, and finally to vomit him alive upon dry land. Here was to them a new and mighty power in the world. It took a lot of believing, but the witnesses to the prophet’s supposed death, and the witnesses to the fact that he was alive, and even at that moment carrying out God’s commission, and on his way to Nineveh, were so many, that extraordinary as the news was, there was nothing to do but to admit facts.

Jonah could not have known of the great fish prepared for his reception and safety. Death was the only desert that was his, AND THIS HE ACKNOWLEDGED. It was because of this that God could save him from death.

Jonah 2. God prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, for he was His servant. When in the depths he cried to Jehovah, "out of the belly of Sheol:" as the remnant of Israel will plead when they feel that the sentence of death is passed upon them. Salvation is of the Lord. Jonah was raised out of death, as the Lord was raised after being in the grave; and as Israel will arise out of the dust of the earth: cf. Dan. 12:2.

Then Jonah "remembered the Lord." His prayer went up and "came in unto Him, into His holy temple." God, Who at a later period bade death and corruption to recede from the sick-bed of the godly king Hezekiah when sick unto death; and He who at a still later period, during His humiliation on earth, called forth His friend Lazarus from the bonds of death and corruption, was able to preserve Jonah's life from the same, and bring him forth again into daylight out of his deep grave. And He did so. God hears the prayer of faith, which addresses itself straight to Him, throwing aside every human prop. The eye of faith looks from everything off unto Jesus, to run in patience the race set before us. And as the needle, whilst trembling from the motions of the ship, ever turns towards the pole, so the heart of the true christian turns to Christ, however it may appear to be moved and wavering under the pressure of daily circumstances. The believer's heart knows but one direction for its movements and aspirations, one refuge only, whither it turns for light and counsel and comfort and help, even God and His dear Son Jesus Christ our Lord (Ps. 46, Ps. 70 — Comp. Acts 4:24-31; Acts 16:25; Rev. 8:3-5).

But two great truths Jonah had to learn in the fish's belly, before God could deliver him from the prison of his living tomb. These two truths, all-important for us as for Jonah, we hope to consider, if the Lord will, in the next chapter.

What a contrast to the tumultuous tempest of the preceding chapter do we find in the silent tomb of the second! There it was the mighty voice of God in the howling storm and the roaring waves, mixed with the cries of the distressed mariners, whilst the prophet was lying in his selfish and unconcerned sleep. But here, we have the stillness of death at the bottom of the sea, and the prophet entombed in the belly of the fish, not asleep but fully aroused in his conscience, to learn those two all-important truths, which God then and there would teach him far away from the eyes of men. From the deep silent grave the prayer of the prophet and his "cry out of the depths" ascend to God. His prayer somewhat reminds us of that of king Hezekiah (Isaiah 38), when death was announced to him, only that in Jonah's case the conflict of soul was much deeper, being at the same time, it seems to me, a prophetic expression of the deep exercise of soul of the future Jewish remnant at the time of antichrist (like Daniel's friends in the fiery furnace), as expressed in the well-known 130th Psalm.

God had cast His disobedient prophet "into the deep," into the midst (lit. "heart") of the sea: the "floods compassed him about," God's "waves and billows passed over him" who was buried alive. From the silent deep the voice of the distressed prophet went up to God's ear, "I am cast out of Thy sight!"

How wonderful are the ways of God. What the storm, the raging waves, what even death itself, could not accomplish, God now brought about by His own ways. Alone in the belly of the fish, amidst that awful darkness, and that deathly silence, utterly without hope of deliverance by the hand of man — Jonah prayed. "Out of the belly of Sheol (or the grave), cried I." This is the way Jonah described that moment. Worse, far worse to Jonah, than a few short moments under the stormy waves, and then death; were those long hours, three days and three nights, "in the belly of Sheol." The proud, rebellious spirit bowed at last, and Jonah prayed.

Accordingly our prophet is now cast into the sea. But the sea will not be allowed to be the pit of destruction to him, but he shall find rather a city of refuge, or hiding place for a season there. The belly of a fish is prepared to receive him from the sea, and there he abides. Like every city of refuge, the whale's belly was Jonah's shelter in the midst of judgment, — the place of life to him in the region of death. And there he talks of salvation. "Thou hast brought up my life from corruption," says he, "O Lord, my God … salvation is of the Lord." He had before, when in the ship, heard the thunder of judgment, but now in the fish's belly, it is the still small voice of mercy. He looks to God's temple, the appointed place (2 Chr. 6), and he knows that grace and salvation are God's way in His sanctuary. There by faith he surveys the brazen altar for the guilty sinner, and the golden altar for the accepted sinner, and the mercy-seat for the Lord to sit on. And then he knows that sacrifices of thanksgiving and the payment of his vows are before Him, and he can talk of life in the midst of death. "I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again towards thy holy temple. 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." With as much certainty of heart, though not with the same comfort, he knows salvation as well as though he were on dry land again. As secure he is, though not as happy, by this distant sight of the temple by faith, as though he had been in Jerusalem. "How say ye to my soul," in spirit he says, "flee as a bird to your mountain? … The Lord is in his holy temple." (Ps. 11) This was his joy.

"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights" (Jonah 1:17). It is given us for a figure. Jonah was preserved from these billows swallowing him up by the direct intervention of God. And what can prevent you and me from being swallowed up by the waves and billows of Divine wrath? Nothing but the direct intervention of God. But He has intervened, blessed be His name! The Lord Jesus Christ has come down in grace, given His own blood, taken sins upon Himself, been made sin, died, and has been raised again, and is at the right hand of God, and the Christian's life is "bid with Christ in God."

Jonah gets wonderful experiences in the belly of the great fish. He has been convicted, not only of sin and guilt, but of powerlessness too, and that he has a heart opposed to God. The first thing a soul does that is awakened is to pray, and "Jonah prayed to the Lord his God out of the fish's belly" (Jonah 2:1). But I want you to see that it is not his prayer that brings him deliverance. He says, "Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice." There is positive agony of soul. Do you say, I know nothing about that? You will know it, then, my friend, one day, when your cry will never be heard. In the history of his soul, Jonah had gone down into the depths of hell, therefore he never went there actually. He now adds, "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" (Jonah 2:3).

The result for Jonah was far different from what any man could have expected: "And Jehovah prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." Jehovah's eye was on that parting scene on the deck of that little vessel amidst the storm. Jehovah's eye (an eye and a heart of love and grace) was on His erring servant as he sank under those angry waves; and there where he least expected it, he found a place of refuge — in the belly of the fish. If those dark and stormy waters spoke of death, surely the belly of the fish tells us of the grave. We know that this is so, for our Lord Jesus Christ tells us plainly that Jonah at this time was a type of Himself. "Even as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights thus shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights." (Matt. 12:40) Little did Jonah know the honor that was being put upon him at this moment, in that he was for ever after to be a sign of how his Lord and Master would later on go down voluntarily into death and the grave, in order to save others.