Jonah Chapter 2
1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD, his God, out of the fish's belly.
2 He said, "I called because of my affliction to the LORD. He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried. You heard my voice.
3 For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me.
4 I said, 'I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again towards your holy temple.'
5 The waters surrounded me, even to the soul. The deep was around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head.
6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth barred me in forever: yet have you brought up my life from the pit, LORD my God.
7 "When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD. My prayer came in to you, into your holy temple.
8 Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
9 But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the LORD."
10 Then the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the dry land.
Footnotes
- Verse 2 (Sheol)
- Sheol is the place of the dead.
Version: World English Bible
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Jonah Chapter 2 Guide
In the midst of the strange and awful circumstances in which he found himself, Jonah poured out his soul in anguish to Jehovah. The prayer as chronicled for us consists of quotations from the Book of Psalms. It is exactly the kind of cry which a man familiar with the sacred penitential writings of his people would utter in such circumstances.
Perhaps the most remarkable note about the prayer is its note of triumph. While it is distinctly asserted that he prayed out of the fish's belly, and while all his quotations indicate the darkness and horror into which he had come, taken as a whole it is an expression of absolute confidence in God and in His deliverance.
The probability is that the prayer as recorded expressed the final stage of Jonah's spiritual experience in the realm of darkness. "When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto Thee, into Thine holy temple," is a quotation aptly indicating the period at which it was uttered. In view of the use made by Christ of this experience of Jonah, the prayer becomes all the more interesting, especially in its allusions to what were undoubtedly Messianic psalms.
From "An Exposition of the Whole Bible" by G. Campbell Morgan.
Jonah Chapter 2 Commentary
Chapter Outline
- The prayer of Jonah. -- (1-9)
- He is delivered from the fish. -- (10)
Verses 1-9
Observe when Jonah prayed. When he was in trouble, under the tokens of God's displeasure against him for sin: when we are in affliction we must pray. Being kept alive by miracle, he prayed. A sense of God's good-will to us, notwithstanding our offences, opens the lips in prayer, which were closed with the dread of wrath. Also, where he prayed; in the belly of the fish. No place is amiss for prayer. Men may shut us from communion with one another, but not from communion with God. To whom he prayed; to the Lord his God. This encourages even backsliders to return. What his prayer was. This seems to relate his experience and reflections, then and afterwards, rather than to be the form or substance of his prayer. Jonah reflects on the earnestness of his prayer, and God's readiness to hear and answer. If we would get good by our troubles, we must notice the hand of God in them. He had wickedly fled from the presence of the Lord, who might justly take his Holy Spirit from him, never to visit him more. Those only are miserable, whom God will no longer own and favour. But though he was perplexed, yet not in despair. Jonah reflects on the favour of God to him, when he sought to God, and trusted in him in his distress. He warns others, and tells them to keep close to God. Those who forsake their own duty, forsake their own mercy; those who run away from the work of their place and day, run away from the comfort of it. As far as a believer copies those who observe lying vanities, he forsakes his own mercy, and lives below his privileges. But Jonah's experience encourages others, in all ages, to trust in God, as the God of salvation.
Verse 10
Jonah's deliverance may be considered as an instance of God's power over all the creatures. As an instance of God's mercy to a poor penitent, who in distress prays to him: and as a type and figure of Christ's resurrection. Amidst all our varying experiences, and the changing scenes of life; we should look by faith, fixedly, upon our once suffering and dying, but now risen and ascended Redeemer. Let us confess our sins, consider Christ's resurrection as an earnest of our own, and thankfully receive every temporal and spiritual deliverance, as the pledge of our eternal redemption.
From the "Concise Commentary on the Bible" by Matthew Henry.