Jonah Prayed to the Lord His God from the Belly of the Fish

Commentary

Text: Jonah 2:1-10

Context of the book / letter / Gospel: The prophet Jonah is called to preach repentance to the Assyrian city of Nineveh. He disobeys and is chastened, reluctantly repents and obeys, and experiences anger and bitterness because he does not accept God’s will.

Main Idea of The Text: God has prepared a great creature of the sea to swallow Jonah, and from his belly, he prays for mercy and repentance, resulting in him being vomited out onto dry land.

Exegetical Outline of The Text (Wiersbe, 380-82).

I. Repentance (2:1-9). A. He prayed for God’s help (vv. 1-2). B. He accepted God’s discipline (v. 3). C. He trusted God’s promises (vv. 4-7). D. He yielded to God’s will (vv. 8-9).

II. Redemption (2:10; Matt. 12:39; 16:4; Luke 11:29). A. The Miracle. B. The Sign.

Verse by verse commentary:

Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish:

2 I called to the Lord in my distress,

and he answered me.

I cried out for help from deep inside[a] Sheol;

you heard my voice.

Jonah knew he was in trouble. Wiersbe remarks that his prayer was born out of “affliction” rather than “affection” for the Lord (380). Jonah is thanking the Lord for not allowing him to drown. He prayed the prayer, but it was written down after the events. His prayer is an expression of thanksgiving for God sending the fish to rescue from the ocean

waters (Walvoord and Zuck, 1467). Some scholars actually believe that Jonah is not the author of the book because it was written entirely in third person (Walvoord and Zuck, 1461).

Redmond points out that Jonah’s spiritual condition is dire. While he is not unsaved, his relationship with God is not restored properly, and he illustrates Jonah’s condition as an unbeliever who is dead in their sins. God rescues the repentant sinner with salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. The fish becomes a place of “new birth” for Jonah. He is given a second chance to be obedient to the Father. While he is in the belly of the fish, he is given another opportunity to respond in obedience, and with his prayer, while begrudgingly, he obeys (Redmond, 28).

Spurgeon adds the following thoughts:

What a strange place for prayer! Surely this is the only prayer to God that ever went up to God out of a fish’s belly. Jonah found himself alive--that was the surprising thing--and because he was alive, he began to pray. If we live with death so near and in so great peril, and yet do not pray, what is to become of us? This prayer of Jonah is remarkable because it is not a prayer at all in the sense n which we usually apply the word to petition and supplication. It is almost all thanksgiving and the best prayer in all the world is a prayer that is full of thankfulness. We praise the Lord for what He has done for us, and thus we do, in effect, ask him to perfect the work he has begun. He has delivered us, so we bless his holy name, and by implication, we request him to deliver us (Spurgeon Study Bible, 1219).

3 You threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas, and the current overcame me.

All your breakers and your billows swept over me.

Redmond comments as follows:

Jonah continues in his prayer to say, ‘You threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas, and the current overcame me. All Your breakers and your billows swept over me’ (2:3). He grasps that he is not in this situation because the men hurled him over the side of the ship. The men were agents; the Maker of the sea and the dry land cast him into the deep. God’s sovereign hand picked up the rebel and hurled him, effectively saying, ‘OK. you wanted to run to the water. Here it is! Now what are you going to do?

The Lord pursues Jonah with His wrath. The prophet is in distress and in the belly of Sheol because God did this to him. These are the Creator’s waves that are passing over Jonah. God placed His wrath on Jonah and made his situation desperate because Jonah is sinful. Jonah acknowledges he is under the very wrath of God! Often it is difficult for us to visualize our loving, good and kind Lord as one full of this much fury. Yet this rebellious servant experiences the loving discipline of a Father who does not wish for His children to err or stray (Heb. 12:5-11; cf. Prov. 3:11-12; see also 1 Pet. 4:17-18).

Wiersbe adds the following:

The sailors didn’t cast Jonah into the stormy sea; God did. ‘You hurled me into the deep… all your waves and breakers swept over (v. 3, NIV). When Jonah said those words, he was acknowledging that God was disciplining him and that he deserved it (381).

4 But I said, “I have been banished from your sight,

yet I will look once more toward your holy temple.

5 The water engulfed me up to the neck; the watery depths overcame me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.

6 I sank to the foundations of the mountains, the earth’s gates shut behind me forever! Then you raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God!

7 As my life was fading away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, to your holy temple.

Redmond comments as follows:

Jonah understands that God is coming after him. Yet Jonah is able to say, ‘I’ve been banished from Your sight.’ He is desperate but understands that he will be able to look back again on God’s temple. How does Jonah come to think something like this?

Temples cannot contain the sovereign God, as Paul proclaimed to the polytheistic Athenians (Acts 17:24). Unless the Lord condescends Himself to be contained--as he did in the dwelling in the tabernacle and temple, in the Incarnation of Christ, and in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers--the possibility of a temple containing God would be less than the probability of squeezing an elephant into a microsyringe. There is no temple that can contain the One who is infinite…

Jonah fully understands that he is in very serious distress, but he also knows that he has a faithful, covenant-keeping God. If anyone turns back from his sins to God, He will hear him, even if that person is drowning in the sea. Jonah gives great thanks because he understands he is going down and is under God’s wrath and driven from God’s sight. But when Jonah repents, he knows God will hear him in His temple. That’s why Jonah prays this great prayer of thanksgiving.

(vv. 5-6a). The fish does not show up as soon as Jonah hits the water. In cartoon versions of this scene a huge fish opens its mouth and Jonah jumps right in with an Olympic diver’s precision. That is not true to what happens here. Instead, Jonah hits the water and the Lord allows Him to sink awhile so that he might grasp the seriousness of the consequences of his choices.

Jonah is going to a place where the water closes over him to take his life… He is going down as far as he can go.

The ancient concept of Sheol was that when you went down to the grave you couldn’t escape because bars actually closed over you. In fact, there is a play on words here because ‘bar’ in Hebrew has a double meaning just like it does in English. In both Hebrew and English it can refer to bars that close over you, and it can refer to sandbars at the bottom of the sea. Jonah gives thanks because he understands his death is certain and there is no escape from it.

(vv. 6b-7). Here is the temple again, at the center. Before Jonah recounts that he knew he would go the temple, he prays this prayer. As he is at the bottom and near death, The Lord hears his prayer and sends the fish to deliver him.

There is so much of God’s sovereignty and mercy mixed in this prayer. It is clear in Jonah 1:17 that God appoints a fish before Jonah hits the water. God in his sovereignty decrees that some things will be accomplished in concert with prayer. God sends the fish here. God also rules so completely that Jonah prays for what God has already appointed and sent. Jonah is not in charge of his salvation. Instead, the Lord already has acted on his behalf.

It might have been the last breath he took or or something in his mind, yet somehow Jonah prayed, ‘God, I know You can hear me in the temple.’ This really can make us thankful for our salvation.

This passage raises the issue of whether or not we can be so depraved, so rebellious and so far from God that He cannot save us. Is there anyone too sinful for God? How deep does God’s mercy go? God’s mercy will go down to the sandbars in the ocean for a rebellious prophet who deserved to die (28-31).

Wiersbe adds these thoughts:

Jonah was going in one direction only--down. In fact, he had been going in that direction since the hour he rebelled against God’s plan for his life. He went ‘down to Joppa’ and ‘down the sides of the ship (1:3, 5). Now he was going ‘down to the bottoms of the mountains’ (2:6); and at some point, the great fish met him, and he went down into the fish’s belly (1:17). When you turn your back on God, the only direction you can go is down. What saved Jonah? His faith in God’s promise. Which promise? The promise that involves ‘looking toward God’s holy temple’ (2:4, 7) (381).

8 Those who cherish worthless idols abandon their faithful love, 9 but as for me, I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving. I will fulfill what I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the Lord.”

Redmond comments as follows:

Jonah’s thankfulness provokes him to make some commitments before the Lord. Jonah cannot make these commitments until he understands how bad he is. If he had stayed on the boat, he would not have thought about making these vows. But after he sinks down to the bottom and realizes his life is almost taken away, Jonah understands his situation is serious. He responds with some commitments to God.

First, he says that idols do not save. Two important statements serve as bookends.

Those who cherish worthless idols abandon their faithful love,

Salvation belongs to the Lord.”

To whom would Jonah make these statements?

(2:8) Jonah has been on a ship with mariners who pray to false gods, so he might have been speaking to them. But they would not have heard him from the belly of the fish. Instead, Jonah probably makes these statements for those who would later read or hear this proclamation. It seems to be a statement to God’s people, the Israelites.

From the exodus out of Egypt though the eighth century BC, Israel’s most prevalent sin was idolatry. Jonah is in effect saying to Israel, ‘Let me make something very clear to everyone listening. When I was in the seas, there was nothing that wood, stone, gold or silver could have done. All of the things that we carve out of trees or heat up in pots on a

a great fire, and then bow down to worship--all the false gods with whom we commit whoredom--they did not have any significance for me when I neared the end of my life at the bottom of the seas. The only thing that mattered in my ordeal was the Lord, who is known for being merciful.’

In some of the other translations, the term for ‘faithful love’ reads ‘mercy’ or ‘stedfast love.’ The Hebrew word is chesed. This is God’s loyal covenant love and His faithful mercy by which he rescues people. His mercy comes according to the covenant promise He gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And His mercy comes in spite of the actions of His people. Jonah says that if you go after idols when you are in need of mercy, you have forsaken chesed. There is no way to get mercy to the depths of your desperate life if you call on idols. There is no mercy in idols. There is great mercy in God because ‘salvation is from the Lord.’

Jonah commits himself to sacrifice at the temple as an expression of thanksgiving: ‘But as for me, I will sacrifice to You with a voice of thanksgiving. I will fulfill what I have vowed.’ He would have to get the perfect animal--good and without blemish--from a flock, and he would have to sacrifice it to God so as to lose something that is of great value to him. He expresses his thanksgiving to God for saving his life by giving from his bounty.

(2:9a) We do not offer animal sacrifices because there is no temple to which we run; Christ has fulfilled the law of sacrifice (Matt. 5:17; Rom. 10:4; Heb. 10:14, 19). We are living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1-2). In response to our salvation we produce good works that often cause us to make sacrifices of our time, energy, money, potential promotions, and worldly approval. When we understand how desperate we were before the Lord rescued us from perishing, making a sacrifice to express thanksgiving is not a major deal (I’m simply glad to be able to move. I could have been at the depths of the grave with the bars of eternal death closed over me!)

(2:9b) Growing out of the thankfulness within his heart, Jonah makes a final exclamation: ‘Salvation is from the Lord!’ With that one statement Jonah proclaims the gospel, the very thing that he did not want to do when God called him to go to Nineveh (1:1). Yet there is salvation in no one else.

When you have opportunity to proclaim salvation, you understand how hopeless was your plight and that weeds were pulling you down to a second death; that the bars were going to close over you and destroy you; that you were rightly under God’s wrath; and that only he rescued you apart from your merit. With this understanding, when there is an

opportunity to talk about what saves, unashamedly you’ll say, ‘Salvation is from the Lord!’

Wiersbe adds his thoughts:

Now Jonah admits there were idols in his life that robbed him of the blessing of God. An idol is anything that takes away from God the affection and obedience that rightfully belongs to Him. One such idol was Jonah’s intense patriotism. He was so concerned for the safety and prosperity of his own nation that he refused to be God’s messenger to their enemies the Assyrians. We shall learn from chapter 4 that Jonah was also protecting his own reputation (4:2), for if God spared Nineveh, then Jonah would be branded a false prophet whose words of warning weren’t fulfilled. For somebody. who was famous for his prophecies (2 Kings 14:25), this would be devastating.

Jonah closes his prayer by uttering some solemn vows to the Lord, vows that he really intended to keep. Like the psalmist, he said: ‘I will go into Your house with burnt offerings; I will pay You my vows, which my lips have uttered and my mouth has spoken when I was in trouble (Ps. 66:13-14 NKJV). Jonah promised to worship God in the temple with sacrifices and songs of thanksgiving. He doesn’t tell us what other promises He made to the Lord, but one of them surely was, ‘I will go to Nineveh and declare your message if you give me another chance.’

Jonah couldn’t save himself, and nobody on earth could save him, but the Lord could do it, because ‘salvation is of the Lord!’ (Jonah 2:9b, NKJV). This is a quotation from Psalms 3:8 and 37:39 and it is the central declaration in the book. It is also the central theme of the Bible. How wise of Jonah to memorize the Word of God; because being able to quote the Scriptures, especially the Book of Psalms, gave him light in the darkness and hope in his seemingly hopeless situation (381-2).

Spurgeon adds a note on vv. 8-9:

Jonah learned this sentence of good theology in a strange college. He learned it in the whale’s belly, at the bottom of the mountains, with the weeds wrapped about his head. Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble. They must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction; otherwise we will not truly receive them. No man is competent to judge in matters of the kingdom of God until he first has been tried--since there are many things to be learned in the depths that we can never know in the heights. We discover many secrets in the caverns of the ocean, which though we had soared to heaven, we could have never known. He will best meet the needs of God’s people as a preacher who had these needs met himself. He will best comfort God’s Israel who has needed comfort. And he will best preach salvation who has felt his own need of it. When Jonah was delivered from his great danger, he was then capable of judging. And

this was the result of his experience under his trouble: ‘Salvation belongs to the Lord’ (Spurgeon Study Bible, 1219-1220).

10 Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Redmond comments as follows:

Only after Jonah’s proclamation of salvation does it say, ‘Then the Lord commanded the fish.’ (v. 10). God speaks to the fish and the fish obeys; the fish does not rebel like Jonah. This is part of the story’s irony. God speaks to the fish and the fish does what the Lord says, vomiting Jonah onto dry land. People have problems with rebellion. Yet the fish obeys immediately and completely. The Lord says, ‘Go scoop Jonah up,’ and the fish gets Jonah. He says, ‘Spit Jonah out,’ and the fish spits out the prophet. It’s that simple (34).

Wiersbe adds his thoughts:

What an ignominious way for the distinguished prophet to arrive on shore! In chapter 1, the sailors treated Jonah like dangerous cargo to be thrown overboard, and now he’s treated like a foreign substance to be disgorged from the fish’s body. But when Jonah ceased to be an obedient prophet, he cheapened himself, so he’s the one to blame. We can be sure that he was duly humbled as he once again stood on dry land.

The miracle. Few miracles in Scripture have been attacked as much as this one, and Christian scholars have gathered various kinds of evidence to prove that it could happen. Since the Bible doesn’t tell us what kind of fish swallowed Jonah, we don’t have to measure sharks and whales or comb history for similar incidents. It was a ‘prepared’ fish (1:17), designed by God for the occasion, and therefore it was adequate for the task. Jesus didn’t question the historicity of the miracle, so why should we?

The sign (Matt. 12:39; 16:4; Luke 11:29). The ‘sign of Jonah’ is seen in his experience of ‘death’, burial and resurrection on the third day and it was the only sign Jesus gave to the nation of Israel. At Pentecost, Peter preached the Resurrection (Acts 2:22-26) and so did Paul when he preached to the Jews in other nations (13:26-37). In fact, the emphasis

in the book of Acts is on the resurrection of Jesus Christ; for the apostles were witnesses of the Resurrection (2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39).

Some students are troubled by the phrase ‘three days and three nights,’ especially since both Scripture and tradition indicate that Jesus was crucified on Friday. In order to protect the integrity of Scripture, some have suggested that the Crucifixion be moved back to Thursday or even Wednesday. But to the Jews, a part of a day was treated as a whole day, and we need not interpret ‘three days and three nights’ to mean seventy-two hours to the very second. For that matter, we can’t prove that Jonah was in the fish exactly seventy-two hours. The important thing is that centuries after the event, Jonah became a ‘sign’ to the Jewish people and pointed them to Jesus Christ.

Jonah was now free to obey the Lord and take God’s message to Nineveh, but he still had lessons to learn (382).

Theological Application:

Teaching Aim and Objectives

In Jonah 2, learners discover the prayer of Jonah from the belly of the great fish. This prayer expresses Jonah’s thankfulness to God for preserving his life, and reveals God as the God of second chances. As believers today, we can apply this text to our lives as we consider the following objectives:

1. Jonah acknowledged his sin before the Lord and confessed it. 2. Jonah expressed thankfulness to God for preserving his life. 3. Jonah recognized God as the provider of his salvation and recommitted himself to proclaiming the Good News. 4. Jonah’s situation pictured the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the Jewish people.

● Jonah acknowledged his sin before the Lord and confessed it.

Redmond explains as follows:

indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers--the possibility of a temple containing God would be less than the probability of squeezing an elephant into a microsyringe. There is no temple that can contain the One who is infinite…

When you listen to the stories of how saints came to know Christ as Savior, it seems that many people were near rock bottom in their lives when they cried out to the Lord. Someone once asked me why this is so. It is before we hit rock bottom, we think we can handle being thrown into the sea. Once we actually hit the rough waters and start drowning--once all of the things that masked how life is are gone--then we are at a place where we must cry out to God or perish! God does this to us so that we will stop lying to ourselves about what is going on in our lives! (29-30).

Think About It: Redmond asks us: What are some ways in which people can mask totally depraved lives and fool themselves about their own ability to handle life apart from God’s help? What are some dreadful things the Lord uses to awaken people to the truth about the desperation of their situations and their need for Him? (36).

● Jonah expressed thankfulness to God for preserving his life.

Redmond comments as follows:

Jonah is going to a place where the water closes over him to take his life… He is going down as far as he can go.

Think About It: Redmond asks us to look closely at chapter 2:

`Consider again the structure of Jonah’s two prayers within Jonah 2. What is the relationship between the prayer in the depths and the prayer within the fish? How does each contribute to the other?

“Often it is difficult for us to visualize our loving, good and kind Lord as one full of this much fury! Yet this rebellious servant experiences the loving discipline of a Father who does not wish for his children to err or stray.’ How does this statement compare with your view of your heavenly Father? Share a time when you have looked at a difficulty in life as a sovereign act of loving, Fatherly discipline.

● Jonah recognized God as the provider of his salvation and recommitted himself to proclaiming the Good News.

Wiersbe adds his thoughts:

Think About It: Redmond gives us a series of questions to consider here:

Why can Jonah expect to see the Lord in His temple after such great disobedience? How does this reveal the majesty of God and the glory of Christ? How has your own thanksgiving for your salvation led to greater proclamation of the gospel to unbelievers? What might this say about the

value you place on being rescued from sin? What might this also reveal about your understanding of your true situation prior to your salvation?

There are many people in the world worshipping false gods, even erecting physical objects as idols of worship. What might Jonah be saying about we should proclaim the gospel to such people. What is the message we must commend, and what are messages we must tell them to reject?

Do you think it is right for the gospel message to be so exclusive? In light of the work of Christ, what makes exclusitivity--”Salvation is from the Lord” -- just and holy? How does Romans explain the justice of God in the salvation of people (Rom. 3:21-26) (36)?

● Jonah’s situation pictured the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the Jewish people.

Wiersbe gives us these thoughts on the “sign of Jonah”:

The ‘sign of Jonah’ is seen in his experience of ‘death’, burial and resurrection on the third day and it was the only sign Jesus gave to the nation of Israel. At Pentecost, Peter preached the Resurrection (Acts 2:22-26) and so did Paul when he preached to the Jews in other nations (13:26-37). In fact, the emphasis in the book of Acts is on the resurrection of Jesus Christ; for the apostles were witnesses of the Resurrection (2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39).

Think About It: Redmond gives us a question on this point:

How does Jonah compare to Christ in this chapter? What might the comparison reveal how we should read the storyline of Scripture? (36).

Read Matt. 12:39; 16:4; Luke 11:29.

What is the “sign of Jonah?” How did the Jews respond to it? How does it help us as believers better understand the truth of the resurrection and the details surrounding it?

Resources / Articles / Sources:

Begg, Alistair., ed. The Charles Spurgeon Study Bible. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2018.1

Redmond, Eric C., et. al. Christ-Centered Exposition: Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk., ed. David Platt, Daniel L. Akin and Tony Merida. Nashville: Holman Reference, 2016.

Walvoord, John and Roy B. Zuck. The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, a Division of Scripture Press Publishers, 1985.

Wiersbe, Warren W. The Old Testament Bible Exposition Commentary: Isaiah through Malachi. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook Publishing Company, 2008.

1 Dr. Begg’s work is referenced as (Spurgeon Study Bible, xx) throughout the commentary as Charles Spurgeon’s words are what is quoted in the material.