Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

1:17 appointed. This is the first of four uses of "appoint" that underscore God's sovereign control over creation (cf. 4:6-8). Fish (Hb. dag) is not limited to what is called "fish" today (generally cold-blooded vertebrate sea creatures with fins and gills) but is a general word for an aquatic beast, which cannot be identified further. However, a large whale such as a sperm whale could easily swallow a man whole. three days and three nights. Though this may be a symbolic expression for a time of dying and rising (cf. Hos. 6:2), it more likely describes the actual number of days, or parts of three days, according to accepted reckoning of days at that time (cf. 1 Sam. 30:12; 2 Kings 20:5, 8). In either case it has associations with return from death or near-death--which perhaps is why Jesus likened the time between his own death and resurrection to Jonah's time in the fish (Matt. 12:40).

2:1 Finally, Jonah prayed. He did not pray for God to save the pagan sailors, but he did thank God for saving him.

2:2-9 Jonah's prayer is not a request to be saved from the fish but is thanksgiving for being saved by the fish. Verse 2 summarizes the prayer: Jonah called for help and God answered. Verses 3-6a expand on Jonah's call for help; vv. 6b-10 expand on God's answer.

2:2 Sheol refers to the realm of the dead, which one would enter by going through a gate made of "bars" (see v. 6 and Job 17:16; 38:17; Ps. 9:13). Jonah did not literally pray from Sheol but describes his near-death experience (see Ps. 30:2-3).

2:3-4 you cast me. Though it was the sailors who had hurled Jonah into the sea (1:15), he knows that God was working sovereignly through them, and so he can say that God cast him into the sea. Look upon, or "look toward," refers to the ancient practice of praying toward the temple (see 2:7; 1 Kings 8:30, 35, 38, 42; Dan. 6:10).

2:6 I went down (see notes on 1:3; 1:4-5). Jonah's descent to death is almost complete as he reaches the roots of the mountains at the bottom of the seas, where the gates of Sheol are located. Since the bars refer to the gates of Sheol (see note on 2:2), the land refers to the realm of the dead (see Ps. 63:9; Ezek. 26:20; 32:18, 24), as does pit (see Job 33:22-24; Ps. 49:9; 103:4). you brought. Jonah had done nothing to deserve being rescued; his salvation was by grace alone.

2:8-9 Those who pay regard to vain idols refers to the pagan sailors, who prayed each to his own god (1:5), but it is also a message to Jonah's idolatrous fellow Israelites. Ironically, these sailors ended up experiencing God's steadfast love, while Jonah ended up in the sea. Sacrifice . . . vowed recalls the actions of the sailors (1:16), whom Jonah is now like. Salvation belongs to the Lord is Jonah's confession that God is the sovereign source of salvation, though the rest of the story will show that Jonah believes God is free to save any, as long as they are "us" and not "them" (see 4:1-4).

2:10 Vomited can express disgust (Job 20:15; Prov. 23:8; 25:16), and some interpreters see here an indication that God was still displeased with the hostility toward the Ninevites that was still in Jonah's heart (as revealed in Jonah 4), in spite of the obvious gratitude of his prayer. Nevertheless, the fish's action brought deliverance to Jonah, an indication of God's favor.