Jonah 2
January 1
Reading: Jonah 2
1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying,
"I called out to the LORD, out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
3 For you cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows passed over me.
4 Then I said, 'I am driven away from your sight;
yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.'
5 The waters closed in over me to take my life;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
6 at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.
7 When my life was fainting away,
I remembered the LORD,
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.
8 Those who pay regard to vain idols
forsake their hope of steadfast love.
9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation belongs to the LORD!"
10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.
Finally, in the belly of the great fish, the disobedient prophet prays. His prayer is like a psalm. So, in the context of Old Testament prophesy we have a story and in the middle of the story we have a psalm. You might say that all three major literary genres in the Old Testament are present all at once in Jonah 2. The psalm has three parts.
The first part is verse 2. Jonah prays with a parallelism that emphasizes something about God. What is Jonah appreciating about his God? God hears us when we pray, when we are distressed, when we are in the belly of death. When we are at our lowest, He hears our prayers.
The second part is verses 3-6. Again, Jonah employs a parallelism in order to emphasize his point. The first half is in verses 3-4, the second is in verses 5-6. Both halves, though long, follow the same pattern.
"You cast me into the deep… but I looked up toward Your holy mountain."
"I was sinking down… but You brought up my life, O Lord God."
Do you hear what he's saying? Jonah was under the heavy hand of the wrath of God. He was dying and he deserved it, a prophet who disobeyed God. But he looked to God and found compassion and mercy.
The third part of the psalm is in verses 7-9. Jonah completes his prayer with a proclamation of God's faithfulness to His covenant promises. His prayers find God. God hears, unlike the idols, even though he does not deserve to be heard. Then he finishes his prayer with overflowing thankfulness. Jonah is enjoying the salvation of the Lord. This is who God is and Jonah knows it. God is saving Jonah when he did not deserve to be saved and he loves it.
Then, in verse 10, God does what Jonah was sure He would do. God’s goodness and mercy are great. Jonah knows this and experiences it.