6 The waters were circling round me, even to the neck; the deep was about me; the sea-grass was twisted round my head.
O Lord, you have made my soul come again from the underworld: you have given me life and kept me from going down among the dead.
See, in place of peace my soul had bitter sorrow. but you have kept back my soul from the underworld; for you have put all my sins out of your memory.
Be quick in answering me, O Lord, for the strength of my spirit is gone: let me see your face, so that I may not be like those who go down into the underworld.
Which God has now put into effect for our children, by sending Jesus; as it says in the second Psalm, You are my Son; this day I have given you being. And about his coming back from the dead, never again to go to destruction, he has said these words, I will give you the holy and certain mercies of David. Because he says in another Psalm, You will not let your Holy One see destruction. Now David, having done God's work for his generation, went to sleep, and was put with his fathers, and his body came to destruction: But he, who was lifted up by God, did not see destruction.
From his high place he sent shaking on the earth; he saw and nations were suddenly moved: and the eternal mountains were broken, the unchanging hills were bent down; his ways are eternal.
In the hollow of whose hand have the waters been measured? and who is able to take the heavens in his stretched-out fingers? who has got together the dust of the earth in a measure? who has taken the weight of the mountains, or put the hills into the scales?
Before the mountains were put in their places, before the hills was my birth: When he had not made the earth or the fields or the dust of the world. When he made ready the heavens I was there: when he put an arch over the face of the deep: When he made strong the skies overhead: when the fountains of the deep were fixed: When he put a limit to the sea, so that the waters might not go against his word: when he put in position the bases of the earth:
For my wrath is a flaming fire, burning to the deep parts of the underworld, burning up the earth with her increase, and firing the deep roots of the mountains.
The mountains came up and the valleys went down into the place which you had made ready for them.
The God by whose strength the mountains are fixed; who is robed with power:
But you, O God, will send them down into the underworld; the cruel and the false will be cut off before half their days are ended; but I will have faith in you.
Where were you when I put the earth on its base? Say, if you have knowledge. By whom were its measures fixed? Say, if you have wisdom; or by whom was the line stretched out over it? On what were its pillars based, or who put down its angle-stone, When the morning stars made songs together, and all the sons of the gods gave cries of joy? Or where were you when the sea came to birth, pushing out from its secret place; When I made the cloud its robe, and put thick clouds as bands round it, Ordering a fixed limit for it, with locks and doors; And said, So far you may come, and no farther; and here the pride of your waves will be stopped?
He kept my soul from the underworld, and my life sees the light in full measure.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jonah 2
Commentary on Jonah 2 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 2
We left Jonah in the belly of the fish, and had reason to think we should hear no more of him, that if he were not destroyed by the waters of the sea he would be consumed in the bowels of that leviathan, "out of whose mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire, and whose breath kindles coals,' Job 41:19, 21. But God brings his people through fire, and through water (Ps. 66:12); and by his power, behold, Jonah the prophet is yet alive, and is heard of again. In this chapter God hears from him, for we find him praying; in the next Nineveh hears from him, for we find him preaching. In his prayer we have,
In the last verse we have Jonah's deliverance out of the belly of the fish, and his coming safe and sound upon dry land again.
Jon 2:1-9
God and his servant Jonah had parted in anger, and the quarrel began on Jonah's side; he fled from his country that he might outrun his work; but we hope to see them both together again, and the reconciliation begins on God's side. In the close of the foregoing chapter we found God returning to Jonah in a way of mercy, delivering him from going down to the pit, having found a ransom; in this chapter we find Jonah returning to God in a way of duty; he was called up in the former chapter to pray to his God, but we are not told that he did so; however, now at length he is brought to it. Now observe here,
Jon 2:10
We have here Jonah's discharge from his imprisonment, and his deliverance from that death which there he was threatened with-his return, though not to life, for he lived in the fish's belly, yet to the land of the living, for from that he seemed to be quite cut off-his resurrection, though not from death, yet from the grave, for surely never man was so buried alive as Jonah was in the fish's belly. His enlargement may be considered,