1 And Jonah prayed unto Jehovah his God out of the fish's belly;
2 and he said: I cried by reason of my distress unto Jehovah, and he answered me; Out of the belly of Sheol cried I: thou heardest my voice.
3 For thou didst cast me into the depth, into the heart of the seas, And the flood was round about me: All thy breakers and thy billows are gone over me.
4 And I said, I am cast out from before thine eyes, Yet will I look again toward thy holy temple.
5 The waters encompassed me, to the soul: The deep was round about me, The weeds were wrapped about my head.
6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; The bars of the earth [closed] upon me for ever: But thou hast brought up my life from the pit, O Jehovah my God.
7 When my soul fainted within me, I remembered Jehovah; And my prayer came in unto thee, Into thy holy temple.
8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation is of Jehovah.
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,