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.
{A Song of degrees.} In my trouble I called unto Jehovah, and he answered me.
The bands of death encompassed me, and torrents of Belial made me afraid. The bands of Sheol surrounded me, the cords of death encountered me. In my distress I called upon Jehovah, and I cried out to my God; he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, into his ears.
O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.
For even as Jonas was in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights, thus shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.
{A Song, a Psalm for the sons of Korah. To the chief Musician. Upon Mahalath Leannoth. An instruction. Of Heman the Ezrahite.} Jehovah, God of my salvation, I have cried by day [and] in the night before thee. Let my prayer come before thee; incline thine ear unto my cry. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh to Sheol. I am reckoned with them that go down into the pit; I am as a man that hath no strength: Prostrate among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave; whom thou rememberest no more, and who are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the deeps. Thy fury lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted [me] with all thy waves. Selah.
For great is thy loving-kindness toward me, and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol.
For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him: but when he cried unto him, he heard.
Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up both supplications and entreaties to him who was able to save him out of death, with strong crying and tears; (and having been heard because of his piety;)
for thou wilt not leave my soul in hades, nor wilt thou give thy gracious one to see corruption.
Then Jacob was greatly afraid, and was distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and the sheep and the cattle and the camels, into two troops. And he said, If Esau come to the one troop and smite it, then the other troop which is left shall escape. And Jacob said, God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, Jehovah, who saidst unto me: Return into thy country and to thy kindred, and I will do thee good, -- I am too small for all the loving-kindness and all the faithfulness that thou hast shewn unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two troops. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and smite me, [and] the mother with the children. And thou saidst, I will certainly deal well with thee, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.
Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet [thee] at thy coming, stirring up the dead for thee, all the he-goats of the earth; making to rise from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
{An instruction of David; when he was in the cave: a prayer.} I cry unto Jehovah with my voice: with my voice unto Jehovah do I make supplication. I pour out my plaint before him; I shew before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then *thou* knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they hidden a snare for me.
From the end of the earth will I call unto thee, when my eart is overwhelmed: thou wilt lead me on to a rock which is too high for me.
For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol, neither wilt thou allow thy Holy One to see corruption.
And David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him; for the soul of all the people was embittered, every man because of his sons and because of his daughters; but David strengthened himself in Jehovah his God.
Take not thy handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my grief and provocation have I spoken hitherto.
And Jacob remained alone; and a man wrestled with him until the rising of the dawn. And when he saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the joint of his thigh; and the joint of Jacob's thigh was dislocated as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the dawn ariseth. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And he said to him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall not henceforth be called Jacob, but Israel; for thou hast wrestled with God, and with men, and hast prevailed.
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,