Albert Barnes Commentary Jonah 1:15

"So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging." — Jonah 1:15 (ASV)

They took up Jonah - “He does not say, ‘laid hold on him,’ nor ‘came upon him’ but ‘lifted’ him; so to speak, bearing him with respect and honor, they cast him into the sea, not resisting, but yielding himself to their will.”

The sea ceased (literally “stood”) from its raging - Ordinarily, the waves still swell when the wind has ceased. The sea, when it had received Jonah, was hushed at once, to show that God alone raised and quelled it. It “stood” still, like a servant, when it had accomplished its mission.

God, who at all times says to it (Job 38:11), Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed, now unseen, as afterwards in the flesh (Matthew 8:26), rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.

“If we consider the errors of the world before the Passion of Christ, and the conflicting blasts of diverse doctrines, and the vessel, and the whole race of man, that is, the creature of the Lord, imperiled, and, after His Passion, the tranquility of faith and the peace of the world and the security of all things and the conversion to God, we will see how, after Jonah was cast in, the sea stood from its raging.”

“Jonah, in the sea, a fugitive, shipwrecked, dead, says the tempest-tossed vessel; he says the pagan, formerly tossed to and fro by the error of the world into various opinions.”

And Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, Joel, who prophesied at the same time, could not amend the people in Judea; from which it appeared that the breakers could not be calmed, except by the death of (Him typified by) the fugitive.”