Albert Barnes Commentary Jonah 2

Then Jonah prayed, that is, when the three days and nights were passed, he uttered this devotion. The word “prayed” includes thanksgiving, not petition only. It is said of Hannah that she “prayed” (1 Samuel 2:1); but her canticle is all one thanksgiving without a single petition. In this thanksgiving Jonah says how his prayers had been heard, but prays no more. God had delivered him from the sea, and he thanks God, in the fish’s belly, as undisturbed as in a Church or an oratory, secure that God, who had done so much, would fulfill the rest.

He called God, “his” God, who had in so many ways shown Himself to be His, by His revelations, by His inspirations, by His chastisements, and now by His mercy. “From these words, Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly, we perceive that, after he felt himself safe in the fish’s belly, he did not despair of God’s mercy.”

I cried by reason of my affliction—or, “out of affliction” which came “to me.” So the Psalmist thanked God in the same words, though in a different order: “To the Lord in trouble to me I called, and He heard me.” He “called,” and God heard and answered. “He does not say, I ‘call,’ but I ‘called’; he does not pray for the future, but gives thanks for the past.” Strange cause of thankfulness this would seem to most faith, to be alive in such a grave; to abide there hour after hour, and day after day, in one unchanging darkness, carried to and fro helplessly, with no known escape from his fetid prison, except to death!

Yet spiritual light shone on that depth of darkness. The voracious creature, which never opened his mouth except to destroy life, had swallowed him, to save it. “What looked like death, became safe-keeping,” and so the prophet who had fled to avoid doing the will of God and to do his own, now willed to be carried about, he did not know where, at the will, as it seemed, of the huge animal in which he lay, but in truth, where God directed it, and he gave thanks. God had heard him. The first token of God’s mercy was the earnest of the whole. God was dealing with him, was looking on him. It was enough.

Out of the belly of hell cried I—The deep waters were as a grave, and he was counted “among the dead” (Psalms 88:4). Death seemed so certain that it was as if he were in the womb of hell, not to be reborn to life until the Last Day. So David said (Psalms 18:5), “The bands of death compassed me round about;” and (Psalms 30:3), “You have drawn my life out of hell.” The waters choked his speech; but he cried with a loud cry to God Who knew the heart. “I cried; You heard.” The words vary only by a kindred letter. The real heart’s cry to God according to the mind of God and His hearing are one, whether, for man’s good, He seem at the time to hear or not.

“Not of the voice but of the heart is God the Hearer, as He is the Seer. Do the ears of God wait for sound? How then could the prayer of Jonah from the inmost belly of the whale, through the bowels of so great a creature, out of the very bottomless depths, through so great a mass of waters, make its way to heaven? “Loud crying to God is not with the voice but with the heart. Many, silent with their lips, have cried aloud with their heart; many, noisy with their lips, could, with heart turned away, obtain nothing. If then you cry, cry within, where God hears. “Jonah cried aloud to God out of the fish’s belly, out of the deep of the sea, out of the depths of disobedience; and his prayer reached to God, Who rescued him from the waves, brought him out of the vast creature, absolved him from the guilt.

Let the sinner too cry aloud, whom, departing from God, the storm of desires overwhelmed, the malignant Enemy devoured, and the waves of this present world sucked under! Let him acknowledge that he is in the depth, so that his prayer may reach to God.”

For You had (or “did”) cast me into the deep - Jonah continues to describe the extremity of peril, from which God had already delivered him.

Sweet is the memory of perils past, for they speak of God’s Fatherly care. It is sweet to the prophet to tell God of His mercies; but this is sweet only to the holy, for God’s mercy convicts the careless of ingratitude.

Jonah then tells God how He had cast him vehemently forth into the “eddying depth,” where, when Pharaoh’s army sank like a stone (Exodus 15:5 and Exodus 15:10), they never rose, and that he was in the heart or center of the seas, from where no strong swimmer could escape to shore. The floods or flood (literally “river”), the sea with its currents, surrounded him, encompassing him on all sides; and, above, tossed its multitudinous waves, passing over him like an army trampling one prostrate underfoot.

Jonah remembered well the temple psalms and, using their words, united himself with those other worshipers who sang them, and taught us how to speak them to God.

The sons of Korah (Psalms 42:7) had poured out to God in these self-same words the sorrows which oppressed them. The rolling billows and the breakers, which, as they burst upon the rocks, shiver the vessel and crush man, are, he says to God, Yours, fulfilling Your will on me.

I am cast out of Your sight – literally, “from before Your eyes.” Jonah had willfully withdrawn from standing in God’s presence. Now God had taken him at his word and, as it seemed, cast him out of it. David had said in his haste, “I am cut off.” Jonah substitutes the stronger word, “I am cast forth,” driven forth, expelled, like the “mire and dirt” (Isaiah 57:20) which the waves drive along, or like the waves themselves in their restless motion (Isaiah 57:20), or the pagan (the word is the same) whom God had driven out before Israel (Exodus 34:11, and the Piel often), or as Adam from Paradise (Genesis 3:24).

Yet (Only) I will look again – He was, as it were, a castaway, cast out of God’s sight, unheeded by Him, his prayers unheard; the storm unabated, until he was cast forth. He could no longer look with the physical eye even toward the land where God showed the marvels of His mercy, and the temple where God was worshiped continually. Yet what he could not do in the body, he would do in his soul. This was his only resource. “If I am cast away, this one thing will I do, I will still look to God.” Magnificent faith! Humanly speaking, all hope was gone, for, when that huge vessel could scarcely live in the sea, how should a man?

When God had given it no rest while it contained Jonah, how should He will that Jonah should escape? No, God had hidden His Face from him; yet he did this one, this only thing, only this: “once more, still I will add to look to God.” In that direction he would look, as long as his mind still remained in him.

If his soul parted from him, it should go forth from him in that gaze. God gave him no hope, except that He preserved him alive. For he seemed to himself forsaken of God. Wonderful pattern of faith which gains strength even from God’s seeming desertion! “I am cast vehemently forth from before Your eyes; yet this one thing will I do; my eyes shall be unto You, O Lord.”

The Israelites, as we see from Solomon’s dedication prayer, “prayed toward the temple,” (1 Kings 8:29–30, 1 Kings 8:35 and following) where God had set His Name and shown His glory, where were the sacrifices which foreshadowed the great atonement. In that direction they looked in prayer, as Christians, of old, prayed toward the East, the seat of our ancient Paradise, where our Lord “shall appear unto them that look for Him, a second time unto salvation” (Hebrews 9:28).

Toward that temple then he would still look with fixed eye for help, where God, Who fills heaven and earth, showed Himself to sinners reconciled.

The waters compassed me about, even to the soul - Words which to others were figures of distress (Psalms 69:2; see the introduction to Jonah), the waters have come even to the soul, were to Jonah realities.

Sunk in the deep seas, the water strove to penetrate at every opening. To draw breath, which sustains life, would have been death to him. There was but a breath between him and death.

The deep encompassed me, encircling him, meeting him wherever he turned, and holding him imprisoned on every side, so that there was no escape. And even if escape had otherwise been possible, he was bound motionless. The weed was wrapped around my head, like a grave-band.

"The weed" was the well-known seaweed. Even near the surface of the sea where a person can struggle, it twines around him, a peril even to the strong swimmer, often entangling him more, the more he struggles to extricate himself from it. But to one below, powerless to struggle, it was like his winding sheet.