Charles Spurgeon Commentary Jonah 2

What a strange place for prayer! Surely that is the only prayer that ever went up to God out of a fish's belly. Jonah found himself alive; that was the surprising thing, that he was alive in the belly of a fish; and because he was alive, he began to pray. It is such a wonder that some people here continue to live that they ought to begin to pray. If you live with death so near, and in such great peril, and yet you do not pray, what is to become of you? This prayer of Jonah is very remarkable because it is not a prayer at all in the sense in which we usually apply the word to petition and supplication.

If you read the prayer through, you will see that it is almost all thanksgiving; and the best prayer in all the world is a prayer that is full of thankfulness. We praise the Lord for what he has done for us, and thus we do, in effect, ask him to perfect the work that he has begun. He has delivered us, so we bless his holy name, and by implication we beseech him still to deliver us.

Notice that it says here, Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God. He was a runaway; he had tried to escape from the presence of God; yet the Lord was still his God. God will not lose any of his people; even if, like Jonah, they are in the belly of a fish, Jehovah is still their God: Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly,—

And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me—

You see that this is not praying; it is telling the Lord what he had done for his disobedient servant. Jonah had prayed, and the Lord had heard him, yet he was still in the fish's belly. Unbelief would have said, "You have lived so long, Jonah, but you cannot expect to live to get out of this dreary, damp, fetid prison."

Ah, but faith is out of prison even while she is in it. Faith begins to tell what God has done before the great work is actually accomplished; so Jonah said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me;—

Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

He was like a man in the unseen world among the dead. He felt that he was condemned and cast away; yet God had heard him, and now he sings about it in the belly of the fish. No other fish that ever lived had a live man inside him singing praises unto God.

For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas;

The word Jonah used implies that God had violently cast him away into the deep. Cast me not off, prayed David, but here is a man who says that God did cast him out like a thing flung overboard into the vast deep: Thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas;.

And the floods compassed me about:

"They rolled all over me, beneath me, above me, around me; 'The floods compassed me about:'" –

All thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

Jonah had evidently read his Bible; at least, he had read Psalm 42, for he quotes it here. It is a blessed thing to have the Bible in your mind and heart so that, wherever you may be, you do not need to turn to the Book because you have the Book inside you. Here is a man inside a fish with a Book inside of him; and it was the Book inside of him that brought him out from the fish again.

What grand faith Job displayed when he said, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;" and here is another splendid manifestation of faith, " 'I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.' " If God does not look at me, I will still look towards the place where he dwells. As I am being flung away from him, I will give one more look towards his holy temple.

The waters compassed me about, even to the soul:—

They seemed to get right into his spirit; his heart became waterlogged: The waters compassed me about, even to the soul:—

The depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.

Like his winding-sheet—as if grave clothes were wrapped around his mouth, ears, and eyes, and he was consigned to a living tomb. This narrative is a graphic description of the natural motion of the great fish which had swallowed Jonah.

When the fish found this strange being inside him, the first thing that he did was to plunge as deep as he could into the waters. You will see that Jonah did go down very deep indeed. The next thing was for the fish to head for the weeds; as certain creatures eat weeds to cure them when they feel very ill, this fish went to the weedy places to see if he could get a cure for this new problem of a man inside him.