Jonah 2 · ESV Study Bible

Jonah Is Thrown into the Sea

A Great Fish Swallows Jonah

Jonah’s Prayer

JONAH 2 [†]Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, 2[†]saying,

x “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress,

and he answered me;

y out of the belly of Sheol I cried,

z and you heard my voice.

3[†] a For you cast me into the deep,

into the heart of the seas,

and the flood surrounded me;

b all your waves and your billows

passed over me.

4 c Then I said, ‘I am driven away

from your sight;

d yet I shall again look

upon your holy temple.’

5 e The waters closed in over me f to take my life;

the deep surrounded me;

weeds were wrapped about my head

6[^][†] at the roots of the mountains.

I went down to the land

whose bars closed upon me forever;

yet you brought up my life from the pit,

O LORD my God.

7 When my life was fainting away,

I remembered the LORD,

g and my prayer came to you,

into your holy temple.

8[†] h Those who pay regard to vain idols

i forsake their hope of steadfast love.

9 j But I with the voice of thanksgiving

will sacrifice to you;

what I have vowed I will pay.

k Salvation belongs to the LORD!”

10[†]And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

JONAH—NOTE ON 2:2–9 Jonah’s prayer is not a request to be saved from the fish but is thanksgiving for being saved by the fish. Verse 2 summarizes the prayer: Jonah called for help and God answered. Verses 3–6a expand on Jonah’s call for help; vv. 6b–10 expand on God’s answer.

JONAH—NOTE ON 2:1 Finally, Jonah prayed. He did not pray for God to save the pagan sailors, but he did thank God for saving him.

JONAH—NOTE ON 2:6 I went down (see notes on 1:3; 1:4–5). Jonah’s descent to death is almost complete as he reaches the roots of the mountains at the bottom of the seas, where the gates of Sheol are located. Since the bars refer to the gates of Sheol (see note on 2:2), the land refers to the realm of the dead (see Ps. 63:9; Ezek. 26:20; 32:18, 24), as does pit (see Job 33:22–24; Ps. 49:9; 103:4). you brought. Jonah had done nothing to deserve being rescued; his salvation was by grace alone.

JONAH—NOTE ON 2:3–4 you cast me. Though it was the sailors who had hurled Jonah into the sea (1:15), he knows that God was working sovereignly through them, and so he can say that God cast him into the sea. Look upon, or “look toward,” refers to the ancient practice of praying toward the temple (see 2:7; 1 Kings 8:30, 35, 38, 42; Dan. 6:10).

JONAH—NOTE ON 2:8–9 Those who pay regard to vain idols refers to the pagan sailors, who prayed each to his own god (1:5), but it is also a message to Jonah’s idolatrous fellow Israelites. Ironically, these sailors ended up experiencing God’s steadfast love, while Jonah ended up in the sea. Sacrifice … vowed recalls the actions of the sailors (1:16), whom Jonah is now like. Salvation belongs to the LORD is Jonah’s confession that God is the sovereign source of salvation, though the rest of the story will show that Jonah believes God is free to save any, as long as they are “us” and not “them” (see 4:1–4).

JONAH—NOTE ON 2:2 Sheol refers to the realm of the dead, which one would enter by going through a gate made of “bars” (see v. 6 and Job 17:16; 38:17; Ps. 9:13). Jonah did not literally pray from Sheol but describes his near-death experience (see Ps. 30:2–3).