Jona 2:10 Kommentar

INTRODUCTION TO JONAH 2 This chapter contains the prayer of Jonah, when in the fish's belly; the time when he prayed, the person he prayed unto, and the place where, are suggested in Jon 2:1; and the latter described as a place of great straitness and distress, and even as hell itself, Jon 2:2; The condition he was in, when cast into the sea, and when in the belly of the fish, which is observed, the more to heighten the greatness of the deliverance, Jon 2:3. The different frame of mind he was in, sometimes almost in despair, and ready to faint; and presently exercising faith and hope, remembering the goodness of the Lord, and resolving to look again to him, Jon 2:4. The gracious regards of God to him, in receiving, hearing, and answering his prayer, and bringing up his life from corruption, Jon 2:2. His resolution, let others do what they would, to praise the Lord, and give him the glory of his salvation, Jon 2:8; and the chapter is concluded with the order for his deliverance, and the manner of it, Jon 2:10.

If, however, any one imagines it is impossible that people should survive for such a length of time, and that Elijah was not caught up in the flesh but that flesh was consumed in the fiery chariot, let them consider that Jonah, when he had been cast into the deep and swallowed down into the whale’s belly, was by the command of God again thrown out safe upon the land.

Jonah was swallowed by the monster of the deep, in whose belly whole ships were devoured, and after three days he was vomited out again safe and sound. Enoch and Elijah, who even now, without experiencing a resurrection (because they have not even encountered death), are learning to the full what it is for the flesh to be exempted from all humiliation, and all loss, and all injury and all disgrace. They have been translated from this world and from this very cause are already candidates for everlasting life. To what faith do these notable events bear witness, if not to that which ought to inspire in us the belief that they are proofs and documents of our own future and our completed resurrection? To borrow the apostle’s phrase, these were “figures of ourselves.” They are written that we may believe that the Lord is more powerful than all natural laws about the body.

Hence he is tempesttossed, and falls asleep, and is wrecked, and aroused from sleep, and taken by lot, and confesses his flight, and is cast into the sea, and swallowed but not destroyed by the whale. In Defense of His Flight to Pontus, Oration

Hence he is tempest-tossed, and falls asleep, and is wrecked, and aroused from sleep, and taken by lot, and confesses his flight, and is cast into the sea, and swallowed but not destroyed by the whale.

Jonah did not escape the sea by the power of his birth, but by the hidden divine command he was thrown overboard, and a whale received him, vomited him out after three days as a sign of future mystery, and reserved him by the merit of prophetic grace.

"And the LORD spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." LXX: 'and he ordered the whale to vomit Jonah out onto the dry land'. That which we read above as being about Jonah, the Lord prayed for in the stomach of the whale about which Job speaks in an unclear way: "let he who curses this day curse him, he who will capture the great whale" [Job. 3:8 LXX]. The great whale, the deep and hell are then ordered to give back the Lord to the dry earth; thus he who had died to free those detained by the chains of death, can lead with him many others towards life. With regard to the expression 'vomited' we must take this to be said in a very emphatic way, to mean that triumphant life has emerged from the deepest and most impenetrable parts of death.

The prophet is animated with good hope, and now secure about his liberation, he promises that he will sacrifice thanksgiving and that he will fulfill all vows.

This chapter (except the first verse and the last, which make a part of the narrative) contains a beautiful prayer or hymn, formed of those devout thoughts which Jonah had in the belly of the great fish, with a thanksgiving for his miraculous deliverance.

And the Lord spake unto the fish - That is, by his influence the fish swam to shore, and cast Jonah on the dry land. So the whole was a miracle from the beginning to the end; and we need not perplex ourselves to find out literal interpretations; such as, "When Jonah was thrown overboard he swam for his life, earnestly praying God to preserve him from drowning; and by his providence he was thrown into a place of fish - a fishing cove, where he was for a time entangled among the weeds, and hardly escaped with his life; and when safe, he composed this poetic prayer, in metaphorical language, which some have wrongly interpreted, by supposing that he was swallowed by a fish; when דג dag should have been understood, as a place of fish, or fishing creek," etc. Now I say the original has no such meaning in the Bible: and this gloss is plainly contrary to the letter of the text; to all sober and rational modes of interpretation; and to the express purpose for which God appears to have wrought this miracle, and to which Jesus Christ himself applies it. For as Jonah was intended for a sign to the Jews of the resurrection of Christ, they were to have the proof of this semiosis, in his lying as long in the heart of the earth as the prophet was in the belly of the fish, and all interpretations of this kind go to deny both the sign and the thing signified. Some men, because they cannot work a miracle themselves, can hardly be persuaded that God can do it. The text, and the use made of it by Christ, most plainly teach us that the prophet was literally swallowed by a fish, by the order of God; and that by the Divine power he was preserved alive, for what is called three days and three nights, in the stomach of the fish; and at the conclusion of the above time that same fish was led by the unseen power of God to the shore, and there compelled to eject the prey that he could neither kill nor digest. And how easy is all this to the almighty power of the Author and Sustainer of life, who has a sovereign, omnipresent, and energetic sway in the heavens and in the earth. But foolish man will affect to be wise; though, in such cases, he appears as the recently born, stupid offspring of the wild ass. It is bad to follow fancy, where there is so much at stake. Both ancients and moderns have grievously trifled with this prophet's narrative; merely because they could not rationally account for the thing, and were unwilling (and why?) to allow any miraculous interference.

JONAH'S PRAYER OF FAITH AND DELIVERANCE. () his God--"his" still, though Jonah had fled from Him. Faith enables Jonah now to feel this; just as the returning prodigal says of the Father, from whom he had wandered, "I will arise and go to my Father" (). out of the fish's belly--Every place may serve as an oratory. No place is amiss for prayer. Others translate, "when (delivered) out of the fish's belly." English Version is better.

upon the dry land--probably on the coast of Palestine. Next: Jonah Chapter 3

"Jonah prayed to Jehovah his God out of the fish's belly." The prayer which follows (Jon 2:2-9) is not a petition for deliverance, but thanksgiving and praise for deliverance already received. It by no means follows from this, however, that Jonah did not utter this prayer till after he had been vomited upon the land, and that v. 10 ought to be inserted before v. 2; but, as the earlier commentators have shown, the fact is rather this, that when Jonah had been swallowed by the fish, and found that he was preserved alive in the fish's belly, he regarded this as a pledge of his deliverance, for which he praised the Lord. Luther also observes, that "he did not actually utter these very words with his mouth, and arrange them in this orderly manner, in the belly of the fish; but that he here shows what the state of his mind was, and what thoughts he had when he was engaged in this conflict with death." The expression "his God" (אלהיו) must not be overlooked. He prayed not only to Jehovah, as the heathen sailors also did (Jon 1:14), but to Jehovah as his God, from whom he had tried to escape, and whom he now addresses again as his God when in peril of death. "He shows his faith by adoring Him as his God" (Burk). The prayer consists for the most part of reminiscences of passages in the Psalms, which were so exactly suited to Jonah's circumstances, that he could not have expressed his thoughts and feelings any better in words of his own. It is by no means so "atomically compounded from passages in the Psalms" that there is any ground for pronouncing it "a later production which has been attributed to Jonah," as Knobel and De Wette do; but it is the simple and natural utterance of a man versed in the Holy Scripture and living in the word of God, and is in perfect accordance with the prophet's circumstances and the state of his mind. Commencing with the confession, that the Lord has heard his crying to Him in distress (Jon 2:2), Jonah depicts in two strophes (Jon 2:3 and Jon 2:4, Jon 2:5-7) the distress into which he had been brought, and the deliverance out of that destruction which appeared inevitable, and closes in Jon 2:8, Jon 2:9 with a vow of thanksgiving for the deliverance which he had received.

"Then Jehovah spake to the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry land." The nature of God's speaking, or commanding, may be inferred from the words ויּקא וגו. Cyril explains the thought correctly thus: The whale is again impelled by a certain divine and secret power of God, being moved to that which seems good to Him." The land upon which Jonah was vomited was, of course, the coast of Palestine, probably the country near Joppa. According to Jon 2:1, this took place on the third day after he had been swallowed by the fish.