Jonás 2:2 Comentario

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.

For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas,.... Though the mariners did this, yet Jonah ascribes it to the Lord; he knew it was he, whom he had sinned against and offended; that he was he that sent the storm after him into the sea; that determined the lot to fall upon him; that it was not only by his permission, but according to his will, that he should be east into it, and overcame the reluctance of the men to it, and so worked upon them that they did it; and therefore Jonah imputes it to him, and not to them; nor does he complain of it, or murmur at it; or censure it as an unrighteous action, or as hard, cruel, and severe; but rather mentions it to set off the greatness of his deliverance: and by this it appears, that it was far from shore when Jonah was cast into the sea, it was the great deep; and which also is confirmed by the large fish which swallowed him, which could, not swim but in deep waters; and because of the multitude of the waters, called "seas", and "in the heart" (c) of them, as it may be rendered; and agreeably Christ the antitype of Jonah lay in the heart of the earth, Mat 12:40; and the floods compassed me about; all thy billows and thy waves passed over me; which was his case as soon as cast into the sea, before the fish had swallowed him, as well as after: this was literally true of Jonah, what David says figuratively concerning his afflictions, and from whom the prophet seems to borrow the expressions, Psa 42:7; and indeed he might use them also in a metaphorical sense, with a view to the afflictions of body, and sorrows of death, that compassed him; and to the billows and waves of divine wrath, which in his apprehension lay upon him, and rolled over him. (c) "in corde", V. L. Cocceius; "in cor", Montanus, Drusius.

God is not one who heeds the voice; rather, it is the heart which He hears and beholds. Even the speechless He hears, and the silent petition He will answer. Do the ears of God await a sound? If they did, how could Jonah’s prayer from the depths of the whale’s belly have made its way to Heaven, up through the organs of such a great beast from the very bottom of the sea, up through such a vast amount of water? As for those who pray in such a loud voice, what else will they attain but the annoyance of their neighbors? (Prayer Chapter 17)

Do you praise the fearlessness of Elijah in speaking to tyrants and his translation in fire and the noble heritage of Elisha, the sheepskin mantle, accompanied by the spirit of Elijah? Then praise also the life of Basil passed in the midst of the fire, I mean in the multitude of temptations, and his preservation through fire which burned but did not consume, the miracle of the bush. Praise also the fair garment of skin, which came to him from on high, his fleshlessness. I shall omit other parallels, as the young men bedewed in the flames and the fugitive prophet praying in the belly of the fish and coming forth from the monster as from a chamber. I shall pass over the just man in the den, restraining the ferocity of lions, and the struggle of the seven Maccabees, who with a priest and their mother was perfected by blood and all kinds of tortures. Basil emulated their endurance and achieved their glory.

Since the holy God has promised those who hope in him a means of escape from every affliction, we, even if we have been cut off in the midst of the seas of evils and are racked by the mighty waves stirred up against us by the spirits of wickedness, nevertheless endure in Christ who strengthens us. We have not slackened the intensity of our zeal for the churches, nor do we, as in a storm when the waves rise high, expect destruction. We still hold fast to our earnest endeavors as much as is possible, sensible of the fact that he who was swallowed by the whale was considered deserving of safety because he did not despair of his life but cried out to the Lord. So then, we ourselves, having reached the uttermost limit of evils, do not give up our hope in the Lord but watch and see his help on all sides.

From my mother's womb you are my God; for I have been placed in the womb by you and have never departed from it. Like Jonah, who was placed in the belly of the whale, I was interceding for the people. And he truly was with God in his mother's womb, as it is written: 'Before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste' (Isaiah 7:16).

"And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and you heard my voice." LXX: similar except: 'from the belly of hell I threw out my cries'. He does not say, "I cry", but "I cried". He does not pray for the future, but gives thanks for the past. That shows us that from the moment he is thrown into the sea and sees the whale, that great bulk, that immense mouth which opened wide to swallow him, he remembered God and cried out, either by the waves giving passage for his cry, or by a feeling from the depths of his heart, according to that which the apostle says: "crying in your hearts" [Col. 3:16]: "Abba! Father" [Rom. 8:15]. He cried to him who alone knew the hearts of men and said to Moses, "why do you cry out to me?" [Ex. 14:15], while the Scriptures remember that Moses had never cried out before this speech. This is the text that we read in the first psalm of the steps: "I cried to the Lord in my distress and he replied to me." [Ps. 119:1] By the "belly of hell" we understand the stomach of a whale of such great size that it took the place of hell. But this can better be referred to the person of Christ, who under the name of David, sings in the psalm: "you will not leave my spirit in hell, and you will not allow your saint to see putrefaction" [Ps. 15:10], living in hell free among the dead.

“I cried out,” he says, “to the Lord my God in my affliction, and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell he heard my cry.” “I,” says Jonah, “who previously thought that God appears to prophets only in Jerusalem, found him present even in the whale’s belly. And having prayed to him, I was delivered by his love of humanity.” He calls the whale’s belly “the belly of hell” because the beast is deadly. In fact, Jonah was already presumed dead. He survived only by God’s grace. Moreover, Jonah says that he was in the “belly of hell” because this is also a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” It is especially surprising that the one who really tasted death said that he was three days and three nights in the belly of earth, yet the one who saw just the shadow of death called the whale’s belly “the belly of hell.” This was because the life of Jonah was beyond his control, while in the case of the Lord both his death and his resurrection were voluntary. That is why the Gospel calls the place of hell and death “the heart of earth,” while here the belly of whale is called “the belly of hell.” “He heard my voice,” says Jonah, since otherwise he would not be alive to say this.

Now that I have made mention of the great prophet, who typifies the holy mystery, foreshadowed the death which lasted three days and the salvation it restored, I should like to retrace the footsteps of my poem and briefly hasten back to Jonah. Wondrous are the Lord’s stratagems. Though plunged in the sea, he tossed on the waves unharmed. Though devoured, he lived on, and the beast that swallowed him remained unfed by the living food [of his body]. He was the booty but not the food of the whale whose belly he used as a home. What a worthy prison for God’s holy runaway! He was captured on the very sea by which he had sought to flee.Translated to the deep belly of the massive beast, he was imprisoned in a living jail. Thrown from the ship to destruction, he yet sailed upon the waters, an exile from land, a guest of the brine. He walked in the cavern of the whale’s body, a prisoner both captive and free. He was free upon the waves as he floated in that whale, both within the sea and outside it. And though physically incarcerated, the prophet emerged in spirit to return to God. His body was constrained by the great body [of the whale], but the bonds of earth did not constrain the flight of his mind. Though enclosed in that belly, he broke out of his prison by prayer and reached God’s ears. Free for prayer but detained from flight, he proved himself by his faith. He had attempted to escape God by sea, to hide from God in a ship, but now he believed that the Lord was with him even inside that whale submerged in the sea.

The word for depth (profundum) stands for porro fundum, the far bottom, whose lowest levels are wholly submerged. From here the prophet cried to the Lord so that he could be more easily heard. It was from this depth that Peter poured forth his glorious tears and from here that the tax collector, who had fallen so deeply into sin that he could not even raise his eyes to heaven, beat his blameworthy breast. Finally from these depths Jonah, who was set in the whale’s belly and had entered hell alive, spoke to the Lord with silent vehemence. The whale was a house of prayer for the prophet, a harbor for him when shipwrecked, a home amid the waves, a happy resource at a desperate time. He was not swallowed for sustenance but to gain rest; and by a wondrous and novel precedent the beast’s belly yielded up its food unharmed, rather than consumed by the normally damaging process of digestion. Jonah bears witness to this in his book when he says, “And the Lord commanded a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights,” and the rest. In that same passage he recounted his prayers as well with prophetic truth. What an outstandingly and wholly glorious repentance, a humility that experiences no fall, grief that rejoices people’s hearts, tears that water the soul! Indeed this depth, which conveys us to heaven, has no inkling of hell. So observe the power of holy prayer, believing as it does that it must be heard the more quickly, the deeper the depths from which it cried to the Lord. So finally there follows, “Lord, hear my prayer,” for those who have buried themselves in the bowels of holy humility are all the closer to the Highest. Thus when he prayed from the depths he quickly gained the gifts of the highest Redeemer.

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.

Out of the belly of hell - Among the Hebrews שאול sheol means the grave, any deep pit, the place of separate spirits, etc. Here the prophet represents himself as in the bottom of the sea; for so sheol must be understood in this place.

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.

His prayer is partly descriptive and precatory, partly eucharistical. Jonah incorporates with his own language inspired utterances familiar to the Church long before in , ; in , ; in , ; in , ; in , ; ; in , ; in , , and . Jonah, an inspired man, thus attests both the antiquity and inspiration of the Psalms. It marks the spirit of faith, that Jonah identifies himself with the saints of old, appropriating their experiences as recorded in the Word of God (). Affliction opens up the mine of Scripture, before seen only on the surface. out of the belly of hell--Sheol, the unseen world, which the belly of the fish resembled.

"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.

2 I cried to Jehovah out of my distress, and He heard me; Out of the womb of hell I cried: Thou heardest my voice! The first clause recals to mind Psa 18:7 and Psa 120:1; but it also shows itself to be an original reproduction of the expression מצּרה לי, which expresses the prophet's situation in a more pointed manner than בּצּר־לי in Psa 17:1-15 and בּצּרתה לּי in Psa 120:1-7. The distress is still more minutely defined in the second hemistich by the expression מבּטן שׁאול, "out of the womb of the nether world." As a throat or swallow is ascribed to she'ōl in Isa 5:14, so here it is spoken of as having a בטן, or belly. This is not to be taken as referring to the belly of the shark, as Jerome supposes. The expression is a poetical figure used to denote the danger of death, from which there is apparently no escape; like the encompassing with snares of death in Psa 18:5, and the bringing up of the soul out of sheol in Psa 30:3. In the last clause the words pass over very appropriately into an address to Jehovah, which is brought out into still greater prominence by the omission of the copula Vav.