We are going to continue our time in the book of Jonah with prayer of the prophet here in chapter 2. As I mentioned last week, in the Hebrew chapter 1 ends with verse 16 and chapter 2 begins with verse 17 of chapter 1 so that is where we are going to begin our reading this morning. Chapter 1:17-2:10.
And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said,
“I called out of my distress to the Lord,
And He answered me.
I cried for help from the depth of Sheol;
You heard my voice.
“For You had cast me into the deep,
Into the heart of the seas,
And the current engulfed me.
All Your breakers and billows passed over me.
“So I said, ‘I have been expelled from Your sight.
Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’
“Water encompassed me to the point of death.
The great deep engulfed me,
Weeds were wrapped around my head.
“I descended to the roots of the mountains.
The earth with its bars was around me forever,
But You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.
“While I was fainting away,
I remembered the Lord,
And my prayer came to You,
Into Your holy temple.
“Those who regard vain idols
Forsake their faithfulness,
But I will sacrifice to You
With the voice of thanksgiving.
That which I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation is from the Lord.”
Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.
As we looked at last week, the book of Jonah is not about the adventures of this prophet from northern Israel, but about their redemption plan of God and His sovereign work within the world in order to bring about the repentance in the hearts of people. Though the book is named after Jonah, it is focus is not on him but upon God. God is the protagonist and Jonah the antagonist. It is not a story about a prophet and a whale, it is not a moralistic story about obeying God. It is about the sovereignty of God, it is about His redemptive plan and His work within the world despite the rebellion of man. The book is about the character of God. It is about the patience of God, it is about the mercy of God in the face of rebellious sin. It is a book that demonstrates God’s desire for all peoples to be saved even the worst offenders. It is about His willingness to move nature and supernatural ways to save and His equal desire to redeem an empire and an individual.
Chapter 1 focused on God’s continual supernatural acts within the world in order to accomplish His plan to redeem men. It began with Him calling His prophet to go preach a message of warning in the city of Nineveh and ended with Him being worshiped by a group of formerly pagan sailors.
Throughout the chapter we see the defiance of Jonah growing. After being called to preach the word and Nineveh, Jonah does not simply decline but absolutely refuses by heading the opposite direction. His defiance is so complete that by the end of chapter 1 he makes it clear that he would rather drown than go to Nineveh. He would rather die than obey God’s command to preach to the pagans of that great city.
In order to save their own lives, the sailors eventually throw Jonah overboard and seeing the hand of God in both the coming and ceasing of the raging storm they turn to him offering sacrifices and making vows. The implication being that they become followers of the Lord.
Jonah on the other hand, is left sinking into the deep, still adamant in his refusal. He refused to go to Nineveh, he refused to pray during the storm, he refused to return to land and repent and so God finally moves the sailors to just chuck him overboard. And that is where chapter 2 picks up, again with verse 17 and this intermission in the narrative, this poem, this Psalm that makes up versus 2-9.
Chapters 1, 3-4 are very clearly set as in a narrative style. They are telling a story in the same way that you would read about the events happening to any other Old Testament character. It began with this, and then this happened, and then this happened. It is a story, described as if it truly happened the way it is being presented.
But chapter 2 is quite a bit different. It is in a very poetic style. If you were to read the same verses in the book of Psalms you would think nothing of it. In fact, there are a number of Jewish sources that place versus 2-9 as essentially another Psalm, the 151st if you will. It is written in a Jewish meter, using very common Hebrew poetic style and poetic devices. There are four typical elements to the prayer that are seen over and over again, especially in the Psalms of David. It begins with an introductory summary of the answered prayer in verse 1, then a report of the personal crisis in 3-6, then the divine rescue in the latter half of 6-8 and and’s with a vow of praise in verse 9.
Some commentators have even gone further than simply seeing the basic outline but rather have compared immediate lines to other Psalms. It is of course very likely that Jonah was well-versed in the Psalms being raised on the writings of David written several hundred years before he was born. It is a beautiful example of a believer who prayed biblically, a poet drawing upon the regular liturgical language common to the book of Psalms and other poems in the Old Testament to fit the situation. This is common with many who know the Lord and His Word. Jesus himself on the cross cried out using Psalmic language.
Now I will admit that it may be unlikely Jonah composed this exact prayer in the stomach of the fish. It would have been hard enough to breathe let alone light a candle, pull out a paper and pencil to write down these thoughts in such a consistent, well-crafted meter that can be recognized in the Hebrew. But what I am sure about is that Jonah prayed while in the stomach of the fish and I am sure that his constant prayers over those three days and three nights would have sounded very much like these words which serve as a memorable summary.
This as we dive into the text this morning, I want to point out some aspects of the story many people get wrong, namely, the role of the great fish. and then focus of Jonah’s prayer which is that salvation is from God alone.
“And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish for three days and three nights.” As I did last week, I am not going to go into an apologetic, a defense, an explanation of the details of this fish story. Not because I think that it is not important or would not be worthwhile to do so in another context. But simply because I do not think you all need convincing.
It is quite clear that God’s miraculous hand was involved in this event. 1:17 says that the Lord “appointed” a great fish. The NIV, “the Lord provided a huge fish.” Or if you have a King James Version, old or new, it says “now the Lord had “prepared” a great fish. Anyone of those three are adequate. I do not think the Hebrew supports the idea of creation that the King James version indicates with “prepared,” but at the same time I do not think it is impossible that this was a unique sea creature either. Scripture describes several miracles that are far more unbelievable than God creating a special sea creature for this event.
What kind of fish it was, whether it was a whale or not, and just as a point of note, the Hebrew does say “fish” and they had a separate word for “whale” that is not used, whether it was a special creation of God or not; what we should note is as most important is that the fish was appointed by God. Even down to its precise placement within the Mediterranean Sea and the opening of its mouth just as Jonah was coming into its path. It’s every movement was directed by the Lord. Whatever the circumstances around this event might have been, God was in control of all of them down to the most minute detail.
What I do want to show you about this event is that, contrary to popular belief, the fish swallowing Jonah was not an act of punishment toward the defiant prophet but God’s sovereign act of salvation. Salvation by Fish. It is quite a unique means of God saving someone’s life but not the only miraculous one.
People tend to have a picture of Jonah being swallowed by the whale and then praying for God’s deliverance out of its belly, but his prayer shows quite a different picture. He begins this prayer with the summary in verse two, “I called out of my distress to the Lord, and he answered me. I cried out from the depth of Sheol; you heard my voice.” This cry of distress did not come from the belly of the fish, it came, as versus 3-6 make it clear, from the waters, the deep, the sea. There is real terror coming through this prayer, not directed to the fish but the waters and God’s punishment of Jonah being thrown into the deep.
In verse 3 he is cast into the deep, into the heart of the seas, thrown overboard and with a splash he is engulfed by the currents. His body tossed back and forth by the raging waves and ripped down farther and further by the currents beneath the surface. This is not a cry about the fish, it is the waters closing around him as he is sinking beneath the waves. He cries out in verse four, recognizing that he has been expelled from the sight of God, recognizing that he needs to turn away from his sin and toward God’s holy temple, equating his current predicament with a rejection from the face of God.
In verse 5 we get a further picture of his watery punishment. “Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, weeds were wrapped around my head.” You can almost feel his fear, the terror gripping him as he is plunging deeper and deeper into the blackness. The seaweed reaching up to grab him wrapping him in its slimy tentacles like the hands of death itself.
“I descended the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever.” He is dragged all the way to the bottom. Looking up he cannot even see the surface and in his mind he has understands that he will be imprisoned in these depths for eternity. Absolute despair, utter devastation, unavoidable damnation. Jonah is locked away from life and light in the prison of the deep.
But then, hope. “But you have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.” Think back to the defiance of Jonah in chapter 1. He was content to die rather than obey God. To be thrown overboard into this watery grave. No repentance, no guilt, no shame. The audible words of God could not do it. The storm could not do it, the lots cast by the sailors could not do it. Even the thought of death while he stood on the deck of the ship ready to be broken up by the winds and the waves could not do it.
“While I was fainting away,” says Jonah “While I was fainting away,” at the very doorstep of and death, driven deeper and deeper into the ocean, with no chance, no hope of life, “I remember the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.”
I want to watch the replay of this event when we get to heaven. At what point did Jonah finally relent. How deep was he, how long was he underwater before he finally snapped out of his rebellion? Seconds from death Jonah finally realizes his sin and his mind returns to God and his temple thinking about the redemption, salvation that is offered by His Word.
Talk about a last second rescue. Just at the moment of death Jonah is engulfed by the sea creature. What happened when Jonah took that first breath after being swallowed by the fish. What went through his mind? Did he realize he was inside a living creature? Did it take him a moment to come to his senses in the dark? To think he was dead, and this was the beginning of the afterlife? How long did it take him to realize God had indeed heard his prayer and saved him?
Being swallowed by the great fish was not the punishment, it was the act of salvation by God. And for three days and three nights Jonah all lived in this unimaginable state praying to the Lord. Thanking him for his mercy. Thanking him for his unending pursuit. Thanking him for sending the fish. This is a prayer of deliverance from the sea. The end of the prayer is a prayer of Thanksgiving because Jonah is rescued from the certain death that threatened him. Rescued by this instrument that God had prepared in his providence to rescue his disobedient servant.
It is a strange thought. To be thanking God for being in that kind of situation. Thanking God for being in the belly of a fish. The stench and stale air would have been almost suffocating. Jonah had no idea what was going on or if he would ever get out of that situation. It may have been an improvement from death at the bottom of the sea, but not much of one. It makes one wonder, have you ever thanked God for being in that kind of terrible situation? Have you ever thanked God for saving you from your own rebellion, even when the place you are brought into is so horrible? When the alternative is death, separation from God, it makes even the belly of a fish something to be thankful for.
Jonah says, “with the voice of Thanksgiving, that which I have vowed I will pay.” He is not only thankful, but we can see his repentance. He is resolved to do the bidding of God. To obey the mission on which he is sent. And he concludes this prayer with the most important statements about redemption in all of Scripture, “Salvation is from the LORD.”
He knows who it was who saved him. So many people would miss of this altogether. I am sure the pagans of Jonah’s day would, coming out onto the dry land, start making an idol in the form of a whale, or a great fish. And saying that salvation is from the god of the fish. Maybe looking to one of the pagan gods associated with the ocean like the Philistine god Dagon, who was in the form of a fish. Today, people would just attribute this to luck or fortune.
But Jonah knows that the fish is not his ultimate means of salvation, it was simply a tool in the hand of God. And Jonah makes the declaration that every Christian should make every day, “salvation is from the Lord.” Jonah did not save himself, Jonah could not save himself. His doom was sure and the only possible way that he could possibly be saved was by divine intervention. By God coming down and doing for Jonah what Jonah could never do for himself.
This is a bold and brilliant example of our dependence upon the sovereign grace of God to save us body and soul. From sure and certain destruction.
Salvation is from God alone. He began the process of drawing Jonah to this new level of faith, bringing him to this point of submission in chapter 1, calling Jonah to serve him. Jonah refused and so began the process of sovereignly ordained events that led to this defiant profit being thrown into the sea.
I think it is worth noting here as well that God allowed Jonah to repent at the point of death. “While I was fading away, I remember the Lord.” This is a deathbed confession. This is probably the ultimate deathbed confession. God can save people at any point in their life. We should never give up on anyone, no matter where they are in their life, no matter what is going on around them. God saved Jonah while he was fading away beneath the crashing waves, he saved the thief hanging on the cross beside Jesus. We should not wait for the last moment, some people have that mentality, I know I am a sinner, I know I should repent but I want to have fun while I am the young and able and when I get old all repent and ask God to forgive me. He may not give you that opportunity, you may not have an opportunity like Jonah and there is far more to salvation then the get out of hell card. But God can do it, and sometimes he does.
The story of Jonah demonstrates that God brings redemption, and the end of his plan is our salvation. He uses different means to that end. We should never mistake, never confuse the means with the ends. It would also be a mistake for us to confuse the means of our salvation with the ultimate source of our salvation. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes it clear that we are saved by faith. Faith is not the end of the Christian life, it is the means to the end of our salvation. But faith is not the source of our salvation it is God who gives us faith as a gift, through his grace who is the ultimate basis for our redemption.
We must recognize that even the faith we have, the faith that is the means by which God grants us salvation is a gift from God that we could do nothing for. It is a gift of grace, unmerited favor, a gift given as Paul says a few verses for, while we were still dead in our trespasses and sins. It is a benefit we received from his hand, by his mercy. Every believer must recognize with Jonah, every believer must look to God as the author and finisher of their salvation of their salvation and say, “Salvation is from the LORD.”