Jonah 2:2

And said,.... Not unto the Lord in prayer, but to others, to whom he communicated what passed between God and him in this time of distress; how he prayed to him, and was heard by him; what a

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 thou heardest my voice.

And said: the former verse was a general account that he prayed, this word in the front of this verse is a transition to a more full account of his prayer, what for substance, and somewhat of the words also. I cried; not with a loud voice of the tongue, as it was not ordinarily feasible in so close a prison, so nor was it necessary he should, where none were to hear but his God, who heareth the strongest desires, and accounts them the strongest cries; so Jonah cried with his whole heart. By reason of mine affliction; distress, or straits with which he was encompasseth and close besieged; nor was there ever closer siege laid to any one, his body and mind both shut up, the one by the monstrous dungeon of the fish’ s belly, and the other by the terrors of the Almighty. Unto the Lord: it was in many respects fit Jonah should petition God, for he was committed by his special warrant, and none either had power or authority to deliver him but God. He heard me: though Jonah say not how God did hear, in what particular, yet he knew both how and in what; the support of his person, the exercise of his reason, the workings of his heart toward God, and a hope or assurance that lie should be delivered, were part of the mercy God gave, and he prayed for. Out of the belly of hell cried I; the grave, so Sheol; so it was as dark to Jonah, and had been as destructive too, if mercy had not prevented. This is doubled, to intimate both the prisoner’ s earnestness, and the greatness of the mercy given to one that was as shut up in the grave. Thou heardest my yoke; of his soul, whilst he was in that dismal dungeon; as above.

Jonah 2:2 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] thou heardest my voice.Ver. 2. And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction] His lips did not move in affliction, like a creaking door or a new cart wheel, with murmuring and mutinying against God and men; he set not his mouth against heaven (as the howling wolf when hunger bitten), neither did his tongue walk through the earth, cursing the day of his birth, and cutting deep into the sides of such as were means of his misery, Psalms 73:9. But putting his mouth in the dust, if so be there might be hope, he cried by reason of his affliction, Lamentations 3:29. The time of affliction is the time of supplication; no time like that for granting of suits, Zechariah 13:9. God’ s afflicted may have what they will of him then, such are his fatherly compassions to his sick children; he reserveth his best comforts for the worst times, and then speaketh to the hearts of his people when he hath brought them into the wilderness, Hosea 2:13. This Jonah experimented, and therefore said, "I cried out of mine affliction unto the Lord." “ Ad Dominum afflicto de pectore suspirando. ” And he heard me] How else am I alive amidst so many deaths? Here is a visible answer, a real return: O, "blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me," Psalms 66:20. Surely as the cloud, which riseth out of the earth many times in thin and insensible vapours, falleth down in great and abundant showers; so our prayers, which ascend weak and narrow, return with a full and enlarged answer. This was but a pitiful poor prayer that Jonah here made, as appears Jonah 2:4; and so was that of David, Psalms 31:22, "For I said in mine haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee." It would be wide with us if God should answer the best of us according to our prayers, yea, though well watered with tears; since, Ipsae lacrymae sint lacrymabiles, we had need to weep over our tears, sigh over our sobs, mourn over our griefs. Jonah was so taken with this kindness from the Lord his God that he repeats it and celebrates it a second time. Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice] The whale’ s belly he calleth hell’ s belly, because horrid and hideous, deep and dismal. Thence he cried, as David did, De profundis, from the depths, and was heard and delivered. Yea, had hell itself closed her mouth upon a praying Jonah, it could not long have held him, but must have vomited him up. A mandamus commission from God will do it at any time, Psalms 44:4, and what cannot faithful prayer have of God?

(2) By reason of mine affliction.—See margin. There is a close correspondence between this opening and that of Psalms 120 Comp. also Psalms 18:6. Out of the belly of hell.—This remarkable expression—a forcible figure for imminent death—has its nearest parallel in Isaiah 5:14, where sheôl (see Psalms 6:5) is represented as opening a huge mouth to swallow the princes of the world and their pomp. The under-world represents the Hebrew word sheôl more nearly than hell or the grave (margin). (Comp. Psalms 18:5; Psalms 30:3.) And thou heardest . . .—The conjunction is unnecessarily introduced. The sudden change of person, a frequent figure in Hebrew poetry, is more striking without the connecting word.

Verse 2. Out of the belly of hell] Among the Hebrews שאול sheol means the grave, any deep pit, the place of separate spirits, c. Here the prophet represents himself as in the bottom of the sea for so sheol must be understood in this place.

2. and said] The prayer which follows falls naturally into three parts or divisions. In each of these the two elements of danger and deliverance, of need and help, appear. But they enter into them in very different proportions. Faith grows, and the prospect brightens at each fresh stage of the hymn. The first rises to prayer, the second to confidence, the third to thankfulness and praise. I. Jonah 2:2-4. (1) Introduction, containing the general subject of the hymn: I cried and was heard, I was in trouble and was delivered. Jonah 2:2. (2) Description of the danger and distress. Jonah 2:3. (3) Faith triumphing over despondency and prompting to prayer. Jonah 2:4. II. Jonah 2:5-6. (1) More vivid description of the danger and distress. Jonah 2:5-6 a. (2) Deliverance not only prayed for, but possessed. Jonah 2:6 b. III. Jonah 2:7-9. (1) Prayer, offered in danger and distress, has been heard. Jonah 2:7. (2) God, no longer forsaken, but sought and recognised as the fountain of mercy, has granted deliverance which shall be acknowledged with sacrifices of thanksgiving and vows joyfully paid. Jonah 2:8-9 a. (3) All salvation, as this typical instance shows, is of God. Jonah 2:9 b. The prayer is remarkable for its many resemblances in thought and expression to passages in the Book of Psalms. The words of the Psalter, however, are not exactly and literally quoted, but its ideas and phrases are freely wrought into the prayer, as if drawn from the well-stored memory of a pious Israelite, familiar with its contents, and naturally giving vent to his feelings in the cherished forms, which were now instinct for him with new life and meaning. The manner in which our English literature (not only sacred, but secular and even profane and infidel) abounds in Scripture imagery and phraseology may help us to understand how coincidences of this kind may have arisen, without any deliberate intention on the part of a later writer to copy from an earlier, or even any direct consciousness that he was doing so. by reason of mine affliction] Rather, as in A.V. and R.V. margin, out of mine affliction, i.e. out of the midst of it, while it still compassed me about. The time referred to is when he was in the sea. The first half of this verse is identical in the Heb. words, though not in their order, with Psalms 120:1, except that in the Psalm we have “in,” instead of “from” or “out of” mine affliction, and a lengthened form of the word for affliction is used. The coincidence cannot, however, be properly said to affect the date of the Book of Jonah. The Psalm, it is true, belongs to a collection which “in its present form must have been made after the return from Babylon,” but it by no means follows that no ode of the collection had been composed before that time. Besides, the whole sentence is, both in language and idea, too commonplace, so to speak, to be safely insisted upon as a quotation at all.

I cried by reason of mine affliction - , or, “out of affliction” which came “to me.” So the Psalmist thanked God in the same words, though in a different order ; “To the Lord in trouble to me I

2. I cried… he heard — R.V., “I called… he answered.” The tenses indicate that both the petition and the reply are experiences of the past (Jonah 2:6). By reason of mine affliction — Better, R.V.