Jonah 2:3

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

For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

For: this introduceth the account of his distress, mentioned . Thou, the Almighty, offended by my frowardness and obstinacy, hadst cast me into the deep; though the mariners’ hands heaved me overboard, it was thy hand that did it, and pressed me sore. The deep; the bottom of the sea: by what follows it is probable Jonah was cast into the sea far from shore. In the midst of the seas, or heart of the seas, but more literally and strictly in the midst of the seas, than that . The floods; either the mighty rivers which run into that sea, or the floods, the mighty currents, which the rolling sea and winds with tide made. All thy billows and thy waves passed over me; the surges of the sea, which explains what before he called the floods. Here is an elegant description of the violence and horror of the seas into which Jonah was cast, which tossed his body, and signified the terrors wherewith his soul was distressed from God’ s immediate hand, as . Thy waves: Jonah seeth God’ s hand and sovereignty in all this, intimating that he prayed for what he knew his God could do for him.

Jonah 2:3 For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.Ver. 3. For thou hadst cast me into the deep] A graphic description of his woeful condition, which yet he remembereth now as waters that are past, and is thankful to his Almighty deliverer: see the like in David, Psalms 116:3, and learn of these and other saints to acknowledge the uttermost extremity of a calamity after we are delivered out of it. For hereby thy judgment will be the better instructed and the more convinced; thine heart also will be the more enlarged to admire, and thy mouth the wider opened to celebrate the power, wisdom, and mercy of God in thy deliverance. As if this be not done, God will be provoked either to inflict heavier judgments, or else to cease to smite thee any more with the stripes of a father, and to give thee up for a lost child. For thou hadst cast me into the deep] Not the mariners, but thou didst it, and therefore there was no averting or avoiding it. Thou hadst cast me with a force, as a stone out of a sling, or as that mighty angel, Revelation 18:21, that took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, "Thus with violence," &c. In the midst of the seas] Heb. in the heart of the seas; so Matthew 12:40, "So shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." And Deuteronomy 4:11, we read of the heart of heaven, that is, the middle of it, as the heart sitteth in the midst of the body as king of that Isle of Man. Now, if it were so grievous to be cast into the main sea, what shall it be to be hurled into hell by such a hand, and with such a force into that bottomless gulf, whence nothing was ever yet buoyed up again? And the floods compassed me about] Aquarum confluges, the sea, whence all floods or rivers issue, and whereto they return (Homer calleth the ocean ποταμον, a river, by the figure meiosis, Pοταμοιορεεθραωκεανου. Iliad. xiv.). Danaeus here noteth that out of that gulf of the sea, which of Plato is called Tartarus, that is, hell, the waters do flow into the veins of the earth (as it is, Ecclesiastes 1:7), losing their saltness in the passage. Here Jonah cried out, as Psalms 69:1-2, "Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into the deep waters, where the floods overflow me." It was only his faith that held him up by the chin; and, like blown feathers, bore him aloft all waters.

(3) Hadst cast.—Rather, didst cast. (See Psalms 88:6.) Floods.—Literally, river, used here of the ocean currents. (Comp. Psalms 24:2.) All thy billows and thy waves.—More exactly, all thy breakers and billows. (See Psalms 42:7, where the same expression is used figuratively for great danger and distress.)

Verse 3. All thy billows and thy waves passed over me.] This may be understood literally; while the fish, in whose belly he was, sought its pleasure or sustenance in the paths of the deep, the waves and billows of the sea were rolling above. This line seems borrowed from Psalms 42:7.

3. hadst cast] There is no pluperf. tense in the Heb. language. There is no need, however, here to depart from the more literal rendering castedst or didst cast, R.V. See note on Jonah 2:1. the deep] The same word is used (in the plur.) literally of Pharaoh and his host, Exodus 15:5, “They sank into the bottom,” and metaphorically, Micah 7:19. the floods] Lit., the river. Used of the current or flowing of the sea. “And the flowing (of the sea) surrounds me.” Gesenius: ‘das strömen.’ The same word occurs in the same sense, Psalms 24:2. All thy billows, &c.] Lit., “all Thy breakers and Thy long rolling waves.” Comp. “Quanti montes volvuntur aquarum.” Ovid. Trist. 1. ii. 19. The whole clause occurs again in Psalms 42:7, though there it is used metaphorically and here literally; or rather, to the metaphorical sense is here superadded the literal. For by calling them “Thy” breakers and waves, Jonah shews that to him, as to the Psalmist, the sense of God’s punishment and displeasure was the soul of his affliction.

For Thou hadst (“didst”) cast me into the deep - Jonah continues to describe the extremity of peril, from which God had already delivered him. Sweet is the memory of perils past. For they speak of God’s Fatherly care.

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.