101. The Prayer Of Jonah From The Midst Of The Sea.

The Prayer Of Jonah From The Midst Of The Sea. The Prayer as recorded.—Jonah 2:1-9. The Lord’s Answer.—Jonah 2:10.

We must not regard, as some have done, the present position of Jonah in a figurative sense, for we have full proof of its reality in the words of our blessed Lord himself, who repeatedly speaks of it in terms too plain to be mistaken by us. God, in judgment for disobedience, had mercy upon him, and even from the belly of the fish heard and answered his prayer. The prophet was placed in a position where he felt his sin, and this led him to prayer; but where is the solitude that God cannot fill? And where is the spot on earth or in the seas where his eye does not rest, and from which the voice of prayer may not ascend? In this remarkable event in the life of the prophet Jonah, we may see a type of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. His prayer is earnest, and the state of his mind rendered his position, as he says, like the “belly of hell,” or like the state of the wicked in death, from whose torment there is no escape. So it seemed, no doubt, to the prophet, there was no ray of light, except as the love of God in his heart lit up his prison-house, and from that dark abode of the praying prophet, “Pure thoughts were borne, Like fumes of sacred incense o’er the clouds, And wafted thence on angels’ wings through ways Of light to the bright Source of all.”