Jonah 2:1-2
“Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, saying, ‘I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.’”
Jonah prayed. What else would anybody do who had just been thrown overboard from a ship in the middle of a storm and you’re swallowed by a huge fish. Could there be a more hopeless condition to be in? Being thrown overboard would be enough to cause one to pray. Finding yourself in the sea in the middle of a storm would be enough to cause one to pray. Seeing a fish the size of a house would be enough to cause one to pray!
Jonah’s plight at that moment was like the perfect storm of perfect storms; he found himself in the middle of The Titanic, Pirates of the Caribbean and Jaws all at one time; man, I’d be praying too!
There have probably been few fish in the history of the world that could have swallowed Jonah. Most scientists agree that it wasn’t a whale, its physical makeup of its mouth and throat wouldn’t allow it to swallow something as big as a man. There are certain kinds of sharks that would be big enough to swallow a man. There have been some extremely large catfish found in Southeast Asia that have swallowed animals and children, but a full grown man might be too big for even the giant catfish.
There are fossilized teeth the size of a man’s hand from what was known as Megalodon, a super shark that was perhaps 50+ feet long; this animal sounds like what the Bible speaks of Leviathan; an amazingly fierce sea creature. In Job 41 God describes Leviathan like this…Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook…If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse him…Who can strip off his outer coat? Who would approach him with a bridle?
Leviathan sounds almost indescribable, God continues…Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth? His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted. His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn. Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth. Strength resides in his neck; dismay goes before him. The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable.
This creature sounds like something only God could dream up, there’s more…His chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing. The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make him flee; slingstones are like chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance. His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair. Nothing on earth is his equal—a creature without fear.
A creature without fear…what if Leviathan/Megalodon was what swallowed Jonah? Leviathan/Megalodon would’ve probably shredded Jonah like Chicken of the Sea tuna, and I think Jonah would have been in for a greater adventure than even The Little Mermaid.
However, there was planktivorous fish that was over 60 feet long known as Leedsichthys. The London Natural History Museum has a Leedsichthys tail fin that is 9-10 feet in height. If you extrapolate that out, this veggie eater sounds like something that could have swallowed Jonah without killing him.
When Jonah says “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress” I’m guessing he was pretty distressed. And in the midst of that distress Jonah is experiencing first hand what he knows God to be; and it’s the same thing he knew God to be which was a big part of his reason for not wanting to go to Nineveh. Jonah knew God to be compassionate, and in the midst of his own personal Perfect Storm God extends compassion to Jonah.
God’s compassion is the hope of redemption for our world. God could have walked into the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit and simply wiped humans out of existence, but he didn’t. Before the creation of the world the Father, Son and Holy Spirit knew what people would be like, that they are made out of dust, that they are susceptible to failure and sin, and in knowing that, God’s love for us caused him to be compassionate toward us.
The story of Jonah is often told as one of pure obedience, but I think it’s good, very good, to let it be a story of God’s compassion too; God’s great, good, generous and loving compassion.
Jonah then describes his prayer to God.
“’For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.’” (v3)
The first thing Jonah does is acknowledge that all he is experiencing is God’s work. It was God who cast him into the sea, even though the sailors did the deed, it was God who had created the circumstances and put it into the minds of the sailors to throw Jonah into the water.
It’s interesting that Jonah uses the phrase “into the heart of the sea.” The sailors had tried to row back to shore but the wind and storm was so intense that they couldn’t even do that. God caused the ship to be so far out to sea that it seemed like it was in the middle of the sea, and, it needed to be in the middle of the sea for a giant fish to swallow Jonah; it’s doubtful that that size of a fish would be trolling along the shoreline.
God orchestrated everything. As Jonah describes his experience as being “the flood surrounded me;” he’s describing total vulnerability as huge, hurricane-like waves caused him to bob in the sea like a cork before the fish swallowed him. God stripped Jonah of any ability to do anything about his circumstances; which drove Jonah to utter reliance upon God. When I think of God’s compassion; isn’t that what it really is, just an utter reliance upon God and his mercy, grace and love?
