Jonah 2:4
“Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’”
I’m not sure what all is in the belly of the fish Jonah was in, but I get the sense it wasn’t pretty. Not only that be he was floating around in there for three days. A little later Jonah even mentions that seaweed was wrapped around his head. I’m assuming this giant fish didn’t just swallow Jonah and then go lay on the sea floor for three days so Jonah could have an easy time of it. If the fish was a plankton feeder he was probably on the move constantly—and Jonah didn’t have any Dramamine.
When Jonah says in his prayer “I am driven away from your sight” he may be referring to the fact that he’s somewhere in the deepest part of the sea, of which he had earlier referred to it as Sheol. Sheol was the abode of the dead, the underworld and equated with hell and Hades. Jonah knew Sheol was a place where God wasn’t. But, Jonah knows God, and as he’s praying he’s not lost in despair over his condition because he says “I shall again look upon your holy temple.”
Of all the things that Jesus and Christianity is, it offers people an escape from despair. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33) and “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).
I recently sat and talked with a sweet Christian lady who has cancer that the doctors can do little about, it’s terminal. She told me how she wants to fully be used of God for as long as she has life, and too, that she’s ready to go home when God’s ready for her to come home. She wasn’t in despair, she wasn’t grief stricken, and she wasn’t claiming that life was cruel and unfair; she simply had great faith in her Savior, and faith smothers despair.
Even with all his running away from God, his anger, his disobedience, Jonah believed God was big enough for this situation too.
“The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.” (v5-6)
Jonah’s a realist; he acknowledges that in his situation of being in the sea was likely to lead to death. In any other circumstance it would have. If a sailor had fallen from a ship or been thrown overboard, the Nineveh National Coast Guard wouldn’t be out with helicopters and ships scouring the sea for him.
There is so much going on in this segment of Jonah’s prayer that it gives us insights into our world that we might otherwise not have had, especially in Jonah’s day. Jonah says that he was at “the roots of the mountains.” That wouldn’t have been something those in the ancient world would have understood, unless they had been to the sea floor. I mean, this is crazy; somehow Jonah is in this giant fish and he sees the mountain ranges along the sea floor! It wasn’t until thousands of years later when deep sea diving vessels were invented that humans could see the sea floor and look at mountain ranges under the sea, yet Jonah is telling us that he has seen these things.
Obviously, Jonah doesn’t have parchment and pen as he’s taking his under-sea flume ride. He is writing about his experience sometime later. And in his prayer he’s giving God glory for his mercy saying “you brought up my life from the pit.”
God’s mercy is beautiful. God allowed Jonah to say “no” to him, God allowed Jonah to turn and run the other direction, God allowed Jonah to get on the ship and God allowed Jonah to choose how he would respond to God. And, out of his great mercy, God keeps nudging Jonah back toward himself. Whatever our reasons are for moving or running away from God, mercy is big enough for them.
I simply can’t figure out why God has allowed me to take up oxygen on his planet all these years. I’ve done things far more stupid than Jonah did, and I did them just as brazenly and blatantly as Jonah did, maybe more so. I did some things year after year, and yet God didn’t cause a lightning bolt to strike me, and I’ve often wondered why. I’ve made some of the same mistakes and same bad choices, only to have God save me from myself. Mercy is one of the things that make God mysterious—I wouldn’t put up with all the junk I’ve done in my life if I were God.
When Jonah says “O LORD my God” doesn’t it sound somewhat familiar; didn’t Thomas say something similar when he encountered Jesus after the resurrection “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28) Jonah’s words are an acknowledgment that he has surrendered to God. Jonah’s running and rebellion, at least for now, is over. Jonah discovered what Paul wrote of in Romans 2:4 “God’s kindness leads you toward repentance.” Mercy, in its simplest and purest form is God’s kindness.
“When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.” (v7) At some point I think Jonah believed he was going to die, and in that moment he was thinking of his last encounter and conversation with God—probably not the best way to go out.
“Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (v8-9)
The words of Jonah’s prayer here are a bit cryptic, but I believe he might be recalling the thing that got him into the fish’s belly to begin with. The Assyrians were pagan idol worshippers whom God wanted to repent and turn to him. In being idol worshippers they don’t have the hope of God’s love in their life. And at some time during the ordeal in the fish’s belly Jonah makes a vow to do the very thing God originally wanted him to do—go to Nineveh. In doing so Jonah prays “what I have vowed I will pay.”
“And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.” (v10)
Willingness on Jonah’s part to surrender and be obedient to God brought about freedom.
I guess in some way reminiscent of Dr. Doolittle, God speaks to the fish and it pukes Jonah out. I see some parallels in the story of Jonah in the fish’s belly and Jesus’ death for the sins of the world.
Our human thinking often takes us down roads in which we believe we have ultimate freedom when we exclude God from our lives and the decisions we make. In fact, that’s pretty much what the atheist does and anybody else who doesn’t want God encumbering how they live their life. This was what Jonah did also. The further away from God Jonah moved it was like trying to dig a hole in sand; everything kept caving in on him and getting worse.
It seems somewhat oxymoronic that surrender brings freedom. I had a phone conversation with a friend yesterday who had been struggling with hidden sexual sin for a long time. Finally, everything was brought out into the open and he said to me that he’s never known such freedom and peace as he now has. He now recognizes that he was in bondage to that sin, but in surrendering to God he was free from it. My friend had bought into our culture, and a sub-culture, that believed the lie that freedom away from God was real freedom—only to find that that freedom nearly killed him. But today, he has tasted mercy.
