NIVAC Bundle 5: Minor Prophets

Jonah 2

1FROM INSIDE THE fish, Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. 2He said:

“In my distress I called to the LORD,

and he answered me.

From the depths of the grave I called for help,

and you listened to my cry.

3You hurled me into the deep,

into the very heart of the seas,

and the currents swirled about me;

all your waves and breakers

swept over me.

4I said, ‘I have been banished

from your sight;

yet I will look again

toward your holy temple.’

5The engulfing waters threatened me,

the deep surrounded me;

seaweed was wrapped around my head.

6To the roots of the mountains I sank down;

the earth beneath barred me in forever.

But you brought my life up from the pit,

O LORD my God.

7When my life was ebbing away,

I remembered you, LORD,

and my prayer rose to you,

to your holy temple.

8Those who cling to worthless idols

forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

9But I, with a song of thanksgiving,

will sacrifice to you.

What I have vowed I will make good.

Salvation comes from the LORD.”

10And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Original Meaning

JONAH 2 IS Jonah’s psalm of thanks from within the belly of the fish. The song primarily recounts Jonah’s distress in the water and gives thanks for his rescue. It begins with a summary of his cry for help (2:2) and continues with four more stanzas describing Jonah’s sinking in the water before he is swallowed by the fish (2:3–6). In the refrain (2:7–9) Jonah summarizes his cry for rescue and declares Yahweh as the true source of salvation. Then, the narrator tells us, Yahweh talked to the fish, and “it vomited Jonah onto dry land” (2:10).

The amazing context of this poetic prayer is Jonah’s gratitude while inside the fish. He fully expected to die in the water. His thanksgiving within the belly of a fish is a proclamation of joy, with the realization that God has delivered him in spite of his running. Though he is not yet on dry land, his faith reaches a new dimension of understanding. He seems to have no doubt that, as he was delivered from drowning, he will also eventually be delivered safely to the shore.

Readers of narratives are sometimes tempted to move too quickly through poetry. This song, however, is critical to the interpretation of the book and may be the theologically richest part. Its content helps us to understand Jonah’s point of view, as he speaks in the first person. The poem also offers a window into the nature and circumstances of true gratitude (see Contemporary Significance).

Inside the Fish (2:1)

IN CHAPTER 1, the captain of the sailors asked Jonah to pray to his god, and Jonah ignored him (1:6). Here for the first time Jonah speaks directly to Yahweh in response to his physical and unusual deliverance.1 This is the prophet at his best, giving thanks for deliverance before he is on dry land. Surprisingly, perhaps, he does not mention the small problem of his residency in the fish. He demonstrates his comprehension of the miracle of deliverance and his full dependence on the mercy and compassion of Yahweh. He is grateful to be in Yahweh’s keeping, even as he remains in the fish’s belly.

The Hebrew text raises the question of whether the fish is male or female. In 1:17 noun “fish” is a masculine noun (dag) while in 2:1 “fish” is a feminine noun (dagah). It is possible that the anomaly is a scribal error (in 2:10, “the fish” is male again.). However, interpreters have attributed various meanings to the change.2 The most obvious reason for the shift to the “female” fish is found in the immediate context of Jonah’s prayer. The female capacities of the fish are echoed poetically in two birthing words in 2:2. The female word sets up the poetic concept of Jonah’s “death” (male fish eats him) and rebirth (female fish carries and delivers him). “Inside” in 1:17b and 2:1 is a general Hebrew term for the “inward parts” (meʿeh), which is a synonym of “womb” (reḥem).3

In 2:2 Jonah uses two other birthing words that develop this poetical image of his deliverance. (1) When he says “in my distress” (ṣarah, 2:2a), he uses a word that is specifically used of the “travail” of childbirth. It signifies being bound up or being tied in a tight place.4 Jonah is alluding to the distress of a child about to be born (see Bridging Contexts section for further comments). (2) When he says, “from the depths [beṭen] of the grave” (2:2b), he literally says, “from the womb [belly] of Sheol” (Sheol is the place of the dead in the Old Testament).5 This Hebrew phrase “womb of Sheol” is the only time “womb/belly” is used with “Sheol” in Scripture. It continues the image of Jonah’s birthing. He is as good as dead but may be reborn.

The Five Stanzas of Jonah’s Distress (2:2–6)

THE PRAYER IS in the form of a psalm with five stanzas and a refrain.6 The five stanzas begin with 2:2 and proceed, one verse at a time, through 2:6. In the first stanza, Jonah summarizes the basic situation (2:2): “I called … and you heard my voice.” In the second through the fifth stanzas, Jonah describes his progressive descent into his watery grave. In stanza 2 he is on the surface of the water (2:3). Jonah is hurled overboard, pulled by currents, and battered by breaking waves on the surface of the sea. In stanza 3 he is in the midst of the seas (2:4). While sinking, he feels banished from Yahweh, yet looks toward his presence. In stanza 4 Jonah is near the bottom (2:5). He is engulfed and surrounded by water, sinking to the seaweed at the bottom. By the last stanza he is drowning (2:6). The sands (bars) of the floor of the sea will be his grave, but Yahweh brings him up (by a fish).

The major theme of “going down” and being “brought up” by Yahweh as seen in Jonah 1 is also present in chapter 2. Jonah calls from the depths of the grave (2:2). He is “hurled … into the deep” (2:3). He is banished from the temple (mount) in 2:4. “The deep surrounded” him (2:5). He “sank down” to the “roots of the mountains,” but Yahweh brings his “life up from the pit” (2:6). In the refrain (2:7–9), Jonah’s “prayer rose” to Yahweh in the temple (“temple” can mean “God’s heavenly dwelling place,” as in Ps. 11:4). Finally, Jonah leaves the depths and is vomited up, out of the depths of the sea, out of the depths of the fish, “onto dry land” (Jonah 2:10).

An interesting and common Old Testament structure, called a chiasmus,7 is present in this prayer. In the midst of Jonah’s going “deeper and deeper,” this structure demonstrates the “center” of Jonah’s faith. A chiasm often follows the pattern A B C B′ A′. The “parallels” (A B/B′ A′) are created by the repetition of words or themes (see words in italics, below).8 The center (C) is created by its isolation between the parallels. This center is often not only the structural center but also the interpretive (and theological) center of the rhetorical unit.

A (2:2) In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry.

B (2:3) You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.

C (2:4) I said, “I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.”

B′ (2:5) The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.

A′ (2:6) To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God.

In the first stanza (2:2 [A]), the phrases “in my distress” and “depths of the grave” refer to Jonah’s drowning in the sea as he is sinking. (He confirms his experience of drowning in 2:7). “He answered me” and “You listened to my cry” refer to Yahweh’s fish that rescued Jonah from drowning. Note that Jonah begins by referring to God in the third person (“he answered me”), but immediately shifts to the more personal second person (“you”), which he uses until the refrain (2:7–9) at the end of the prayer. The first and second half of verse 2 are parallel, with the second half echoing the first (“In my distress I called”/“From the depths of the grave I called,” and “He answered me”/“You listened to my cry”). This is typical for introductory summaries in psalms.9

Stanza 2 (2:3 [B]) begins a sensate description of Jonah’s descent. The reader who has been adrift may feel the vertigo of Jonah’s experience: “hurled … into the deep … currents swirled … waves and breakers swept over me.” Jonah was thrown overboard by the sailors, but Jonah knows that Yahweh has done it, and thus he says, “You hurled me,” implying that the sailors were innocent (as they prayed in 1:14).

Yahweh hurled him “into the deep,” which his original listeners would have recognized. There was underlying anxiety and fear of chaos represented by deep (and potentially turbulent) water, as it was over the deep that the Spirit hovered at the creation. “Now the earth was formless [tohu] and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep [tehom], and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Gen. 1:2). The deep (meṣulah) and its synonym depths or deep waters (tehom) are words that refer to the “chaos” of deep water. Note the following passages:

Pharaoh’s chariots and his army

he has hurled into the sea.

The best of Pharaoh’s officers

are drowned in the Red Sea.

The deep waters [tehomot] have covered them;

they sank to the depths [meṣolot] like a stone. (Ex. 15:4–5)

He makes the depths [meṣulah] churn like a boiling cauldron

and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.

Behind him he leaves a glistening wake;

one would think the deep [tehom] had white hair. (Job 41:31–32)

They saw the works of the LORD,

his wonderful deeds in the deep [meṣulah].

For he spoke and stirred up a tempest

that lifted high the waves.

They mounted up to the heavens

and went down to the depths [tehomot];

in their peril their courage melted away. (Ps. 107:24–26)

The NIV translates the second “chaos” word (tehom) as “deep” in Jonah 2:5 as well. Jonah continues describing the experience of the deep: “into the very heart of the sea, and the currents swirled about me.” “Waves” in 2:3b is, literally, “rollers”—from the same root (gal) as the name “Gilgal” (based on its rolling hill country.) A whisper of hope is seen in the adjective “your,” as even the deep belongs to and is an agent of Yahweh.

Stanza 3 is the centerpiece of the five stanzas (2:4 [C]). It is set apart by Jonah’s quoting himself (“I said”) so that the listener/reader cannot miss the central point. It is the first indication that Jonah regrets leaving his place in the presence of Yahweh in the temple. It is the turning point. In 1:3 he “ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish.” Here he turns for the first time to look back (“Yet I will look again toward”).

Jonah remembers his own words: “I said, ‘I have been banished.’” When Jonah says “banished” (garaš), it means he feels he has no option of return. Jonah was not banished from Yahweh’s sight when he ran to Joppa’s port; he ran of his own volition. He was not banished in the storm or through his inspired word to the sailors that the storm would become calm if they threw him overboard. Jonah experienced the banishment when he was lifted up and hurled over the gunwale, and then hit the water. The word garaš means “thrown out.” At the moment he was physically “hurled” or “cast out” of the ship, he realized, apparently for the first time, that he could no longer keep his options open. The physical reality resounded in the disconsolate cry: “I have been banished.”10 He could no longer choose to go back.

“Yet I will look again toward your holy temple” (2:4b). This turning and looking is Jonah’s hope. His offense was fleeing from the “presence of the LORD” (i.e., his place of employment in the temple). Here Jonah demonstrates his understanding of the power of simply turning again toward the presence of Yahweh! Even when he is “banished” (with no option of return), he can look to Yahweh. He cannot return, but he can turn and “look … toward.” The same word (nabaṭ) is used when the Exodus people were dying from snakebite in the desert: “So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at [nabaṭ] the bronze snake, he lived” (Num. 21:9).

Stanza 4 returns to the descriptive narrative of Jonah’s drowning (Jonah 2:5 [B′]). He is “engulfed” and “surrounded” by “waters” and “the deep” (“surrounded” is the same word as “swirled” in 2:3). He nears the bottom of the sea, with seaweed wrapped around his head. He is in deep trouble. This stanza repeats the idea of the second stanza, but now “the deep” (tehom here; meṣulah in 2:3) threatens with seaweed instead of rolling and breaking waves. In 2:5 the expression “the engulfing waters threatened me” is, literally, “waters closed in on me, over life.”

Stanza 5 takes Jonah to the ocean floor, “to the roots of the mountains” that are below the sea (2:6 [A′]). The earth “barred me in.” The word “bar” has two different meanings in English, even as in Hebrew. In both languages it means “bars” as those on a prison cell (as the grave was considered in the ancient Near East). It also denotes a “river bar” or “sand bar.” Both meanings are relevant to Jonah’s distress. He is about to be imprisoned forever in a grave of sand.

The chiasmus parallel is maintained in the name of Yahweh. “O LORD” in Jonah 2:6 echoes “to the LORD” (2:2). The parallel is also carried in reference to death. “Up from the pit” (2:6) mirrors the first stanza “from the depths of the grave” (2:2), using the synonyms “pit” (šaḥat) and “grave” (šeʾol; cf. Ps. 103:2–4).11

The Refrain of Jonah’s Deliverance (2:7–10)

THE SONG OF thanks concludes with Jonah’s refrain, declaring that “salvation comes from the LORD.” When his song is complete, Yahweh’s fish vomits Jonah onto dry land (2:10). One contemporary singer-songwriter has captured the heart of this refrain by repeating the line “Salvation belongs to the LORD” after each line.12

[2:7]When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD