Background
1. II Kings 14:25 dates Jonah with the reign of Jereboam II (793-753 BC)
2. This means that Jonah was a contemporary of Amos and Hosea.
3. This was a time of power and prosperity for Israel (the Northern Kingdom) but also of widespread idol worship and economic injustice.
4. The nation of Assyria was rising in prominence and power.
5. This is the only time a prophet of Israel was sent to a foreign country.
Jonah the Man
1. Jonah’s name means dove.
2. Jonah’s Character:
a. He must have been a courageous man to go to Nineveh, the capital city of a fierce, powerful, godless nation.
b. He was patriotic but narrow minded. He loved his native Israel but believed that Gentiles were undeserving of the blessings of God. However, this was typical of the mindset of his day.
c. He did not understand the heart of God to bring all people to repentance and the experience of His forgiving grace.
d. He was not entirely dedicated to God, a truth revealed when he ran from his calling.
e. He must have been a powerful witness when under the prophetic anointing — an entire city repented when he preached.
Message of Jonah
1. God desired to lavish His mercy on all people groups, not just Israel. God had chosen and separated Israel, not to exclude the world, but to prepare Israel as His messenger to the world. Far from ignoring the world, God intended to send the Gospel of salvation to all Gentiles. Israel, as the nation centrally involved in God’s redemptive purpose, needed seasons of special preparation to be God’s witness. But God wanted to remind the world, through Jonah, that He had not forgotten about them nor had He excluded them.
2. The message of grace to Gentiles is a rebuke to the narrow mindedness of Israel. Jonah received this rebuke in his personal experience with the great fish. The written record served as a rebuke to the Israelite nation.
3. Jonah serves as a type of Christ. Jesus Himself spoke of Jonah's experience with the great fish as typifying His own three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matt 12:39-41).
Lessons from the book
1. God’s pursuit of Jonah when he ran from God’s calling reveals how serious the Lord is about His calling and purpose in our lives.
2. We are not to allow selfish personal or national interests to interfere with our obedience. There is no room for racial or national bigotry in our ministries. We need more than a calling to be truth-speakers. We need the character of Christ.
3. God’s warnings can be conditional: God said he would destroy Nineveh but the people repented and God relented.
4. When God’s word is preached under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, in God’s perfect time, that Word will have a profound, destiny-changing impact on people and nations.
5. God’s truth-speakers should be more intent on saving souls than exacting revenge for real or imagined hurts or crimes or sins against us personally or against our society.
Jonah’s Message:
“Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (3:4).
The response:
The king and the entire city repented.
Reasons for Success:
1. The conditioning of the people by historical events. Jonah ministered around 760 BC. The people would have been more receptive for three reasons:
a. Weak kings and political instability in Assyria had created a feeling of insecurity, lack of faith in their national power, a loss of self-reliant pride.
b. A serious plague had swept through the land in 765 BC.
c. A total eclipse of the sun occurred on June 15, 763 BC which created fear.
2. The power of the prophetic presence:
Jonah not only proclaimed God’s impending judgement but also by His presence, proclaimed God’s power to bring about that judgement. Jonah must have borne some physical marks from his time in the fish’s belly. This would have spoken of the power of God to execute His justice.
3. The power of prophetic witness:
Under the powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit, the prophetic word penetrated the hearts of the people and brought about a spirit of repentance.
Outline:
1. Assignment and flight 1:1-17
2. Prayer of Jonah 2:1-10
3. Ministry call renewed, ministry and Nineveh's repentance 3:1-10
4. Jonah's displeasure, God’s reproof: 4:1-11
Exposition:
1:1 “The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying,”
Jonah is not sharing his opinions, theories or personal philosophy. The Word of the Lord came to Jonah. God is not hiding truth. He reveals truth to His prophet so that people can know the truth and order their lives accordingly. Peter reminds us, For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God (2 Peter 1:21).
The phrase, Jonah the son of Amittai identifies the prophet with the Jonah of 2 Kings 14:25. This was during the reign of King Jeroboam (793-753 BC) and was a time of economic prosperity for some in Israel, but also a time of terrible corruption characterized by the worship of false gods, economic injustice and immorality.
This was also a time of fervent nationalism in Israel. The wealthy and the powerbrokers wrongly assumed that their power and prosperity were proof of the favor of God on their nation. In fact, the judgment of God was looming on the horizon and would soon be proclaimed by the prophets Amos and Hosea. But the political, religious and economic leadership of the nation was oblivious to any threats.
The calling of God on Jonah’s life testifies that he was not a worshipper of idols, nor an oppressor of the poor nor an immoral man. However, he was deeply impacted by the pro-Israel, anti-foreigner pride of his day. Love of country is not wrong but there is a brand of patriotism which blindly ignores the sins of one’s nation and fosters a hatred for other cultures. As we will see, this made it difficult for Jonah to answer the prophetic call on his life.
As we said in the introduction, there can be no room for personal, national or racial bigotry in ministry. Jonah needed more than calling. He needed character that reflected the heart of God.
There is an obvious personal note here for each of us. As we pray for the Lord to show us our calling and our giftings, we also need to ask Him to develop in us His heart. We need more than a prophetic word from God. We need the heart and eyes of God to see ourselves and our world as He sees; and grace to accept the truth.
1:2 “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.”
God calls Jonah to proclaim a prophetic word of warning in Nineveh, the capitol city of Israel’s adversary, Assyria. Other prophets spoke words of warning and judgment against Gentile nations but this is the only time a prophet was sent to prophesy in person to a Gentile people.
The phrase, their wickedness has come up before Me reveals two important truths about God:
1. All nations and people groups are morally accountable to God. The fact that the people of Nineveh worshipped false gods does not exclude them from moral accountability before the true and living God. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 1:18-20 that God has revealed His existence to all people through the grandness of creation and the inner witness of conscience. The problem is not that God cannot be known but that people suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18). Therefore, God holds all people accountable.
2. We also see in God’s concern for Nineveh a God who is involved in human affairs, whose compassion extends to every tribe and tongue and nation, a God who is bigger than our national or religious prejudices.
We will see later that Jonah is given a message of the love of God which, like a river at flood stage, bursts through the narrow boundaries of religious and national prejudice. Jonah has encountered the God who is so much greater than the small religious, cultural and national cathedrals we have often built for Him.
1:3 “But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”
Jonah’s response to the call of God is to flee. Tarshish is identified by some commentators as a city in what today is Spain. That was as far west as a man could run using the transportation available at that time.
Jonah was not running from the office of prophet but from a message that exposes and violates his prejudice. He hates the people of Nineveh because they are not Jews and they are the enemy of his nation. He doesn’t want to proclaim the word of God to them because they might turn from their sin and experience the mercy of God. He wants them to be destroyed and he cannot fathom God’s love for them.
So the message of judgement for Nineveh becomes a message of judgement for the prophet. God has exposed Jonah’s sin. When God exposes our sin, He is also seeking to reveal to us that He is the only One who can cleanse us of our sin and make us holy. In fleeing the God who reveals our sin, we flee the only One who can set us free.
Again, Jonah is not fleeing his prophetic calling but he is experiencing a conflict of wills between himself and God. He does not understand God’s love for Gentiles and he surely does not grasp the relationship between judgement and mercy: God is slow to judge, quick to forgive and only judges those who have refused mercy.
Jonah wanted a God who would be on his side, a God who would vote for his party, a God who will destroy “those other folks”, the folks different from him. Someone asked President Abraham Lincoln if God was on the side of the Union. Lincoln replied that the correct question is: Are we on God’s side?
When Jonah realized that God’s purpose was to save and not destroy, he rose up to flee. Some seek the will of God to do it. Some, discerning the will of God, flee from it. But as David asked, Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night’, even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You (Ps. 139:7-12).
It is impossible to escape the call of God pressing into our lives but Jonah is not the only person who recoiled from the call of God: Jeremiah said, Alas, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, because I am a youth (Jer 1:6). Moses also protested God’s call on the grounds that he could not speak well (Ex. 4:10). Each eventually surrendered.
How can we escape the One in Whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)? Indeed, where can I flee from the presence of the God who spoke a universe into being, who fills and encompasses all He created and has created each of us for special purpose?
1:4 “The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up.”
This was not an ordinary storm but a great wind, so great that the ship was about to break up. Notice the divine intentionality of this storm. It was no random event. The Lord hurled a great wind. God created this storm.
Jonah cannot possibly escape when all things are God’s instrument. The storm, the sea, the fish — all creation serves God’s purpose. The storm was a God-directed circumstance, motivated by God’s mercy toward the people of Nineveh and to Jonah. God has an assignment for him, wants him to enjoy the fulfillment of living out his life-purpose. The God who loves Jonah will not allow him to miss his life purpose. And God will not allow the wicked citizens of Nineveh to go to hell without hearing the declaration of His love for them.
1:5 “Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down and fallen sound asleep.”
The sailors had faced many storms but the fierceness of this one evokes fear. They cry out to their personal gods which, because they do not exist, cannot save them.
Meanwhile, Jonah is fast asleep. He is also asleep to his separation from God and the resulting judgement of God breaking around him. He is asleep to the consequences of his rebellion, asleep to the lostness of the people of Nineveh, asleep to his ministry calling, asleep to the irony that though he is a prophet of God, he hates the Word of God so much that He flees from it.
How tragic when anyone sleeps through the unique design and purpose of God for their life. How terrible to reach the end of life and realize, “I missed the reason God created me.” I read about a man had spent his life pursuing wealth and power. He was asked, “Now that you have reached the top of the mountain, what would you tell yourself if you were just starting out?
He replied, “I would tell myself that there’s nothing at the top of the mountain.”
Jonah is in danger of missing the reason God created him. He is in danger of spending his life climbing the wrong mountain. How potentially tragic!
Also, there is a sense of false peace in his sleep. Does he imagine he has evaded God, evaded the calling of God on his life, evaded the mercy God would extend to the Ninevites? Does he really believe God will let him go so easily, allow him to miss the most fulfilling experience in this life — living out God’s design for him? Does he believe the Lord will allow the Ninevites to perish so easily? Jonah underestimates the relentless mercy of God.
1:6 So the captain approached him and said, ‘How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.’
Get up, call on your god, the heathen captain exhorts the man of God. How ironic, that a pagan man who does not know God exhorts a prophet of the living God to rise up and pray. How much better to be sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. God grant us prophetic eyes and ears to know ourselves and our times with holy insight and to carry a burden for prayer.
1:7 Each man said to his mate, ‘Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us.’ So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
The violence of the storm has convinced the crew that someone on the ship has offended one of the gods. This is all they know — a universe dominated by capricious gods who need to be bought off with ritual and offering. There belief was that some god would somehow direct the falling of the lot on the guilty party. The true and living God causes the lot to fall on Jonah.
1:8,9 Then they said to him, ‘Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?’ He said to them, ‘I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.’
They ask Jonah to identify himself. He identifies himself as a Hebrew and confesses his fear (yare — worship, reverence, awe) of the Lord God of heaven — Yahweh Adonai. Yahweh is the eternal God, the great I Am. Adonai is the God of majesty and authority, the God who made the sea and the dry land.
Jonah’s confession of faith is in sharp contrast to his action. He reverences God but runs from God, evades doing or obeying the known will of this mighty, everlasting Creator. He confesses reverence while expressing rebellion. Like the nation he represents, he believes he can disobey God and call himself a worshipper, both at the same time.
Note also Jonah’s faith that God is Creator of the sea and the dry land yet he evidently thinks he can flee from this God, who encompasses all He created. Jonah has not thought through the implications of his faith or else he does not really believe that God is who he says God is.
Meanwhile, Jonah is caught in a storm which he and all the crew of the ship believe is the work of God. Obviously, God is requiring that Jonah re-evaluate his thinking and surrender to the calling of God. It is as if the Lord is saying, “You can surrender here on this ship or in the next place I have designed for you. How far down do you want to go?”
This relentless pursuit of Jonah is an act of love. God loves him too much to allow him to run from the calling and purpose of God. The deepest fulfillment Jonah will ever know is in fulfilling the purpose of God for his life. He is a prophet. His fulfillment will be found in carrying out the duties of that office. He can run but he cannot escape the God who designed him for this time, for this office, for this word.
The good news is that the God who pursues him, who will not let him escape his calling, is also the God who will be with him all the way down to the bottom of his flight.
1:10 “Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, “How could you do this?” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.”
This revelation of God’s sovereignty cause the crew to be even more afraid.
1:11 “So they said to him, ‘What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?’ — for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy.”
The men demonstrate kindness toward Jonah and reverence toward God in asking, What shall we do to you? They believe something must be done for this is surely a great God and the storm is growing in its intensity. But they don’t want to act rashly toward Jonah. Such is the humanity of these pagans whom Jonah would exclude from the mercy of God.
1:12 “He said to them, ‘Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you.’”
Throw me into the sea, Jonah suggests. He understands that the justice of God will not be satisfied through some vain ritual — Jonah himself must be given up to God. But he is motivated by more than an understanding of divine justice. He also shows mercy to the crew — he would not see them perish for his own sin. This is surely a more merciful attitude to non-Jews than he had exhibited before.
But this also exposes the hardness of Jonah’s heart. He would rather die than surrender to God. He doesn’t understand that the way into life is by dying to our selfish rebellion against God.
Jesus said, If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matthew 16:24-26).
The way into life is by dying to self and living to God, denying our own purpose, dethroning our self-centered agenda and enthroning the Lord and His purpose. The way into life is by dying to our life and living for God. But Jonah is not yet willing to surrender to this.
Ironic that Jonah can show mercy to heathen sailors yet he could not conceive of God having mercy on millions of heathen Ninevites. How sad, that he believes God to be less capable of mercy than himself.
However, note the slow melting of his prejudice. He had been “a gentleman of prejudice,” a religious man who hated all foreigners as faceless masses — the Ninevites, for instance. He was unable to see them as individual persons but as “those people.” Now in the company of a few heathen men with faces and names, he finds mercy rising up from his soul. He is learning to see through the eyes of God, to love with the heart of God.
Racism and bigotry are a failure of the imagination, a disease of soul and spirit which robs us of the capacity to see other people as beings created in the image of God, people whom God loves. God restores and renews our soul by introducing us to those we once hated.
On account of me this great storm has come upon you, Jonah confesses. He recognizes his complicity and sees the hand of God in this storm but still shows no repentance. He may be sorry for the circumstance but not for the sin that caused it.
1:13 “However, the men rowed desperately to return to land but they could not, for the sea was becoming even stormier against them.”
Again we see the kindness of the sailors. They try to row out of the circumstance rather than give Jonah up to the storm. But God will not allow them to row out of the judgment which He has designed. Jonah has run from God but only so far as God allows. Now he will run no further.
1:14 Then they called on the Lord and said, ‘We earnestly pray, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for You, O Lord, have done as You have pleased.’
Though blessed with little revelation, the sailors cry out to Jonah’s God — Yahweh. They are sure that if they cast Jonah overboard, he will die and they ask God not to hold them accountable for innocent blood. Not that Jonah is an innocent man but he has done nothing to merit death at their hands.
They also recognize the sovereignty of God: You, O Lord, have done as You have pleased.
God did as He pleased in Jonah's life. But this should be pleasing to Jonah and to us, to be kept by the hand of God from wandering off into unfruitfulness, to be arrested and confined in the ultimate fulfillment of living out God’s design for our lives.
1:15 “So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging.”
When they cast Jonah into the sea, the sea stopped its raging. This appears to have taken place immediately, again proving the sovereignty of Jonah’s God over creation.
1:16 “Then the men feared the Lord greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.”
The immediate calming of the storm produced great reverence for Yahweh. This doesn’t mean that they came to a place of faith, only that they believe Jonah’s God is a player who needs to be reckoned with and satisfied just like the other gods, so they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. However, the responsiveness of the pagan sailors shows how reachable they are, if Godly people would only reflect the light of God into their hearts.
1:17 “And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.
The word for fish is dag which is not the usual Hebrew word for whale. That word is tannin, which can be translated dragon, monster, whale. This is not the word leviathan, which is translated sea monster.
This is simply a great fish, a creature evidently created and appointed by God to serve His special, unique purpose. Like the storm, this is a God-directed circumstance, the purpose of which is to arrest Jonah, to prevent him from evading and nullifying God’s purpose for his life.
If Jonah had been successful in running from God, he would not only have missed the joy of serving God in his generation. He would also have denied thousands of people in Nineveh the blessing of eternal salvation. God, in His mercy and His sovereignty, will not allow this.
How did Jonah survive in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights? We are not told. The same God who in His sovereign power created the storm, calmed the storm and created this sea creature, also ordained Jonah’s survival for seventy two hours.
I believe this narrative for two reasons. First of all, All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). All Scripture includes this record from the life of Jonah.
Second, Jesus testifies to the truthfulness of this account. He said, For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matt 12:40). Jesus compares the time between His death and resurrection to the time Jonah spent in the belly of the whale.
Scripture does not lie. Neither does our Lord. We can trust that God has revealed this narrative to us so that we may learn and grow in our capacity to answer the call of God in our lives, in our generation.
Study Questions:
1. The Ninevites were pagans. Why does God want Jonah to preach to them?
2. Why is Jonah running from the call of God?
In the final verse of chapter one we read, And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights (1:17).
2:1 “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish,”
After three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, Jonah held a prayer meeting. It’s incredible to me that it took that long to break down his stubbornness and his rebellion against God. That’s a man with significant resistance to God.
Up to this point, we do not read that he had prayed to God about any of this. It took a storm and a supernatural incarceration in a fish to bring him to a willingness to even communicate with God. Aren’t you glad that God loves Jonah and the people of Nineveh enough to patiently contend with this stubborn, rebellious prophet? Aren’t you glad that the Lord loves each of us enough to continue to call to us and work with us even when we are resistant and rebellious?
2:2 “and he said, ‘I called out of my distress to the Lord, and He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice.’”
Jonah speaks of a God who hears him and answers him, even though he called out from the depth of Sheol. Sheol was the Hebrew concept of the abode of the dead but can also refer to an extreme, life-threatening circumstance. This is Jonah’s meaning.
How reassuring to know that there is no place we can go, no crisis we can experience that will remove us from God’s ever-present willingness to respond to us. We are reminded of the words of the Psalmist, I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm (Ps. 40:1.2).
And again the Psalmist says, He sent from on high, He took me; He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy (Ps. 18:16,17). In Jonah’s case, the mighty enemy was his own pride, prejudice and stubbornness. And the Lord delivered Him.
Jonah is in the belly of the fish because he has sinned against God but even in his sin, God is still present, still hears him when he prays. What a gracious God!
2:3 “For You had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me.”
Jonah recognizes that it is God who has cast him into the deep. The waves and billows are Your waves and billows. The storm, the fish — these are not random coincidence. He has encountered th power of the God who is sovereign over time and creation and circumstance.
2:4 “So I said, ‘I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’”
Jonah knows now that although he cannot escape the omnipresence of the God who hears him and answers him, he realizes that he is far removed from God’s calling on His life. I have been expelled from Your sight is a testimony of the judgment of God. God is present in all places at all times but we can separate ourselves from His blessing, His favor. We can separate ourselves from His design for our lives and the anointing, the wisdom, the empowerment and resources that will enable us to fulfill His purpose.
Jonah realizes that though God is present and hears him, he is under God’s judgment.
I will look again toward Your holy temple is an expression of repentance. The Jerusalem temple is the place where God manifested His glory on earth and Jonah is ready now to turn his gaze toward God’s glory.
This is a lesson here for all humanity. Though we cannot be separated from the God who is omnipresent (present in all places at all times), we can be separated by our sin from the manifest presence and glory of God. We can be separated from what God is doing and blessing. We can be separated from His grace and thereby separated from His wonderful design and purpose for our lives. But we may call out to God and He will hear us. We may turn our eyes again to His glory.
2:5,6 “Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, but You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.”
Though he is captured in the deeps of this watery prison, Jonah speaks as though God has already delivered him, You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. He is still in the belly of the great fish, still encompassed by the sea, yet he speaks of deliverance as taking place from the time that he calls out, for that is when God hears and answers.
The Lord said to Isaiah, It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear (Isa. 65:24).
God said to Moses, I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings (Ex. 3:7).
The Psalmist said, I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears …This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles (Ps. 34:4,6).
As the Lord said to the Psalmist, so he says to each of us, Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me (Ps. 50:15).
Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know (Jere. 33:3).
He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him (Ps. 91:15).
And I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God’ (Zech. 13:3).
In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry for help before Him came into His ears (Psalm. 18:6).
God is full of grace and compassion, quick to forgive and deliver when we call on Him in true, humble repentance and faith. The Apostle John said, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I Jn. 1:9). Jonah understood that God’s delivering grace and power was released in the moment He called out.
2:7 “While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to You, into Your holy temple.”
Though his soul and body were fainting away (overwhelmed), though he is separated from the presence of God in the Jerusalem temple, still he could say that my prayer came to You, into Your temple. Physical separation from God (and whatever spiritual separation he has experienced due to his sin) cannot prevent his prayer from coming before God when he truly repents of his sin and calls on God with a humble heart. Though he has disobeyed God, rebelled, incurred the judgement of God, still his prayer comes before God because now his heart is right.
2:8,9 “Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness. But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord.”
Those who regard (or cling to) vain idols refers to the worship of false gods. How tragic in the crises and storms of life to hang on to gods that are not gods. Though these gods do not exist, the rituals and belief systems undergirding them are infused with demonic presence and power. And how dangerous, how treacherous to cling to demonic presence and power which is far more deadly than the storm or the crisis.
Those who do cling to vain idols forsake or miss faithfulness. That is, they forfeit the faithful mercy and delivering power which the true and living God desires to pour out on them.
Jonah contrasts himself with those who cling to gods that are not gods, who walk away from the only source of true mercy. Instead, he offers to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. In the following verse we see that Jonah was delivered when he began to praise God with this sacrifice of thanksgiving. The heart of his thanksgiving is that God alone is the Source of true deliverance.
That which I have vowed I will pay means that Jonah is ready now to take up the ministry of prophet, obey God, go where God sends and say what God says.
2:10 “Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.”
Verse 10 follows the prayer and song of thanksgiving which began in verse 2. The thought is that Jonah prayed to the Lord, praised the Lord and the Lord commanded the fish which vomited Jonah out on dry land. God is Lord of all creation, moving creation through what seems like chaos toward the fulfillment of divine purpose.
There is a principle here which we see throughout the Bible: when we praise God before He has answered our prayer, we place ourselves in a setting where God’s answer can be released.
This is why the Apostle Paul exhorts us, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God (Phlp. 4:6). Encase your prayer with thanksgiving.
King David cried out, O God, You have rejected us. You have broken us; You have been angry; O, restore us (Psalm 60:1). But he concludes his prayer with these words, Through God we shall do valiantly, and it is He who will tread down our adversaries (60:12). He praises God for the answer before God has answered.
In Psalm 130, the Psalmist pleads with the Lord, Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord (130:1). But he closes the Psalm with these words, O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is lovingkindness, and with Him is abundant redemption. And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities (Ps. 130:7,8). He praises God for the answer before God has answered.
Through Isaiah the Lord exhorted Israel, ‘Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child; break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed; for the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous than the sons of the married woman,’ says the Lord (Isa. 54:1). During a time of national defeat, God tells a barren, desolate nation, Shout for joy … break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud . The phrase, shout for joy is the word ranan which can be translated sing, as in Psalm 59:16, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning. It is a joyful cry, a shout of triumph, the song of a victorious warrior.
In Isaiah 54:1, God promises the barren one that abundance will come after the people break forth or break out in joyful worship and praise. There is a breaking out, a breaking through when we praise God, not just for what we have seen or known of God in the past but for what He has promised.
The barren one would see great blessing as she broke out / broke through in joyful praise. Praise precedes, anticipates the blessing. It is prophetic praise, telling forth the wonderful promises of a God who is faithful to fulfill all of His kind purpose toward us.
So it was with Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail. Though they had been falsely accused, beaten, denied justice and thrown into the prison, About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened (Acts 16:25,26).
So it is with us. If we will turn from our sin and give thanks to God, He will hear and He will answer. Paul reminds us, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phl. 4:6,7).
Jonah called on the Lord from the belly of the great fish. God heard him and we will see in chapter three, the Lord restored him to his prophetic office, restored him to the divine call to be the voice of truth in a land of lying idols, to be a light shining in a dark place. This is the Lord of whom Isaiah speaks, I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you, and I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from the prison (Isa. 42:6). This is God’s word to each of us.
Study Questions:
1. When did Jonah call on the Lord?
2. When he turned to the Lord and praised Him, what did the Lord do?