1. Then Jonah prayed] What follows, Jonah 2:2-9, is rather a thanksgiving than a prayer. The same, however, may be said of Hannah’s utterance (1 Samuel 2:1-10), which is introduced by the same word (“Hannah prayed”). Comp. Acts 16:25, where Alford renders “praying, sung praises,” or “in their prayers were singing praises,” and remarks that “the distinction of modern times between prayer and praise arising from our attention being directed to the shape rather than to the essence of devotion, was unknown in these days: see Colossians 4:2.” It has, indeed, been held (Maurer) that Jonah does pray here, and that the past tenses (Jonah 2:2, &c.) are in reality present and only in form past, because they are literal quotations from some of the Psalms. It is simpler, however, to suppose, with the great majority of commentators, that Jonah had prayed to God in the prospect and the act of being cast into the sea, while he was being buffeted by the waves and sinking into the depths, and in the agony of being swallowed by the fish. During all this time, whether his lips spoke or not, his mind was fixed in that intent Godward attitude and posture which is the truest prayer. Now, however, when he finds himself alive and unharmed in that strange abode, he prays no longer, but offers thanksgivings for the measure of deliverance already granted him in answer to those former prayers, mingled with joyful anticipations of the yet further deliverance which the last verse of the chapter records. It seems probable that Jonah’s prayer was offered at the end of the three days and nights, and was followed immediately by his release. How the three days and nights were spent by him, whether in unconsciousness, as some have thought, or in godly sorrow and repentance, like Saul at Damascus, as others have held, we have no means of knowing.

his God] When Jonah flees in disobedience it is “from the presence of Jehovah;” when he prays in penitence, it is to “Jehovah his God.” Comp. “O Lord my God,” Jonah 2:6, and “my God,” Psalm 22:1.

2. and said] The prayer which follows falls naturally into three parts or divisions. In each of these the two elements of danger and deliverance, of need and help, appear. But they enter into them in very different proportions. Faith grows, and the prospect brightens at each fresh stage of the hymn. The first rises to prayer, the second to confidence, the third to thankfulness and praise.

I. Jonah 2:2-4.

(1)  Introduction, containing the general subject of the hymn: I cried and was heard, I was in trouble and was delivered. Jonah 2:2.

(2)  Description of the danger and distress. Jonah 2:3.

(3)  Faith triumphing over despondency and prompting to prayer. Jonah 2:4.

II. Jonah 2:5-6.

(1)  More vivid description of the danger and distress. Jonah 2:5-6 a.

(2)  Deliverance not only prayed for, but possessed. Jonah 2:6 b.

III. Jonah 2:7-9.

(1)  Prayer, offered in danger and distress, has been heard. Jonah 2:7.

(2)  God, no longer forsaken, but sought and recognised as the fountain of mercy, has granted deliverance which shall be acknowledged with sacrifices of thanksgiving and vows joyfully paid. Jonah 2:8-9 a.

(3)  All salvation, as this typical instance shows, is of God. Jonah 2:9 b.

The prayer is remarkable for its many resemblances in thought and expression to passages in the Book of Psalms. The words of the Psalter, however, are not exactly and literally quoted, but its ideas and phrases are freely wrought into the prayer, as if drawn from the well-stored memory of a pious Israelite, familiar with its contents, and naturally giving vent to his feelings in the cherished forms, which were now instinct for him with new life and meaning. The manner in which our English literature (not only sacred, but secular and even profane and infidel) abounds in Scripture imagery and phraseology may help us to understand how coincidences of this kind may have arisen, without any deliberate intention on the part of a later writer to copy from an earlier, or even any direct consciousness that he was doing so.

by reason of mine affliction] Rather, as in A.V. and R.V. margin, out of mine affliction, i.e. out of the midst of it, while it still compassed me about. The time referred to is when he was in the sea.

The first half of this verse is identical in the Heb. words, though not in their order, with Psalm 120:1, except that in the Psalm we have “in,” instead of “from” or “out of” mine affliction, and a lengthened form of the word for affliction is used. The coincidence cannot, however, be properly said to affect the date of the Book of Jonah. The Psalm, it is true, belongs to a collection which “in its present form must have been made after the return from Babylon,” but it by no means follows that no ode of the collection had been composed before that time. Besides, the whole sentence is, both in language and idea, too commonplace, so to speak, to be safely insisted upon as a quotation at all. Two quite independent writers may easily have lighted on it. And moreover, if quoted at all, it may owe its origin no less probably to Psalms 18, between which and the prayer of Jonah the resemblance, though less exact in this particular verse, is as a whole more close and striking. Comp. Psalm 18:6 (1st clause).

of hell] The unseen world, the place of the dead, amongst whom, when cast into the sea, he seemed already to be numbered. Comp. Psalm 18:5. “the sorrows of hell (or rather “the bonds of the unseen world”) compassed me about.”

3. hadst cast] There is no pluperf. tense in the Heb. language. There is no need, however, here to depart from the more literal rendering castedst or didst cast, R.V. See note on Jonah 2:1.

the deep] The same word is used (in the plur.) literally of Pharaoh and his host, Exodus 15:5, “They sank into the bottom,” and metaphorically, Micah 7:19.

the floods] Lit., the river. Used of the current or flowing of the sea. “And the flowing (of the sea) surrounds me.” Gesenius: ‘das strömen.’ The same word occurs in the same sense, Psalm 24:2.

All thy billows, &c.] Lit., “all Thy breakers and Thy long rolling waves.” Comp. “Quanti montes volvuntur aquarum.” Ovid. Trist. 1. ii. 19. The whole clause occurs again in Psalm 42:7, though there it is used metaphorically and here literally; or rather, to the metaphorical sense is here superadded the literal. For by calling them “Thy” breakers and waves, Jonah shews that to him, as to the Psalmist, the sense of God’s punishment and displeasure was the soul of his affliction.

4. Then I said, &c.] The first clause of this verse may, perhaps, be a reminiscence of the first clause of Psalm 31:22 (Heb. 23), though there the words “in my haste” are added, and a different verb (“cut off” instead of “cast out”) is used. “Jonah substitutes the stronger word, I am cast forth, driven forth, expelled, like the mire and dirt (Isaiah 57:20), which the waves drive along, or like the waves themselves in their restless motion (ib.), or the heathen (the word is the same) whom God had driven out before Israel (Exodus 34:11), or as Adam from Paradise. (Genesis 3:24.)”—Pusey.

thy holy temple] Not the heavenly temple or dwelling-place of God, but the literal temple. This is not, however, an expression of Jonah’s confident belief that, outcast as he now seemed to be, he would certainly be delivered, and visit again, and behold once more with his bodily eyes the temple on Mount Sion. It is the then present thought and resolution with which, when he said “I am cast out of Thy sight,” he corrected and overcame his unbelieving despondency. “One thing is left me still, one resource is still open to me, I will still pray, I will look (mentally) yet again towards Thy holy temple.” The phrase “to look towards the temple,” denoting prayer, has its origin in the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the Temple. See 1 Kings 8:29-30; 1 Kings 8:48, and comp. Daniel 6:10. The fact that Jonah was a prophet of the Northern Kingdom is no valid objection to this view. The Temple on Mount Sion was the only centre of the true worship of Jehovah, and was recognised as such by all faithful Israelites. But it would be enough to say with Calvin, “He had been circumcised, he had been a worshipper of God from his youth, he had been educated in the Law, he had been a constant participator in the sacrifies: under the name of the Temple he briefly comprehends all these things.”

5. compassed me about] It would be better, perhaps, to render surrounded me, in order to show that this is a different word from that in Jonah 2:3, and then in the second clause of this verse, where the word is the same as in Jonah 2:3, to render compassed me about, instead of closed me round about.

to the soul] i. e. so as to endanger my soul, or life. Comp. Psalm 69:1 (where similar language is used figuratively) and Jeremiah 4:10.

the weeds] The Heb. word is sûph, which so often occurs in the name Red Sea (lit., sea of sûph). “The sûph of the sea, it seems quite certain, is a seaweed resembling wool. Such sea-weed is thrown up abundantly on the shores of the Red Sea.”—Smith’s Bible Dict., Art. Red Sea.

6. bottoms] Lit., as in margin, “cuttings off,” the mountains being poetically conceived of as stretching away their roots or ridges to the lowest depths of the sea, and there ending or being cut off.

her bars] Lit., (as for) the earth, her bars, &c. The idea is that the gates of the earth were not only closed, but barred and made fast upon him, shutting him into the unseen world. The same word is used of Samson carrying away the gates of Gaza, “bar and all,” i. e. probably a wooden beam used to hold fast the gates when they were closed. Jdg 16:3. Comp. “Let not the pit shut her mouth upon me,” Psalm 69:15.

from corruption] Rather, from the pit. R. V.

7. fainted] Lit., covered itself; with reference to the film and darkness that comes over eye and mind in fainting and exhaustion. Comp. Psalm 142:3; Psalm 107:5, where the same Heb. word occurs.

thine holy temple] at Jerusalem, as in Jonah 2:4.

8. observe lying vanities] Comp. Psalm 31:6, where the same Heb. word is rendered “regard.” By “lying vanities” we are to understand “all inventions with which men deceive themselves” (Calvin), all false, and therefore vain and disappointing objects of trust and confidence. Idols and false gods are no doubt included, but the sentiment is conceived and expressed in the most general form, and therefore embraces Jonah’s own case. He had observed the lying vanity, the deceitful promise of his own will and his own way, as opposed to God; and not only had he found that God was stronger than he, but he had been brought to see and confess that in such a course he had been his own enemy.

forsake their own mercy] Rather, their mercy. Some (as Kalisch, for example) would render, “they forget their kindness,” i.e. “they quickly and heedlessly forget the mercies they have enjoyed; the word forsake being taken in the sense of deserting, or dismissing, viz. from their thoughts,” and “their mercies,” as analogous to the phrase, the sure mercies of David (Isaiah 55:3), “the benefits conferred upon or enjoyed by David.” But, apart from the meaning thus arbitrarily given to the word “forsake,” the sentiment attributed to the writer is unsatisfactory and untrue. “The suppliant declares,” writes Kalisch, “I was in distress, I prayed and was saved; and now, unlike the idolaters who gracelessly forget the bounties they have received, I shall evince my gratitude to Jehovah by the voice of praise and by sacred gifts.” But it is not true that the idolaters in this sense “forget the benefits they have received,” as ch. Jonah 1:16 shows, and as the heathen temples filled with votive offerings in acknowledgment of deliverance abundantly testify.

By “their mercy” we are to understand God, who is the only source of mercy and loving-kindness to all His creatures. The sentiment is similar to that which is figuratively expressed by the prophet Jeremiah: “They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13.) So God is called, “my mercy,” Psalm 144:2 (margin), the same word being used as here.

9. But I] in contrast to my former self, and to the whole body of those of whom I then was one, will humbly claim and gratefully acknowledge my share in “my Mercy.” “I will sacrifice unto Thee,” &c.

Salvation is of the Lord] Comp. Psalm 3:8, Revelation 7:10. This is at once confession and praise, a Creed and a Te Deum. It is the sum of his canticle, the outcome of all he has passed through. Deliverance in its fullest sense is already his in faith and confident anticipation. But God alone is the Author of it, and to Him alone shall the praise for it be ascribed. This point reached, Jonah’s punishment has done its work, his discipline is at an end.