Jonah 2:3

For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) Hadst cast.—Rather, didst cast. (See Psalm 88:6.)

Floods.—Literally, river, used here of the ocean currents. (Comp. Psalm 24:2.)

All thy billows and thy waves.—More exactly, all thy breakers and billows. (See Psalm 42:7, where the same expression is used figuratively for great danger and distress.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:1-9 Observe when Jonah prayed. When he was in trouble, under the tokens of God's displeasure against him for sin: when we are in affliction we must pray. Being kept alive by miracle, he prayed. A sense of God's good-will to us, notwithstanding our offences, opens the lips in prayer, which were closed with the dread of wrath. Also, where he prayed; in the belly of the fish. No place is amiss for prayer. Men may shut us from communion with one another, but not from communion with God. To whom he prayed; to the Lord his God. This encourages even backsliders to return. What his prayer was. This seems to relate his experience and reflections, then and afterwards, rather than to be the form or substance of his prayer. Jonah reflects on the earnestness of his prayer, and God's readiness to hear and answer. If we would get good by our troubles, we must notice the hand of God in them. He had wickedly fled from the presence of the Lord, who might justly take his Holy Spirit from him, never to visit him more. Those only are miserable, whom God will no longer own and favour. But though he was perplexed, yet not in despair. Jonah reflects on the favour of God to him, when he sought to God, and trusted in him in his distress. He warns others, and tells them to keep close to God. Those who forsake their own duty, forsake their own mercy; those who run away from the work of their place and day, run away from the comfort of it. As far as a believer copies those who observe lying vanities, he forsakes his own mercy, and lives below his privileges. But Jonah's experience encourages others, in all ages, to trust in God, as the God of salvation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For Thou hadst ("didst") cast me into the deep - Jonah continues to describe the extremity of peril, from which God had already delivered him. Sweet is the memory of perils past. For they speak of God's Fatherly care. Sweet is it, to the prophet to tell God of His mercies; but this is sweet only to the holy, for God's mercy convicts the careless of ingratitude. Jonah then tells God, how He had cast him vehemently forth into the "eddying depth," where, when Pharaoh's army "sank like a stone" (Exodus 15:5, add Exodus 15:10), they never rose, and that, "in the heart" or center "of the seas," from where no strong swimmer could escape to shore. "The floods" or "flood," (literally "river,") the sea with its currents, "surrounded" him, encompassing him on all sides; and, above, tossed its multitudinous waves, passing over him, like an army trampling one prostrate underfoot. Jonah remembered well the temple psalms, and, using their words, united himself with those other worshipers who sang them, and taught us how to speak them to God. The sons of Korah Psalm 42:7. had poured out to God in these self-same words the sorrows which oppressed them. The rolling billows and the breakers , which, as they burst upon the rocks, shiver the vessel and crush man, are, he says to God, "Thine," fulfilling Thy will on me.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. thou hadst cast … thy billows … thy waves—Jonah recognizes the source whence his sufferings came. It was no mere chance, but the hand of God which sent them. Compare Job's similar recognition of God's hand in calamities, Job 1:21; 2:10; and David's, 2Sa 16:5-11.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For: this introduceth the account of his distress, mentioned Jonah 2:2.

Thou, the Almighty, offended by my frowardness and obstinacy,

hadst cast me into the deep; though the mariners’ hands heaved me overboard, it was thy hand that did it, and pressed me sore. The deep; the bottom of the sea: by what follows it is probable Jonah was cast into the sea far from shore.

In the midst of the seas, or heart of the seas, but more literally and strictly in the midst of the seas, than that Ezekiel 27:4.

The floods; either the mighty rivers which run into that sea, or the floods, the mighty currents, which the rolling sea and winds with tide made.

All thy billows and thy waves passed over me; the surges of the sea, which explains what before he called the floods. Here is an elegant description of the violence and horror of the seas into which Jonah was cast, which tossed his body, and signified the terrors wherewith his soul was distressed from God’s immediate hand, as Psalm 42:7.

Thy waves: Jonah seeth God’s hand and sovereignty in all this, intimating that he prayed for what he knew his God could do for him.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas,.... Though the mariners did this, yet Jonah ascribes it to the Lord; he knew it was he, whom he had sinned against and offended; that he was he that sent the storm after him into the sea; that determined the lot to fall upon him; that it was not only by his permission, but according to his will, that he should be east into it, and overcame the reluctance of the men to it, and so worked upon them that they did it; and therefore Jonah imputes it to him, and not to them; nor does he complain of it, or murmur at it; or censure it as an unrighteous action, or as hard, cruel, and severe; but rather mentions it to set off the greatness of his deliverance: and by this it appears, that it was far from shore when Jonah was cast into the sea, it was the great deep; and which also is confirmed by the large fish which swallowed him, which could, not swim but in deep waters; and because of the multitude of the waters, called "seas", and "in the heart" (c) of them, as it may be rendered; and agreeably Christ the antitype of Jonah lay in the heart of the earth, Matthew 12:40;

and the floods compassed me about; all thy billows and thy waves passed over me; which was his case as soon as cast into the sea, before the fish had swallowed him, as well as after: this was literally true of Jonah, what David says figuratively concerning his afflictions, and from whom the prophet seems to borrow the expressions, Psalm 42:7; and indeed he might use them also in a metaphorical sense, with a view to the afflictions of body, and sorrows of death, that compassed him; and to the billows and waves of divine wrath, which in his apprehension lay upon him, and rolled over him.

(c) "in corde", V. L. Cocceius; "in cor", Montanus, Drusius.

Geneva Study Bible

For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

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.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - He describes his danger and distress. Thou hadst cast; rather, thou didst cast, the sailors being the agents of the Divine will. Septuagint, ἀπέῥῬιψας. The deep; βάθη, "depths" (Septuagint); Exodus 15:8. In the midst; literally, in the heart; Septuagint, καρδίας θαλάσσης: galore, in corde maris. This defines more closely the previous expression. The floods; literally, the river. This may mean the current (as in Psalm 24:2), which in the Mediterranean Sea sets from west to east, and, impinging on the Syrian coast, turns north; or it may have reference to the notion, familiar to us in Homer. which regarded the ocean as a river. All thy billows and thy waves; πάντες οἱ μετεωρισμοί σου καὶ τὰ κύματά σου "all thy swellings and waves" (Septuagint); omnes gurgites tui, et fluctus tui (Vulgate). The former are "breakers," the latter "rolling billows." The clause is from Psalm 42:7, Jonah transferring what is there said metaphorically to his own literal experience, at the same time acknowledging God's hand in the punishment by speaking of "thy billows" (comp. Psalm 88:6, 7). Jonah 2:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

3 Thou castedst me into the deep, into the heart of the seas,

And the stream surrounded me;

All Thy billows and Thy waves went over me.

4 Then I said, I am thrust away from Thine eyes,

Yet I will look again to Thy holy temple.

The more minute description of the peril of death is attached by Vav consec., to express not sequence in time, but sequence of thought. Jehovah cast him into the depth of the sea, because the seamen were merely the executors of the punishment inflicted upon him by Jehovah. Metsūlâh, the deep, is defined by "the heart of the seas" as the deepest abyss of the ocean. The plural yammı̄m (seas) is used here with distinct significance, instead of the singular, "into the heart of the sea" (yâm) in Exodus 15:8, to express the idea of the boundless ocean (see Dietrich, Abhandlung zur hebr. Grammatik, pp. 16, 17). The next clauses are circumstantial clauses, and mean, so that the current of the sea surrounded me, and all the billows and waves of the sea, which Jehovah had raised into a storm, went over me. Nâhâr, a river or stream, is the streaming or current of the sea, as in Psalm 24:2. The words of the second hemistich are a reminiscence of Psalm 42:8. What the Korahite singer of that psalm had experienced spiritually, viz., that one wave of trouble after another swept over him, that had the prophet literally experienced. Jonah "does not say, The waves and the billows of the sea went over me; but Thy waves and Thy billows, because he felt in his conscience that the sea with its waves and billows was the servant of God and of His wrath, to punish sin" (Luther). Jonah 2:4 contains the apodosis to Jonah 2:3: "When Thou castedst me into the deep, then I said (sc., in my heart, i.e., then I thought) that I was banished from the sphere of Thine eyes, i.e., of Thy protection and care." These words are formed from a reminiscence of Psalm 31:23, נגרשׁתּי being substituted for the נגרזתּי of the psalm. The second hemistich is attached adversatively. אך, which there is no necessity to alter into אך equals איך, as Hitzig supposes, introduces the antithesis in an energetic manner, like אכם elsewhere, in the sense of nevertheless, as in Isaiah 14:15; Psalm 49:16; Job 13:15 (cf. Ewald, 354, a). The thought that it is all over with him is met by the confidence of faith that he will still look to the holy temple of the Lord, that is to say, will once more approach the presence of the Lord, to worship before Him in His temple, - an assurance which recals Psalm 5:8.

The thought that by the grace of the Lord he has been once more miraculously delivered out of the gates of death, and brought to the light of the world, is carried out still further in the following strophe, in entirely new turns of thought.