Jonah 2:7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in to you, into your holy temple. It is interesting to mark the workings of a soul when struggling with the strong billows of affliction, especially if that affliction has come in the immediate train of backsliding, and appears as the net in which God has caught a wanderer from the fold, or the rod by which He would bring him back to wisdom and obedience. 1. The altered feeling toward God of which Jonah was now conscious, as compared with that state of mind which tempted him to go astray. Now, it is the bitterest part of his complaint that he was far from God. It must be a sanctified trouble which disposes the soul to feel thus toward God. 2. It was but the natural consequence of this state of mind in Jonah, though it may be noted as another mark of his sanctified affliction, that he poured out his heart in prayer: the spirit of Sonship was again revived in him, and it led him to cry, Abba, Father. 3. Mark the workings of faith here, sanctified affliction being always characterised by the degree in which faith is called into exercise.Notice the peculiar views and feelings which are expressed in this prayer. 1. The exercise of faith in regard to the appointment of the visitation: "Thou hast cast me," etc. 2. The confidence and hope in God not extinguished, but rather roused into action by the extremity of his distress. Faith always is, in proportion to its clearness and strength, fertile in resources. 3. There is a further manifestation of faith in the words of Jonah, although it lies less upon the surface than those already noticed. It is the use made of the earlier portions of God's Word, and the recorded experiences of former times. 4. The last thing to notice in the prayer, as a mark of sanctified affliction, is the purpose of amendment it expresses. (Patrick Fairbairn.) Parallel Verses KJV: When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. |
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