THIRD CHAPTER
Jon 1:17 And the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
2:1 And Jonah prayed to the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,
2 and he said, I cried to the LORD from my distress. And He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried for help, and You heard my voice.
3 For You cast me into the depths of the seas, and the current surrounded me. All Your breakers and Your waves passed over me.
4 Then I said, I am cast off from Your eyes, yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.
5 Waters encompassed me, even to the soul; the depth closed around me; the seaweed was bound to my head.
6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was around me forever; yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.
7 When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came in to You, into Your holy temple.
8 They who take heed to lying vanities forsake their kindness;
9 but I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will fulfill that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the LORD!
10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out on the dry land.
(MKJV)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zegqjuz4Cro
And also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvE3Vd-BDW8&nohtml5=False
I went for "Impossible" and added the "Ocean Deep" which seems written with Jonah in mind.
Now we get to the part people doubt. Explanations start with our friend, J. Vernon MacGee:
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12:39-41)
"If you reject the Book of Jonah, you are not merely saying that you cannot accept the record as reasonable, but that you do not believe that Jesus was acquainted with the facts of the case. You break with Jesus when you deny the Book of Jonah. The fact that the question has been raised concerning the authenticity of Jonah’s record is all the more startling when a contrast is made with one of the other minor prophets. For instance, there is no reference to Habakkuk in any historical book, and he is never mentioned by name in the New Testament. In spite of this, there is no concerted effort to classify him as a mythological character. Of course, the real reason for getting rid of Jonah is to get rid of the miraculous experience that he records concerning himself."
Some can believe in God sending a storm, sending one Hebrew man into a major urban capitol, even in Jonah hearing God (Schizophernia, you know.) But, for centuries, any non-believer would deny a man could be swallowed by a fish.
Two points: Years ago, I distinctly recall seeing a photo of a man who was cut from the gut of a sperm whale hours after the man had fallen in the water and been swallowed by it. His body was reportedly hairless and, in the black and white photo, looked scorched, which the reporter wrote was the result of the whale's stomach acid. It was a still photo taken by a UPI photog published in the Detroit Free Press, Our beloved internet can't seem to find that story but it can roll out all manner of ancient stories that they get to deny because there is no photo evidence. When it's Biblical, they start stacking the deck.
Problem with these kind of tactics is they are aimed at the wrong "fish." As they have long pointed out. a whale isn't a fish, but a mammal. However, the same folks who can't believe a whale would swallow you have an abundance of film on U-Tube of a fish, which could do it: the giant grouper. Most recent records show one weighing in at 680+ pounds. And the fish swallows it's food whole so if it did swallow a man, he would have been whole in the belly of the fish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9eeuKF175g&ebc=ANyPxKpnD_Ri7Hy5Pc_vxCEeAhWpW1fSYIw_29fu5qnLhAVfv73ozAtaIzeUYgxxustYDfAoljoU9xKdDygEt4Yusrka1JL4Dg&nohtml5=False
The whale shark also exists which could swallow a person up to a point. One expert says the esophagus of that fish is too narrow to take down a man, but one thing Mr. MacGee points out in his Thru The Bible: From Proverbs to Malachi is : "I am of the opinion that we have a miracle in this fish in the sense that it was a specially prepared fish to swallow up Jonah."
Oh, and the Smithsonian's take, naturalists that they are:
So if the moral here is, whale sharks can’t and won’t swallow you. Sperm whales might, and if they do, you’re basically doomed.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/could-a-whale-accidentally-swallow-you-it-is-possible-26353362/
I include that last part for J. Vernon's take that Jonah actually died while in the fish's belly. More later.
It should be noted the only reason to discuss whale or "other fish" is because atheists intent on showing the Bible is inaccurate invariably complain that. if it happened at all, it was a whale not a fish and therefore the story is inaccurate and, thus,the entire Bible. Missing the point that a man either survived or was resurrected which is pretty much THE point. One could point out that the distinction between whale and fish is in fact a result of a man-made classification, not God's classification, if He even bothers with such things. And if he does, you can ask Him in heaven if it crosses your mind during the audience with Him.
But first, let's backtrack a moment because the people who quibble about the fish and what it could or couldn't do have the same problem Jonah himself had: Not that of being trapped in a fish prison, but in seeing God as too small.
Jonah saw God as the God of Israel: both the nation and the man, also called Jacob, who birthed the twelve tribes in his children. "Hear, oh, Israel, your God is one." He had the writings of Moses, the story of God blessing Abraham, delivering the nation from Egypt, The feasts and the Sabbath. In every way God went before his people and wiped out any tribe, clan or nation that stood against them. He even demanded they help out in clearing the Holy Land. He wiped out the Egyptian army that followed them onto the floor of the Red Sea. He helped David fell Goliath. Gideon won a battle with 200 against tens of thousands. Samson wiped out a regiment with a jawbone. This was the God who took out Sodom and Gomorrah. He had Joshua show no mercy.
Jonah: NOW HE WANTS TO SPARE NINEVEH????
Take your time to grasp this. If you are a conservative, think of God saying: "I want you to vote for Hillary." If you are a Chicano: "I want you to vote for Trump." If you are a socialist: "Vote for Cruz." I know, the bile is rising in some folks' bellies, but now you understand just a bit of what Jonah faced. This was not the God of HIS Bible.
But really, He was and is.
Lee Strobel in God's Outrageous Claims:
"For those who think God's forgiveness is too small (for them. W.), their usually making the error of thinking that his clemency is like human forgiveness. But clearly, it's not."
Strobel then goes on to cite the following verses all of which were readily available to Jonah:
Ps 86:5 For You, Lord, are good and ready to forgive, and rich in mercy to all those who call on You.
Isa 43:25 I, I am He who blots out your sins for My own sake, and will not remember your sins.
Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD; though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;
Isa 55:7 Let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man His thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
Lamentations 3:21 I recall this to my mind; therefore I hope.
22 It is by the LORD's kindnesses that we are not destroyed, because His mercies never fail.
23 They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
Jeremiah 31:34 And they shall no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the LORD; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.
35 So says the LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day and the laws of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who divides the sea when its waves roar; the LORD of hosts is His name;
I threw in the addition on the last verse to echo Jonah remembering God created the sea.
While Strobel is writing about forgiving ourselves, this line of thought also applies to our ability to forgive in general. Notice God's criteria is never stated as being born a Hebrew. It's: "willing and obedient." The wicked and unrighteous must repent, give up their path. And at no real cost to them.
Isa 55:1 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Jonah now has to deal with water you can't drink and survive for very long. It resembles his hate. He can swim in it but he won't survive for long unless he gets out of it. We have no reason to think he could swim. Certainly he had no idea he could swim to shore from however far out to sea the storm drove the boat. He may have floated, dog paddled. tread water, for a brief time which was how he knew the sailors Suddenly, were saved and began to make offerings to God. He may have later heard the story from someone who was on the ship.
But he's about to get into something way beyond his ability to deal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFPq9p559II
There are arguments over exactly what happened to him in this experience.
First Adam Clarke again with a basic statement:
Jonah 2:1
CHAPTER II
This chapter (except the first verse and the last, which make
a part of the narrative) contains a beautiful prayer or hymn,
formed of those devout thoughts which Jonah had in the belly
of the great fish, with a thanksgiving for his miraculous
deliverance.
Verse 1. Then Jonah prayed-out of the fish's belly] This verse makes the first of the second chapter in the Hebrew text.
It may be asked, "How could Jonah either pray or breathe in the stomach of the fish?" Very easily, if God so willed it. And let the reader keep this constantly in view; the whole is a miracle, from Jonah's being swallowed by the fish till he was cast ashore by the same animal. It was God that had prepared the great fish. It was the Lord that spake to the fish, and caused it to vomit Jonah upon the dry land. ALL is miracle.
Spurgeon:
Jonah 2:2
Out of the center of the unseen world which the belly of the fish resembled, Jonah sent up his plaintive cry and was heard. Prayer can reach the ear of God from the depths of the sea.
Matthew Henry:
* The prayer of Jonah. (1-9) He is delivered from the fish. (10)
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.
The first question that doesn't seem to get asked; when did the fish swallow him?
For You cast me into the depths of the seas, and the current surrounded me. All Your breakers and Your waves passed over me
It wasn't immediate. God let him bob in the waves a bit. The huge chopping waves of as storm ridden sea. Jonah got to get washed over, plummeted, tugged by undertow, torn by waves like cliffs. riding high and plunging beneath the crests like flotsam. He was like the cork bobber on a small child's fishing line. God beat him up with his overcoming power. Recall God sending the storm and wind at Elijah, Then speaking in the whisper.
5 Waters encompassed me, even to the soul; the depth closed around me; the seaweed was bound to my head.
He was dragged beneath the surface. Seaweed bound him. He even saw the bottom of the sea. So he was not in the fish immediately.
That's important. He was at the mercy of the open sea. He could have been left there for fish food except God saved him by making him...fish food.
Did you ever think of the fish as the RESCUER? The deliverer sent by God? That open window you seek when God closes the door on your chosen escape?
Isn't it funny how the first thing we think is that God's vehicle of delivery is really a trap, a punishment? You ever do that? "How could God do this to me?" And then something happens, a tragedy, a mistake weeks, months, even years later and the loss has prepared you for the moment.
And, in the belly of the fish, he prays.
J.Vernon is sure this is from Sheol as Jonah says, that he died in the fish's belly, prayed from the bosom of Abraham. He reasoned that Jonah was telling the truth, not speaking symbolically about praying from Sheol. More later. Again.
G. Christian Weiss reminds us, in Wrong-Way Jonah, of the pattern: commission, disobedience, chastening. And Jonah's response is repentance.
The prayer:
Jonah prayed to the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,
2 and he said, I cried to the LORD from my distress. And He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried for help, and You heard my voice
I am cast off from Your eyes, yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.
yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.
7 When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came in to You, into Your holy temple.
8 They who take heed to lying vanities forsake their kindness;
9 but I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will fulfill that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the LORD!
Weiss:
"Jonah recognized the hand of the Lord was heavy upon him and had brought all these afflictions on him:...Reader, do not let Satan lead you to despair because of calamities, but rather allow the Holy Spirit through those calamities bring you to a place of renewed prayer. It is bound to be one or the other-prayer or despair.
"...King David testified: I sought the Lord , and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears.' He said "The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." God will hear you, too."
Concerning the act of repentance by a Christian or by God's prophet, Jamieson-etc.:
2:4. cast out from thy sight--that is, from Thy favorable regard. A just retribution on one who had fled "from the presence of the Lord" (Jon 1:3). Now that he has got his desire, he feels it to be his bitterest sorrow to be deprived of God's presence, which once he regarded as a burden, and from which he desired to escape. He had turned his back on God; so God turned His back on him, making his sin his punishment.
toward thy holy temple--In the confidence of faith he anticipates yet to see the temple at Jerusalem, the appointed place of worship (1Ki 8:38), and there to render thanksgiving [HENDERSON]. Rather, I think, "Though cast out of Thy sight, I will still with the eye of faith once more look in prayer towards Thy temple at Jerusalem, whither, as Thy earthly throne, Thou hast desired Thy worshippers to direct their prayers."
2:6. bottoms of ... mountains--their extremities where they terminate in the hidden depths of the sea. Compare Ps 18:7, "the foundations of the hills" (Ps 18:15).
earth with her bars was about me--Earth, the land of the living, is (not "was") shut against me.
for ever--so far as any effort of mine can deliver me.
yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption--rather, "Thou bringest ... from the pit" [MAURER]. As in the previous clauses he expresses the hopelessness of his state, so in this, his sure hope of deliverance through Jehovah's infinite resources. "Against hope he believes in hope," and speaks as if the deliverance were actually being accomplished. Hezekiah seems to have incorporated Jonah's very words in his prayer (Isa 38:17), just as Jonah appropriated the language of the Psalms.
The Family Bible notes:
Jonah 2:9
But I; he speaks as one penitent and forgiven.
Will sacrifice; that is, when restored to the dry land.
And we arrive at the great message of the Bible:
Salvation belongs to the LORD!
Ps 3:8 Salvation belongs to the LORD. Your blessing is on Your people. Selah.
(MKJV)
Isa 38:17 Behold, I had great bitterness for peace; but You loved my soul from the pit of destruction. You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
18 For the grave cannot praise You, death can not rejoice in You; they who go down into the pit cannot hope for Your truth.
19 The living, the living, he shall praise You, as I do this day; the father shall make Your truth known to the sons.
20 For the LORD is for my salvation; and we will sing my songs on the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.
(MKJV)
Whereas before he was more like David here:
Ps 31:6 I have hated those who take heed to lying vanities; but I trust in the LORD.
(MKJV)
The "lying vanities " are idols. Jonah started out fleeing a message to idol worshipers, ended up delivering one to other idol worshipers and now shows some actual pity toward them:
Jon 2:8 They who take heed to lying vanities forsake their kindness;
(MKJV)
He realizes those who worship idols miss the kindnesses God would give them and he says NO HE will make offerings to God.
Did you catch that? Look at it again. Jonah is actually saying that he was, for an instant, committing the same sin. He had an idol he worshiped. The idol was that imaginary small God who loved Israel, who belonged only to Jonah's nation, The commentaries all tend to agree that Jonah looks a lot like the nation itself, a people who had the Lord and his Word and then proceeded to keep it to themselves, cherishing Him as their prize, as the God who belonged to them rather than seeing they belonged to Him. Jonah has seen part of the light. Not quite all of it, but part of it. He has begun to grasp that the Lord who created the world wants ALL of it saved. When he says that Salvation is of the Lord he has come to a staggering conclusion for a Hebrew: the Lord wants to give salvation to whom He will, not just to the people who he has already shined upon.
Because the Church has been with us all our lives we can barely grasp this concept. We barely understand the importance of the statement. God WANTS Salvation for the world. We read it over and over :"It is not God's will that any should be lost." When we sit in the church every Sunday and then about our business as we so often do, we forget he WANTS us to talk of Salvation to the whole world, everybody. There is no Libertarian Christian (There isn't one even possible by strictest definition of those two terms, since Libertarianism's loudest voice Ayn Rand etched atheism into it's bylaws, but I digress.) There is no Baptist. No Liberal, no Emergent, no Fundamentalist. There may be people who hold those beliefs, but they do not define Christianity: It is a belief in Christ the person, the living, resurrected Son of the living God by whose name alone all humanity can be saved and it is the preaching of that message of salvation to the world, Repent: turn from the idol you worship and toward the Living God.
Jonah has just grasp the essential of Christianity though he does not know the person of Christ outside the Father.
J. Vernon MacGee tells the story if a young man who confronted him after he had lectured on Jonah and said he was faced with a number of people, particularly one professor, who believed no one could survive for three days and nights in the belly if a great fish. MacGee replied that Jonah didn't. He had been in Sheol by his own account and so must have been dead, crying from the grave to be released to do the mission God meant for him to do and a merciful God resurrected Jonah. The young man then said he could believe that. That made more sense.
I believe either is an acceptable version. God does miracles and this was a miracle EITHER way. I will add if you read the Mathew quote above you see Jesus say it will be the SAME sign when he is in the earth three days and Jesus was dead during that time, soooo...To me, what matters is that Jonah has grasped that truth which will carry him into his mission.
10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out on the dry land.
God speaks to the fish twice. Twice. And we see the difference between the highly intelligent human being and the stupid fish: the fish obeys God both times. Raising the question of intelligence or maybe of the fish's greater ability to hear the voice of God.
Now Jonah gets spewed out on dry land, Where? We don't know. Did the fish swim up the Tibris a ways and vomit him up near Nineveh? We will hear it was three days journey away.
But I want you to note that he never takes a bath. He's been vomited out of a fish's belly. The fish would have eaten...other fish. Jonah then is literally covered in fish remains, stuck to him with an acidic vile odor. Would make good sense to wash the acids off, but we never hear that he did. The smell would have let everyone know he was coming. Did he go into the ocean and wash it off and it just isn't mentioned? Did the fish ever get back in the water or did that huge carcass lay on dry land to draw attention? Was this near any settlements, any trade routes? Could Jonah catch a camel ride to Nineveh? Think about that and think back on the legends that made up the Assyrian mythology. Consider it until next Wednesday,
Jon 1:17 And the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
2:1 And Jonah prayed to the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,
2 and he said, I cried to the LORD from my distress. And He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried for help, and You heard my voice.
3 For You cast me into the depths of the seas, and the current surrounded me. All Your breakers and Your waves passed over me.
4 Then I said, I am cast off from Your eyes, yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.
5 Waters encompassed me, even to the soul; the depth closed around me; the seaweed was bound to my head.
6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was around me forever; yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.
7 When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came in to You, into Your holy temple.
8 They who take heed to lying vanities forsake their kindness;
9 but I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will fulfill that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the LORD!
10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out on the dry land.
(MKJV)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zegqjuz4Cro
And also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvE3Vd-BDW8&nohtml5=False
I went for "Impossible" and added the "Ocean Deep" which seems written with Jonah in mind.
Now we get to the part people doubt. Explanations start with our friend, J. Vernon MacGee:
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12:39-41)
"If you reject the Book of Jonah, you are not merely saying that you cannot accept the record as reasonable, but that you do not believe that Jesus was acquainted with the facts of the case. You break with Jesus when you deny the Book of Jonah. The fact that the question has been raised concerning the authenticity of Jonah’s record is all the more startling when a contrast is made with one of the other minor prophets. For instance, there is no reference to Habakkuk in any historical book, and he is never mentioned by name in the New Testament. In spite of this, there is no concerted effort to classify him as a mythological character. Of course, the real reason for getting rid of Jonah is to get rid of the miraculous experience that he records concerning himself."
Some can believe in God sending a storm, sending one Hebrew man into a major urban capitol, even in Jonah hearing God (Schizophernia, you know.) But, for centuries, any non-believer would deny a man could be swallowed by a fish.
Two points: Years ago, I distinctly recall seeing a photo of a man who was cut from the gut of a sperm whale hours after the man had fallen in the water and been swallowed by it. His body was reportedly hairless and, in the black and white photo, looked scorched, which the reporter wrote was the result of the whale's stomach acid. It was a still photo taken by a UPI photog published in the Detroit Free Press, Our beloved internet can't seem to find that story but it can roll out all manner of ancient stories that they get to deny because there is no photo evidence. When it's Biblical, they start stacking the deck.
Problem with these kind of tactics is they are aimed at the wrong "fish." As they have long pointed out. a whale isn't a fish, but a mammal. However, the same folks who can't believe a whale would swallow you have an abundance of film on U-Tube of a fish, which could do it: the giant grouper. Most recent records show one weighing in at 680+ pounds. And the fish swallows it's food whole so if it did swallow a man, he would have been whole in the belly of the fish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9eeuKF175g&ebc=ANyPxKpnD_Ri7Hy5Pc_vxCEeAhWpW1fSYIw_29fu5qnLhAVfv73ozAtaIzeUYgxxustYDfAoljoU9xKdDygEt4Yusrka1JL4Dg&nohtml5=False
The whale shark also exists which could swallow a person up to a point. One expert says the esophagus of that fish is too narrow to take down a man, but one thing Mr. MacGee points out in his Thru The Bible: From Proverbs to Malachi is : "I am of the opinion that we have a miracle in this fish in the sense that it was a specially prepared fish to swallow up Jonah."
Oh, and the Smithsonian's take, naturalists that they are:
So if the moral here is, whale sharks can’t and won’t swallow you. Sperm whales might, and if they do, you’re basically doomed.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/could-a-whale-accidentally-swallow-you-it-is-possible-26353362/
I include that last part for J. Vernon's take that Jonah actually died while in the fish's belly. More later.
It should be noted the only reason to discuss whale or "other fish" is because atheists intent on showing the Bible is inaccurate invariably complain that. if it happened at all, it was a whale not a fish and therefore the story is inaccurate and, thus,the entire Bible. Missing the point that a man either survived or was resurrected which is pretty much THE point. One could point out that the distinction between whale and fish is in fact a result of a man-made classification, not God's classification, if He even bothers with such things. And if he does, you can ask Him in heaven if it crosses your mind during the audience with Him.
But first, let's backtrack a moment because the people who quibble about the fish and what it could or couldn't do have the same problem Jonah himself had: Not that of being trapped in a fish prison, but in seeing God as too small.
Jonah saw God as the God of Israel: both the nation and the man, also called Jacob, who birthed the twelve tribes in his children. "Hear, oh, Israel, your God is one." He had the writings of Moses, the story of God blessing Abraham, delivering the nation from Egypt, The feasts and the Sabbath. In every way God went before his people and wiped out any tribe, clan or nation that stood against them. He even demanded they help out in clearing the Holy Land. He wiped out the Egyptian army that followed them onto the floor of the Red Sea. He helped David fell Goliath. Gideon won a battle with 200 against tens of thousands. Samson wiped out a regiment with a jawbone. This was the God who took out Sodom and Gomorrah. He had Joshua show no mercy.
Jonah: NOW HE WANTS TO SPARE NINEVEH????
Take your time to grasp this. If you are a conservative, think of God saying: "I want you to vote for Hillary." If you are a Chicano: "I want you to vote for Trump." If you are a socialist: "Vote for Cruz." I know, the bile is rising in some folks' bellies, but now you understand just a bit of what Jonah faced. This was not the God of HIS Bible.
But really, He was and is.
Lee Strobel in God's Outrageous Claims:
"For those who think God's forgiveness is too small (for them. W.), their usually making the error of thinking that his clemency is like human forgiveness. But clearly, it's not."
Strobel then goes on to cite the following verses all of which were readily available to Jonah:
Ps 86:5 For You, Lord, are good and ready to forgive, and rich in mercy to all those who call on You.
Isa 43:25 I, I am He who blots out your sins for My own sake, and will not remember your sins.
Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD; though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;
Isa 55:7 Let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man His thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
Lamentations 3:21 I recall this to my mind; therefore I hope.
22 It is by the LORD's kindnesses that we are not destroyed, because His mercies never fail.
23 They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
Jeremiah 31:34 And they shall no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the LORD; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.
35 So says the LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day and the laws of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who divides the sea when its waves roar; the LORD of hosts is His name;
I threw in the addition on the last verse to echo Jonah remembering God created the sea.
While Strobel is writing about forgiving ourselves, this line of thought also applies to our ability to forgive in general. Notice God's criteria is never stated as being born a Hebrew. It's: "willing and obedient." The wicked and unrighteous must repent, give up their path. And at no real cost to them.
Isa 55:1 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Jonah now has to deal with water you can't drink and survive for very long. It resembles his hate. He can swim in it but he won't survive for long unless he gets out of it. We have no reason to think he could swim. Certainly he had no idea he could swim to shore from however far out to sea the storm drove the boat. He may have floated, dog paddled. tread water, for a brief time which was how he knew the sailors Suddenly, were saved and began to make offerings to God. He may have later heard the story from someone who was on the ship.
But he's about to get into something way beyond his ability to deal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFPq9p559II
There are arguments over exactly what happened to him in this experience.
First Adam Clarke again with a basic statement:
Jonah 2:1
CHAPTER II
This chapter (except the first verse and the last, which make
a part of the narrative) contains a beautiful prayer or hymn,
formed of those devout thoughts which Jonah had in the belly
of the great fish, with a thanksgiving for his miraculous
deliverance.
Verse 1. Then Jonah prayed-out of the fish's belly] This verse makes the first of the second chapter in the Hebrew text.
It may be asked, "How could Jonah either pray or breathe in the stomach of the fish?" Very easily, if God so willed it. And let the reader keep this constantly in view; the whole is a miracle, from Jonah's being swallowed by the fish till he was cast ashore by the same animal. It was God that had prepared the great fish. It was the Lord that spake to the fish, and caused it to vomit Jonah upon the dry land. ALL is miracle.
Spurgeon:
Jonah 2:2
Out of the center of the unseen world which the belly of the fish resembled, Jonah sent up his plaintive cry and was heard. Prayer can reach the ear of God from the depths of the sea.
Matthew Henry:
* The prayer of Jonah. (1-9) He is delivered from the fish. (10)
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.
The first question that doesn't seem to get asked; when did the fish swallow him?
For You cast me into the depths of the seas, and the current surrounded me. All Your breakers and Your waves passed over me
It wasn't immediate. God let him bob in the waves a bit. The huge chopping waves of as storm ridden sea. Jonah got to get washed over, plummeted, tugged by undertow, torn by waves like cliffs. riding high and plunging beneath the crests like flotsam. He was like the cork bobber on a small child's fishing line. God beat him up with his overcoming power. Recall God sending the storm and wind at Elijah, Then speaking in the whisper.
5 Waters encompassed me, even to the soul; the depth closed around me; the seaweed was bound to my head.
He was dragged beneath the surface. Seaweed bound him. He even saw the bottom of the sea. So he was not in the fish immediately.
That's important. He was at the mercy of the open sea. He could have been left there for fish food except God saved him by making him...fish food.
Did you ever think of the fish as the RESCUER? The deliverer sent by God? That open window you seek when God closes the door on your chosen escape?
Isn't it funny how the first thing we think is that God's vehicle of delivery is really a trap, a punishment? You ever do that? "How could God do this to me?" And then something happens, a tragedy, a mistake weeks, months, even years later and the loss has prepared you for the moment.
And, in the belly of the fish, he prays.
J.Vernon is sure this is from Sheol as Jonah says, that he died in the fish's belly, prayed from the bosom of Abraham. He reasoned that Jonah was telling the truth, not speaking symbolically about praying from Sheol. More later. Again.
G. Christian Weiss reminds us, in Wrong-Way Jonah, of the pattern: commission, disobedience, chastening. And Jonah's response is repentance.
The prayer:
Jonah prayed to the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,
2 and he said, I cried to the LORD from my distress. And He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried for help, and You heard my voice
I am cast off from Your eyes, yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.
yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.
7 When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came in to You, into Your holy temple.
8 They who take heed to lying vanities forsake their kindness;
9 but I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will fulfill that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the LORD!
Weiss:
"Jonah recognized the hand of the Lord was heavy upon him and had brought all these afflictions on him:...Reader, do not let Satan lead you to despair because of calamities, but rather allow the Holy Spirit through those calamities bring you to a place of renewed prayer. It is bound to be one or the other-prayer or despair.
"...King David testified: I sought the Lord , and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears.' He said "The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." God will hear you, too."
Concerning the act of repentance by a Christian or by God's prophet, Jamieson-etc.:
2:4. cast out from thy sight--that is, from Thy favorable regard. A just retribution on one who had fled "from the presence of the Lord" (Jon 1:3). Now that he has got his desire, he feels it to be his bitterest sorrow to be deprived of God's presence, which once he regarded as a burden, and from which he desired to escape. He had turned his back on God; so God turned His back on him, making his sin his punishment.
toward thy holy temple--In the confidence of faith he anticipates yet to see the temple at Jerusalem, the appointed place of worship (1Ki 8:38), and there to render thanksgiving [HENDERSON]. Rather, I think, "Though cast out of Thy sight, I will still with the eye of faith once more look in prayer towards Thy temple at Jerusalem, whither, as Thy earthly throne, Thou hast desired Thy worshippers to direct their prayers."
2:6. bottoms of ... mountains--their extremities where they terminate in the hidden depths of the sea. Compare Ps 18:7, "the foundations of the hills" (Ps 18:15).
earth with her bars was about me--Earth, the land of the living, is (not "was") shut against me.
for ever--so far as any effort of mine can deliver me.
yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption--rather, "Thou bringest ... from the pit" [MAURER]. As in the previous clauses he expresses the hopelessness of his state, so in this, his sure hope of deliverance through Jehovah's infinite resources. "Against hope he believes in hope," and speaks as if the deliverance were actually being accomplished. Hezekiah seems to have incorporated Jonah's very words in his prayer (Isa 38:17), just as Jonah appropriated the language of the Psalms.
The Family Bible notes:
Jonah 2:9
But I; he speaks as one penitent and forgiven.
Will sacrifice; that is, when restored to the dry land.
And we arrive at the great message of the Bible:
Salvation belongs to the LORD!
Ps 3:8 Salvation belongs to the LORD. Your blessing is on Your people. Selah.
(MKJV)
Isa 38:17 Behold, I had great bitterness for peace; but You loved my soul from the pit of destruction. You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
18 For the grave cannot praise You, death can not rejoice in You; they who go down into the pit cannot hope for Your truth.
19 The living, the living, he shall praise You, as I do this day; the father shall make Your truth known to the sons.
20 For the LORD is for my salvation; and we will sing my songs on the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.
(MKJV)
Whereas before he was more like David here:
Ps 31:6 I have hated those who take heed to lying vanities; but I trust in the LORD.
(MKJV)
The "lying vanities " are idols. Jonah started out fleeing a message to idol worshipers, ended up delivering one to other idol worshipers and now shows some actual pity toward them:
Jon 2:8 They who take heed to lying vanities forsake their kindness;
(MKJV)
He realizes those who worship idols miss the kindnesses God would give them and he says NO HE will make offerings to God.
Did you catch that? Look at it again. Jonah is actually saying that he was, for an instant, committing the same sin. He had an idol he worshiped. The idol was that imaginary small God who loved Israel, who belonged only to Jonah's nation, The commentaries all tend to agree that Jonah looks a lot like the nation itself, a people who had the Lord and his Word and then proceeded to keep it to themselves, cherishing Him as their prize, as the God who belonged to them rather than seeing they belonged to Him. Jonah has seen part of the light. Not quite all of it, but part of it. He has begun to grasp that the Lord who created the world wants ALL of it saved. When he says that Salvation is of the Lord he has come to a staggering conclusion for a Hebrew: the Lord wants to give salvation to whom He will, not just to the people who he has already shined upon.
Because the Church has been with us all our lives we can barely grasp this concept. We barely understand the importance of the statement. God WANTS Salvation for the world. We read it over and over :"It is not God's will that any should be lost." When we sit in the church every Sunday and then about our business as we so often do, we forget he WANTS us to talk of Salvation to the whole world, everybody. There is no Libertarian Christian (There isn't one even possible by strictest definition of those two terms, since Libertarianism's loudest voice Ayn Rand etched atheism into it's bylaws, but I digress.) There is no Baptist. No Liberal, no Emergent, no Fundamentalist. There may be people who hold those beliefs, but they do not define Christianity: It is a belief in Christ the person, the living, resurrected Son of the living God by whose name alone all humanity can be saved and it is the preaching of that message of salvation to the world, Repent: turn from the idol you worship and toward the Living God.
Jonah has just grasp the essential of Christianity though he does not know the person of Christ outside the Father.
J. Vernon MacGee tells the story if a young man who confronted him after he had lectured on Jonah and said he was faced with a number of people, particularly one professor, who believed no one could survive for three days and nights in the belly if a great fish. MacGee replied that Jonah didn't. He had been in Sheol by his own account and so must have been dead, crying from the grave to be released to do the mission God meant for him to do and a merciful God resurrected Jonah. The young man then said he could believe that. That made more sense.
I believe either is an acceptable version. God does miracles and this was a miracle EITHER way. I will add if you read the Mathew quote above you see Jesus say it will be the SAME sign when he is in the earth three days and Jesus was dead during that time, soooo...To me, what matters is that Jonah has grasped that truth which will carry him into his mission.
10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out on the dry land.
God speaks to the fish twice. Twice. And we see the difference between the highly intelligent human being and the stupid fish: the fish obeys God both times. Raising the question of intelligence or maybe of the fish's greater ability to hear the voice of God.
Now Jonah gets spewed out on dry land, Where? We don't know. Did the fish swim up the Tibris a ways and vomit him up near Nineveh? We will hear it was three days journey away.
But I want you to note that he never takes a bath. He's been vomited out of a fish's belly. The fish would have eaten...other fish. Jonah then is literally covered in fish remains, stuck to him with an acidic vile odor. Would make good sense to wash the acids off, but we never hear that he did. The smell would have let everyone know he was coming. Did he go into the ocean and wash it off and it just isn't mentioned? Did the fish ever get back in the water or did that huge carcass lay on dry land to draw attention? Was this near any settlements, any trade routes? Could Jonah catch a camel ride to Nineveh? Think about that and think back on the legends that made up the Assyrian mythology. Consider it until next Wednesday,
No comments:
Post a Comment