Jonás 2:1-10

JONAH’S WONDERFUL DELIVERANCE, Jonah 1:17 to Jonah 2:10 (in Hebrew, Jonah 2:1-10).

The deliverance of Jonah is recorded in Jonah 1:17; Jonah 2:10. Jehovah prepared a great fish, which swallowed Jonah. After he had been in the fish’s belly for three days and three nights he was, at the divine command, cast upon the dry land. Jonah 2:1-9, contains a poem, a prayer which Jonah is said to have offered from the belly of the fish. If so, one would expect it to be a petition; in reality it is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving for the deliverance already wrought. This peculiarity has been explained either by assuming that it was spoken by Jonah after he was vomited out by the fish, and that its proper place is after Jonah 2:10; or that it is a song of thanksgiving uttered in the fish’s belly when the prophet discovered that he was preserved alive. This preservation he regarded as a pledge of final deliverance, and for it he praised God in anticipation (see Introduction, p. 337).

Prepared The verb does not mean “created,” as if Jehovah had created the fish for this special purpose, but “ordain” or “appoint.” Jehovah appointed some great fish, already in existence, to swallow Jonah. “By God’s immediate direction it was so arranged that the very moment when Jonah was thrown into the waves the ‘great fish’ was on the spot to receive him.”

Great fish This is the literal translation. Nothing is said of the species of the fish; but for a long time the popular idea has been that it was a whale. Against this identification it has been urged that the whale is not found in the Mediterranean, and that he has such a small gullet that he could not swallow a man. However, of the existence of whales in the Mediterranean there can be no doubt, and, while the gullet of the common whale is not large enough to let a man pass through whole, there are whales that would not have this difficulty; and of these the great spermaceti whale is said to wander sometimes into the Mediterranean. Most commentators, however, who interpret the narrative literally, identify the “great fish” with the shark. The latter is not uncommon in the Mediterranean. G.E. Post says that he saw one at Beirut twenty feet long; and this fish would have no difficulty in swallowing a man. To illustrate the capacity of the shark it has become customary to call attention to the following incident: “In 1758 in stormy weather a sailor fell overboard from a frigate in the Mediterranean. A shark was close by, which, as he was swimming and crying for help, took him in his wide throat, so that he forthwith disappeared. Other sailors had leaped into the sloop to help their comrade, while yet swimming; the captain had a gun which stood on the deck discharged at the fish, which struck it so that it cast out the sailor which it had in its throat, who was then taken up, alive and little injured, by the sloop which had now come up.” From this and similar incidents it would seem that there are fish that might swallow a man whole; though it would be remarkable for him to remain alive and uninjured.

Three days and three nights Whether this is interpreted as meaning three full days and full nights, or simply “a space of time reaching backward and forward beyond twenty four hours” (Matthew 12:40), is of little consequence; according to all natural laws it would be impossible for any man to remain alive for any considerable length of time in the belly of a fish (see Luther’s words quoted on p. 325). Only by direct, divine, miraculous interference could Jonah be kept alive. At the end of this period the fish, at the divine command, vomited out Jonah.

Dry land Where, is not stated. The author probably intended it to be understood that the fish carried Jonah back to the place from which he had embarked. The traditional site of the ejection of the prophet is near Sidon.