Jonah 2 Part 2 - Jonah Continues to Pray
Jonah 2:3-7 - Even in the deepest places, God and His temple are there.
“For You had cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me. So I said, ‘I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, Weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, But You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, And my prayer came to You, Into Your holy temple.”
Jonah 2:3-7 NASB1995
I have a deep-seated memory from childhood about the ocean. We did a family trip to California and I was able to bring my best friend along, who lived across the street. We stopped for a few hours at Laguna Beach to enjoy the beach and wading in the waters. My friend and I were standing in the shallow water looking towards my parents and grandmother on the beach and waving at them when a rogue wave came from behind us and tossed us in every direction. I remember flailing around under the surf and not knowing which way was up, although I was a good swimmer. We both emerged from the cold water gasping and soaking wet (we were in shorts and t-shirts, not swimsuits). My Dad thought it was hilarious! My friend and I were both hiccuping with terror, coughing up water and laughing at the same time.
I can commiserate with Jonah. I used to spend many hours snorkeling on vacation trips and it was always so strange to dive under for a short distance and look up at the water’s surface glittering above me. I never found the courage to take up scuba diving, as I liked to be close to the shore, the boat or the surface (perhaps a type of claustrophobia that I’ve also felt being underground in caverns). Jonah left the familiar world above the surface of the ocean, which was considered mysterious and dangerous by the people of Israel, was then surrounded by the deep gulf to the point of death, only to be abruptly swallowed by some sea creature.
He now continues his earnest prayer acknowledging that God is there and has brought him up from the pit. He has remembered God and his prayer goes to Him in His holy temple. Enduring Word has this short commentary on this passage:
You cast me into the deep: Jonah realized that it wasn’t the sailors who cast him into the sea – it was God Himself. Jonah saw that he had never been out of God’s hands, though he tried to run from Him.
I have been cast out of Your sight: Jonah’s greatest pain was not the calamity, but his separation from God – his feeling that he was cast out of Your sight. Still, he was determined – even in the belly of a fish – to turn his heart towards God and His temple. Simply, Jonah remembered the LORD.
Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD, my God: Again, Jonah could praise God for the answer to prayer before the answer came because God gave him assurance.
We are never out of God’s sight, even though we may feel like we are remote and far from Him. I admit that I sometimes have that feeling of strange and far distance between me and our Lord, only to have something interesting happen or a Bible verse put in front of me that closes the gap instantly.
Jonah is totally immersed in his prayer to God while likely shivering inside the pitch-black and noisome stomach of that sea creature and he gets to the salient point in his prayer in the next passage that I will examine (Jonah 2: 8-9).
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord - When I am in the depths or feel far away from You, that is the time that I know that I must earnestly pray to You because You have not cast me out of Your sight, but I have been distracted by the things of this world and I must remember You and close the gap and be with You. Amen.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Commentary from Enduring Word by David Guzik is used with written permission.