Jonah 2:1-101Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, 2And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. 3For 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. 4Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. 5The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. 6I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. 7When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. 8They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. 9But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. 10And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. (Jonah 2:1‑10)
Could Gentile Nineveh be in a worse plight? Was not Jonah’s circumcision as uncircumcision? A Jew and a prophet in the depths of the sea, with the weeds wrapped about his head, because of displeasure of Jehovah! Surely, such a one in such a state may well cease his boastings, and no longer despise others. Could any one be well lower? Proud Adam was behind the trees of the garden; proud Jonah is in the bottom of the sea.
The Lord by no means clears the guilty. The Judge of the earth does right. But grace brings salvation. And thus very soon, and it will be only Jonah’s sin that shall be in the bottom of the sea, Jonah himself being delivered, as his first father, Adam, left his guilt and his covert behind him and returned to the presence of God.
But Jonah was taught as well as delivered. In the belly of the fish he finds out that, Jew as he was, he stood in need of the salvation of God, just as much as any Gentile could need it. Uncircumcised Nineveh had been unclean and despised in his eyes, and he grudged her God’s mercy. What would become of himself now but for that mercy? He was in prison, and he deserved to be there. What could do for him, what could reach his condition, but mercy—free, full, and sovereign? “Salvation is of the Lord,” he has to say. It is not in himself as a privileged Jew, or a gifted prophet, that he will now rejoice, but only in Him to whom it belongs to bring salvation.
And then the exulting question arises, “Is He the God of the Jew only? nay, but of the Gentile also.” Our need of salvation, our dependence on the sovereignty and, grace of God, equalizes us all. “It is one God that shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.” The Jew must come in on the very same mercy that saves the Gentile (Rom. 11:30-3130For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: 31Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. (Romans 11:30‑31)). Jonah must be as Nineveh.
This is the lesson the whale’s belly taught Jonah, the Jew. Let Nineveh be what it may, Gentile and uncircumcised, a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, or anything else, it could not stand more in need of the salvation of God than the favored Jew and the privileged, gifted prophet at that moment did, being as in hell for his transgression. It was all over with him, but for that. But that he gets, and the fish casts him up on the dry land, when he had learned, and confessed, and declared, “Salvation is of the Lord.”
He was a sign to the Ninevites. His nation, by and by, will have the like lesson. No sign is now left with them, but that of this prophet: and they will have to find out, as from the belly of hell, or as from under the judgment of God, (where now as a nation they are lying,) that grace and the redemption it works is their only place and their only refuge.
But this salvation of God, in which Jonah is called to rejoice, we know gets all its authority from the mystery of the cross; because One who could do so, for us sinners, went down under the dominion of death, under the judgment of sin, and of whom in that condition, as in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights, Jonah himself in the belly of the fish for the like time, is made the type.
And when we think of this, we may say, Scripture may magnify its office, as the apostle of the Gentiles does his. It has to reveal God and His counsels; and surely it does this in marvelous and fruitful wisdom, delivering forth, as here, pieces of history for our instruction, but at the same time making that history deliver forth samples, and pledges, and foreshadowings; of further and richer secrets for our more abundant instruction.
Jonah, as a sign, suits both the Lord Himself, and Israel as a nation, as the Gospels let us know. Israel must go through death and resurrection. Their iniquity is not to be purged until they die (Isa. 22). All scripture affirms this—the valley of dry bones illustrates it. But they will be as a risen people in the day of the kingdom—all thanks and praise to the death and resurrection of the Son of God for this and every blessing! And Jonah’s death and resurrection, as I may again say, applies significantly or typically to the history of his nation, and to the history of his Saviour. (See Matt. 12:4040For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:40); Luke 11:2930.) Jonah’s sin, too, was the expression of the nations. He and they have alike refused the thought of mercy to the Gentiles (1 Thess. 2:1616Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. (1 Thessalonians 2:16)). When Paul began to speak of God’s mercy to the Gentiles, the Jews would listen to him no longer as seen in Acts 22:21-2221And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. 22And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. (Acts 22:21‑22).
The story of our prophet is, thus, a fruitful one. True as a narrative, it is significant as a parable; and all of us, the elect of God as well as Israel, may, in our way, take our place with him, as dead and risen, the only character that can be ours as saved sinners.