Thanksgiving for Deliverance. This psalm is a thanksgiving for deliverance from peril, and therefore, if spoken by Jonah, should have followed Jonah 2:10. The description, however, is quite unsuitable to Jonah's condition; it is that of a man who has been in imminent danger of drowning but has been rescued. Yahweh answered him when he called in distress from the belly of Sheol. Yahweh had flung him into the depth, he was submerged by His billows. He thought himself banished from God's presence, never to behold His holy Temple. The seaweed formed a turban for his head, he sank to the roots of the mountains, yet Yahweh has brought him back from the pit. When his life seemed ebbing away, he remembered Yahweh, and his prayer reached Him in the Temple. Worshippers of idols forsake their refuge, but he will offer sacrifice to Yahweh with thanksgiving, and pay what he had vowed in his peril.
Jonah 2:2. Psalms 18:6; Psalms 12:01.
Jonah 2:3 c. Psalms 42:7.
Jonah 2:4 b. Read How shall I look.
Jonah 2:6 b. Very uncertain, Van Hoonacker and Bewer read the land whose bars are everlasting bolts.
Jonah 2:7 a. Psalms 142:3; Psalms 143:4.
Jonah 2:7 b. Psalms 5:7; Psalms 18:6.
Jonah 2:8 b. Marti reads forsake their refuge.