I 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.
Ver. 6. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains] That is, of the promontories or rocks of the sea, where the waters are deepest. Thus Mercer after Kimchi. "The channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered," Psalms 18:15. The mountains are said to be under water, Proverbs 8:25, because their foundations are there placed.
The earth with her bars was about me for ever] As if resolved there to keep me close prisoner; that though the fish had disgorged me, yet I should never have got to land. The shores are set by God as bars to keep the sea within his bounds, Job 38:8; Job 38:10-11 Jeremiah 5:22. Here then all the creatures seemed to set against poor Jonah, and (which was more than all) the Creator too: so that he might sigh and say, as in the poet (Martial).
“ In me omnis terraeque aviumque marisque rapina est,
Forsitan et coeli ”
Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption ] i.e. From the place where I was likely to have lain and rotted. Cum duplicantur lateres, venit Moses: when things are at the worst God appeareth, as it were out of an engine, εκ της μηχανης. In the mount will the Lord be seen, Ezekiel 37:11 2 Kings 19:3; he stays so long sometimes that he hardly "finds faith on earth," Luke 18:8, and yet comes at last to the relief of his poor people; viz. when they are ripe and ready for it. He is a God of judgment, he knows how and when to deal forth his favours; and even waiteth to be gracious, Isaiah 30:18; Isaiah 28:21 .
O Lord my God] sc. by the mean and merit of thy Son, in whom alone it is that thou, Lord, art my God, and that I can call thee Abba, Father. It is well observed by an interpreter, that in this short history of Jonah are all things contained which may make to the sound and saving knowledge of God and his will, of ourselves also and our duties.