When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.
Ver. 7. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord] And could say, as the Church in Isaiah 63:16, when at lowest, "Doubtless thou art our father, our redeemer, thy name is from everlasting." As there is in the creatures an instinct of nature to do after their kind; so there. is of grace in the saints to run to God. "Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early," Isaiah 26:8,9. "O Lord," saith Habakkuk, Habakkuk 1:12, "art not thou from everlasting my God, and mine Holy One?" It was a bold question, but God approves and assents to it in a gracious answer ere they went farther: "We shall not die" (say they abruptly), "O Lord, thou hast ordained them" (the Chaldeans) "for judgment"; but us only for chastisement. Here was the triumph of their faith, and this was that which held up Jonah's hope, though with wonderful difficulty, held head above water. He remembered "the years of the right hand of the Most High," Psalms 77:10; he called to mind his songs in the night season, John 2:6, his former experience, a just ground of his present confidence. He remembered the Lord, his power and goodness, those two pillars, the Jachin and the Boaz, that support faith; and this fetched him again when ready to faint. "I had even fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living," Psalms 27:13 .
And my prayer came in unto thee] q.d. Though I was so faint I could scarcely utter a prayer, yet thou hearkenedst and heardest, as Malachi 3:16; thou madest hard shift to hear (as I may say); thine ears were in my prayers, as St Peter hath it, 1 Peter 3:12; thou feltest my breathing, when no voice could be heard, Lamentations 3:56; thou heldest not "thy peace at my tears," Psalms 39:12, quando fletu agerem non afflatu; yea, thou heardest the voice of mine affliction, Genesis 16:11 .
Into thine holy temple] Whether we take it to be the temple at Jerusalem (a type of Christ), Jonah's prayer was accepted for Christ's sake; and proved to no less purpose, though made in the whale's belly, than if he had been pouring it out in God's holy temple. Or if we understand it to be heaven, the habitation of God's holiness, and of his glory, his prayers were come up thither for a memorial before the Almighty, Acts 10:4, and like pillars of incense pierced into his presence, Song of Solomon 3:6, neither would they away without their errand, but lay at God's feet till he should command deliverance out of Zion.