And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land - probably on the coast of Palestine.
Remarks:
(1) The time of Jonah's prayer was when the three days and nights were all but passed. Feeling himself still safe, though entombed so long in the fish's belly he takes his preservation so far as an earnest of God's purpose to grant him final deliverance. Secure that God, who had done so much, would fulfill the rest, he offers thanksgiving as though his prayers were heard, and he already delivered from his living grave. A sense of God's favour restored to us, notwithstanding our transgressions, opens in thanksgivings the heart which had teen closed with the fear of His anger.
(2) It is a sure mark of grace when a man can pray unto the Lord as "his God." Jonah felt God to be such to him, as manifested by His inspirations, His chastisements, and now, lastly, by His mercy. Therefore he finds cause for thanks to his God, where to the eye of sense there was not a ray to dispel the gloom of his situation, carried about as he was helplessly at the will of the sea monster in continuous darkness, and without any apparent way of escape. But 'what looked like death became safe keeping' (Jerome). Now that his preservation so long assured him of God's favour toward him, faith prompted the song of praise.
(3) The belly of the fish was Jonah's oratory, as the prison of Philippi was that of Paul and Silas. Nowhere are prayer and praise out of place. The "cry" of the heart, inaudible to the ear of all except God, is no sooner uttered than it is "heard (Jonah 2:2). Loud crying to God is not with the voice, but with the heart. Many silent with the lips have cried aloud with their heart; many noisy with their lips could not, with hearts averse, obtain aught. If, then, thou criest, cry within, where God heareth (Augustine on Psalms 30:1-12, 'Enarr.,' 4:, sec. 10). Though "the earth with her bars was about him" (Jonah 2:6), no prison-house can bar out God from hearing the cry of penitence, faith, and thanksgiving.
(4) Let the backslider take courage from the instance of Jonah, and not despair as if he were hopelessly lost. While there is life there is hope. Though the waves of lust, through the wiles of Satan, have engulfed him again who had escaped for a time the pollutions of the world, yet the God who delivered the entombed prophet can also deliver the backslider, if only he will turn heartily to the Lord, and, like Jonah, accept humbly the punishment of his iniquity.
(5) "The deep," whereinto Pharaoh "sank as a stone" (Exodus 15:5), never to rise again, was but the temporary prison of Jonah, and at God's bidding gave up to life again him who seemed as one dead. Jonah literally suffered what the Psalmist spiritually experienced (Psalms 42:7), "All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me." "Cast out of God's sight" (Jonah 2:4), like Adam cast out of Paradise, he still could do one thing-he locked to God with the eye of faith, even when God hid His face from him. This it is which makes the everlasting distinction between believers, temporarily forsaken for sin, and reprobates, who are utter castaways. The believer still trusts when he can no longer see or feel God, and in that trust cries to God as still his God. The "weeds" (Jonah 2:5) of the sea of sorrows and fears wrapped about his head" cannot stifle the cry of faith. "When his soul fainteth within him he remembers the Lord" (Jonah 2:7) with an intensity never felt before.
(6) The prayer of faith comes in unto God into His holy temple. God regards each one soul with the same infinite love as though there were no other soul in the universe; and so He allows each soul to cry, "O Lord my God" (Jonah 2:6), as if God belonged wholly to each alone.
(7) The result of the experienced difference between God and worldly idols is, the returning backslider feels, "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy." All things which we keenly follow, apart from God and Christ, are lying vanities, because they promise what they never perform. The idols of intellect, pride, ambition, covetousness, and self-will are virtually worshipped by many, as if they could make men happy, which they cannot. All the while men are forsaking God, who is the source of "mercy," the personal experience of which is the first condition of happiness. Jonah's idol was self-will, which he had set up above God's will. God would have Nineveh led to repentance and spared. Jonah would have Nineveh destroyed, lest it should destroy Israel. But now God's will is become the will of the penitent prophet. Let us learn to consider self-will the enemy of our own mercy. If we would have God for our own, let us make His will ever our will; otherwise, running away impatiently from the sphere and place assigned to us by His good Providence, we entangle ourselves in inextricable difficulties.
(8) Jonah's attribution of "salvation to the Lord" alone seems to have been the crowning point of his thanksgiving, which was followed by his immediate deliverance (Jonah 2:9). On his full confession of praise to Yahweh, "the Lord spake unto the fish," and it instantly set free Jonah upon the dry land. Henceforth he learned that, when God calls to a ministry to others, to flee, through a desire to escape certain evils, only involves us in greater ones. As opposition to the will of God involves us in a sea of troubles, so thankful acquiescence in His dealings, however trying, brings deliverance. No shelter can harbour him that sinneth, no waves can destroy him that repenteth and forsaketh his sin.
(9) Jonah was the prophet of Christ, not in words, but in personal sufferings, the typical significance of which, though probably unknown to himself (1 Peter 1:10-12), is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. His passing from the ship into the dark though living tomb, and thence into the light again after three days, sets forth the Lord's descent from the cross of wood into the dark sepulchre, and His ascent thence into life again after the same number of days, more vividly than if he had foretold the same in words. The word of life was designed for the Gentiles, but was not actually sent to them until after Christ's resurrection-even as Jonah's preaching, though commanded by God before, did not reach Nineveh until after his three days' entombment and restoration from the fish's belly. Let us by faith regard Christ's death and resurrection as the means of our justification, and the pledge to us that through the gate of death we shall pass to a joyful resurrection!