1. God Intervenes! (1:17)
Having chased after Jonah and thrown the storm upon the boat such that the sailors eventually agree to throw Jonah overboard, the Lord continues to act by providing a great fish to swallow Jonah.
Now, that may sound like more punishment - who would want to be swallowed alive by a great fish?! - but in fact this is the grace of God at work to rescue Jonah from sure death in the sea. As we said before, we can be so taken up with the miracle of the fish that we fail to see the greater miracle - the invincible grace of God!
(nb: People often find the fish harder to swallow than the fish did Jonah! One man even suggested that 'Great Fish' was the name of a tavern where Jonah recovered from his ordeal of being thrown overboard!)
This verse, indeed the whole passage, stresses what Jonah himself expresses in 2:9 "Salvation comes from the Lord". The passage begins and ends with the actions of the Lord to save Jonah. The sailors think that Jonah's had it (1:14) and so does Jonah (2:6a) but God is still at work!
We need to see that even when his people take themselves far away in sin, the Lord is at work to restore them, that his purposes of grace and salvation may be fulfilled. How patient he is with Jonah - and with us too. But we must not presume upon his grace. It is never right to disobey his word as Jonah did (cf. Rom 6:1,2).
2. Jonah's Response (2:1-9)
Jonah's response (once he has got over the shock of being swallowed alive!) is to praise God. Let's look at what he says.
Verse 2 summarises what has happened. As he sank beneath the waves, Jonah called out to the Lord - and, he says here, "he answered me". Isn't God's grace stunning? Someone has said that "A sincere cry to (the LORD) is efficacious, whether from a pagan...or from one of his rebellious prophets".
What makes it all the more amazing that the Lord delivers Jonah is that there is no word of confession here, no expression of regret that he had failed the Lord.
Jonah then goes on to express more fully the situation he was in and his response to God's grace to him.
a) His situation: he was as good as dead. God has hurled him into the deep (he is conscious of the Lord's activity through the sailors) and the deep has claimed him. The words he uses - the depths of the grave - are, literally, 'the belly of Sheol'; he is in the grip of death. The sea has claimed him for Sheol.
He is also conscious of having been banished from God's sight (quite rich when you consider that that was the very thing he was running away from!!).
b) His cry Yet at that point of great extremity, he prays for help (that's what the phrase means, to look towards the holy temple). He remembers the LORD (his character and person) and prays in the light of who God is. And as he prays, so God hears and answers: "you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God" (still conscious of whose he is).
c) His response And because the LORD has rescued him , Jonah responds with resolve to honour the LORD in public. He is now "a supremely saved man who has tasted the grace" of God and it is going to show. Or so he says here. We'll have to wait and see!
But there is no doubt that what he says he intends to do: the words of v.9b "What I have vowed I will make good" are very strong ones. But as we're reminded in Micah 6:6-8, the LORD wants true obedience, not sacrifices. How will these vows look later on?
We can be so quick to take the grace that is offered to us, perhaps even expecting it to be offered without much confession from us. We need to ask ourselves: do we really value the grace of God? And are we serious about responding to it with renewed obedience and faithfulness?
Like Jonah, we can know all the right words (his prayer is an amalgamation from the psalms) but do we mean the words we say? Do we pay the vows that we make to serve the LORD afresh with renewed zeal and conviction?
3. The Sign of Jonah
But there's something else I want you to notice here that takes us from the days of Jonah forward to the days of Jesus.
Jonah was in the belly of the fish for 3 days and 3 nights. Our Lord referred to this verse when he said that the only sign that would be given to his generation was the sign of Jonah and he went on to compare his own coming experience of death and resurrection to Jonah's in the fish. How does this passage help us to understand our Lord's words? Was Jesus simply using the time comparison or was there more to it?
Jonah tells us here that he was as good as dead; we've seen that in vv.2b; 5,6a. It's also been suggested that in the ANE it was thought that 3 days and 3 nights were the length of time it took to journey to the underworld.
Jonah also says in 2:6b that the LORD brought him up from the pit, language that brings to mind the idea of resurrection (cf. Ps 16:10 & Acts 2:27.
Jonah came back from the apparent dead. The sailors never expected to see him again; Jonah thought he was a gonner too. That stressed the fact that God punishes sin to death.
But Jonah was raised from apparent death; the fact that he is later seen walking around showed the great mercy of God. And his mercy will extend to unbelieving heathens.
Now this gives what Jesus said its impact and power. He truly did die on account of sin, the sin of obstinate, wilful people, just like Jonah, just like us. And he was truly raised to life again, by the power of God, to show the great mercy and salvation of the LORD.
We may have much in common with Jonah - sometimes hard, more ready to receive grace than to respond to it. How much we need to be saved! And how great a Saviour we have! One who died for our sin and rose again for our justification.
Here is the grace that has saved us and the grace that has kept us. Here is the grace that we must respond to - today.
