Jonah 2:1,2 - I called out to the Lord

2:1

We do need to admit that the matter of Jonah being in the belly of the fish and praying is unusual, to say the least. I have to admit my approach is not to worry too much about it. Some people go to great lengths to seek explanations and seem to need an explanation. Others just reject it out of hand as impossible. We do need to remember that extraordinary things do happen. At the time of writing (14/07/2018) it is just a few days since the Thai boys football team were amazingly rescued from that cave. However, we should note that the Bible’s emphasis is not on the fish, but on what God is doing in Jonah and Jonah’s response. This is quite different from the resurrection of Jesus, where the emphasis is on the reality of the event, and if the event is not real then, as Paul says in 1 Cor 15:14, our preaching is useless and so is our faith.

2:2

Jonah’s prayer includes several references to the underworld, or world of the dead. Sheol is the first of these, this is the general term for the world of the dead, and is a word that frequently crops up in the Bible. Jonah cried out to the Lord because of his affliction, and the Lord answered him. This is a common theme in the Psalms, indeed it is a common theme in the Bible. God heard the cry of the Israelites in captivity in Egypt. God hears when we cry out to Him. We should also remember that Jonah is here because of his outright disobedience of God, and God’s subsequent judgement upon him. Today we may be suffering because of our own stupidity, our own hardness of heart, but if we cry out to God He still hears us.