This chapter contains the prayer of Jonah, when in the fish’s belly; the time when he prayed, the person he prayed unto, and the place where, are suggested in Jonah 2:1; and the latter described as a place of great straitness and distress, and even as hell itself, Jonah 2:2; The condition he was…

Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly. ] Though Jonah had been a praying man, being a good man, and a prophet of the Lord, yet it seems he had not prayed for some time; being disobedient to the will of God, he restrained prayer before him; all the while he was going to…

And said Not unto the Lord in prayer, but to others, to whom he communicated what passed between God and him in this time of distress; how he prayed to him, and was heard by him; what a condition he had been in, and how he was delivered out of it; what was his frame of mind while in it, sometimes…

For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, &c.] Though the mariners did this, yet Jonah ascribes it to the Lord; he knew it was he, whom he had sinned against and offended; that he was he that sent the storm after him into the sea; that determined the lot to fall upon him; that…

Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight Or, “from before thine eyes” [[3]]; the Targum, from before thy Word; as David also said in his distress, ; not but that he knew he was in the reach and under the eye of his omniscience, which saw him in the fish’s belly, in the depths of the sea, for nothing…

The waters compassed me about, even to the soul Either when he was first cast into the sea, which almost suffocated him, and just ready to take away his life, could not breathe for them, as is the case of a man drowning; or these were the waters the fish drew into its belly, in such large…

I went down to the bottom of the mountains Which are in the midst of the sea, whither the fish carried him, and where the waters are deep; or the bottom of rocks and promontories on the shore of the sea; and such vast rocks hanging over the sea, whose bottoms were in it, it seems are on the shore…

When my soul fainted within me Covered with grief; overwhelmed with sorrow; ready to faint and sink at the sight of his sins; and under a sense of the wrath and displeasure of God, and being forsaken by him: I remembered the Lord; his covenant and promises, his former mercies and lovingkindness,…

They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. ] They that worship idols, who are nothing, mere vanity and lies, and deceive those that serve them, these forsake the God of their lives, and of their mercies; and so do all such who serve divers lusts and pleasures, and pursue the vanities…

But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving, &c.] Not only offer up a legal sacrifice in a ceremonial way, when he came to Jerusalem; but along with it the spiritual sacrifice of praise, which he knew was more acceptable unto God; and thus Christ, his antitype, upon his…

And the Lord spake unto the fish Or gave orders to it; he that made it could command it; all creatures are the servants of God, and do his will; what he says is done; he so ordered it by his providence, that this fish should come near the shore, and be so wrought upon by his power, that it could…