Jonah 2.1-10 contains the prayer of Jonah in the stomach of the great fish. This is not a prayer for deliverance, but a prayer of thanksgiving because he was delivered already by being kept alive. We will have allusions to Yeshua’s sign of three days and nights in the tomb, he rises at night when it is dark and cold, and we have allusions to Israel going deep into the Red Sea but coming out alive after three days and nights.
v 1…Then Jonah (a double-type of Israel and Yeshua) prayed to the Lord (Yehovah) his God from the stomach of the fish (these thoughts coming to him repeatedly while going through this distress),
v 2…and he said, “I called out of my distress to the Lord (like Israel will during the birth-pains-Hos 5.15 through 6.3), and he answered me. I cried for help from the belly (womb) of Sheol (this is not referring to the belly of the fish, this is an idiom referring to the danger of death with no escape). Thou didst hear my voice (and delivered him from certain death by drowning).
v 3…For thou hadst cast me into the deep (the sailors were Yehovah’s tool), into the heart of the seas (multitude of waters), and the current engulfed me. All thy breakers and billows passed over me (as he sank).
v 4…So I said (literally “then I thought”), ‘I have been expelled from thy sight (it’s all over now). Nevertheless (but wait a minute) I will look again toward thy holy Temple (he was overwhelmed with confidence, faith).’
v 5…Water encompassed me to the point of death (he was a “goner”), the great deep (Hebrew “tehom” or subterranean deep) engulfed me (he was really deep). Weeds were wrapped around my head (seagrass at the bottom alludes to the thorns around Yeshua’s head).
v 6…I descended to the roots (ends) of the mountains (was cut off); the earth with its bars (bolts, when a door is shut behind him so there was no way back to the land) was around me forever (buried), but thou hast brought up my life from the pit (from the night and darkness), O Lord my God.
v 7…While I (my soul, life) was fainting away (drowning into death), I remembered the Lord (he thought he knew him), and my prayer came to thee (reached Yehovah), into thy holy Temple (in heaven).
v 8…Those who regard vain (false) idols forsake their faithfulness (forfeit their one hope for deliverance).
v 9…But I will sacrifice to thee with the voice of thanksgiving (a prayer of sincere thanks). That which I have vowed (made in his distress) I will pay (fulfill them). Salvation (“yeshuatah”) is from the Lord (Yehovah).”
v 10…Then the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah up onto dry land (probably near Joppa again in the land of Israel, just like Yeshua came out of the grave in Israel. Jonah was taken right back to the starting point to pick up where he left off).
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