Jonah 2:1-10

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Home > The Old Testament > Jonah > Chapter 2
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Summary[edit]

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Relationship to Jonah. The relationship of Chapter 2 to Jonah as a whole is discussed at Jonah.

Story. Chapter 2 is often characterized as a Psalm, together with a short introduction and epilogue in which Jonah is swallowed and then vomited back out by the fish.

  • Jonah 1:17-2:1: Jonah prays after three days in the belly of a fish.
  • Jonah 2:2-4: Though cast out into the deep, Jonah looked to the Lord's temple, and the Lord answered his cry from hell.
  • Jonah 2:5-7: Though buried in the deep, Jonah payed to the Lord in his temple, and the Lord brought his life up from prison and corruption.
  • Jonah 2:8-9: Salvation is of the Lord.
  • Jonah 2:10: The Lord has the fish vomit Jonah out upon dry ground.

Message. Themes, symbols, and doctrinal points emphasized in Chapter 2 include:

Discussion[edit]

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• Jonah prays after three days in the belly of a fish (1:17-2:1)
Jonah's Psalm
First Verse:
a. the Lord answered my cry from hell (2:2)
b. the Lord had cast me into the deep (2:3)
c. though cast out, I looked again to the Lord’s temple (2:4)
Second Verse:
b. I was buried in the deep (2:5)
a. the Lord brought my life up from prison and corruption (2:6)
c. I remembered and prayed to the Lord in his temple (2:7)
Conclusion: salvation is of the Lord (2:8-9)
• the Lord has the fish vomit Jonah out upon dry ground (2:10)
  • Christ twice identifies this chapter as a sign of his own death and subsequent resurrection on the third day. When asked for a sign, Christ replies that “there shall no sign be given to it [this generation], but the sign of the prophet Jonah; for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:39-40, also see Matthew 16:4).
As for his own symbolic death, Jonah’s return from a (spirit) prison prepared by God under the depths of the sea to life upon dry ground represents both victory over physical death and victory over evil or spiritual death (see, e.g., the use of “hell” in 2 Nephi 9:10-13). After being shown in chapter 1 that God’s justice is inescapable, we are shown in chapter 2 that it is in fact possible to escape justice – through God’s mercy if we will turn and seek it from him in his holy temple, for “salvation is of the Lord.”
Jonah’s unsuccessful trip across the sea can be contrasted with the successful trip of the Jaredites (Ether 6). They are not asleep to their peril, never cease to call upon God, therefore cannot be harmed by the sea’s mountain waves that crash upon them nor by any leviathan in its depths (evil and death), and are continually blown by the wind (spirit or life) toward the promised land (heaven).
Paul’s shipwreck in the last two chapters of Acts is another symbolic death and resurrection on the open sea, in that case teaching that Christ’s death and resurrection in the last two chapters of Luke is reenacted in the death and resurrection of all mankind. And in Romans 6:4 Paul expressly describes baptism by immersion as a symbolic death.

Points to ponder[edit]

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Resources[edit]

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Notes[edit]

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