Jonah’s physical and spiritual turmoil entwine. He is flipped and battered by the ocean and dragged to the depths. His spiritual journey endures wild, dark places of abandonment, distrust and despair. Jonah’s departure from God was in his control. But his life became overwhelmingly chaotic. Some of us will recognise dark despair from our own or others’ experience. The darkness is real, as it was for Jonah. 

It is God in control now (v 6b). He acts instinctively from compassion and saves Jonah. Although harrowing, times of despair also hold hope because God is there. Jonah’s ability to even remember God is evidence that God has remembered and is present with Jonah. It is the same for us. In the space of the fish’s belly Jonah reflects. He calls out and God hears (v 2). Jonah emerges from darkness, shouting excitedly about the true God (v 9)! God, loving even small steps towards him, builds on that faith. He lands Jonah safely on the beach.    

Saved but not sorted. Jonah has renewed zeal for God’s salvation. However, the same compassion that rescued Jonah is the very compassion Jonah would deny Nineveh. Transformation is God’s continuing process for us of shedding and renewing thinking. The journey continues. We also can be grateful that God walks with us the whole way.

‘If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will lay hold of me.’¹

The Hebrew word for the fish that swallows Jonah and then spits him out is a masculine noun, but a female noun for ‘fish’ is used for the fish in whose belly Jonah resides. Various commentators have put forth their suggestions and interpretations, some conjectural, but the swapping of the fish’s gender is yet another unusual twist in this fascinating book. This great he-fish, she-fish plays a bizarre, God-ordained role in the rescue of Jonah. When the sailors prayed, the fish swallowed Jonah and when Jonah prays, the fish vomits him up. Jonah told the sailors he feared the God who made the sea and the dry land and God uses both in his salvation of Jonah. Jonah could not, and we cannot, run away from God. Sometimes that is comforting; at other times perturbing. Even when God is rebuking his child, it is almost always with an element of mercy, usually to bring back the wandering sheep to himself. Unlike the Prodigal Son, there is no record of Jonah’s repentance and some have suggested that Jonah’s prayer is not sincere. I would be apprehensive about judging another’s prayer to be insincere. God knows the heart and it might be that his prayer(s) that Jonah refers to in verses 2 and 7 included repentance.

Nevertheless, while Jonah’s prayer of gratitude may well be genuine, it is ironic that he attributes his situation to God (vs 3,4), not to mention his references to idol-worshippers (v 8) given that the idol-worshippers behaved more righteously than he. Even so, he is correct with his proclamation that, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord’ (v 9). In fact, it might be a good summary for the book of Jonah. The sailors were saved from bloodshed and Jonah from death. It is the same today: salvation is from the Lord!

Thank you that salvation is from you, Lord. Thank you that we are never beyond your reach and that you can use any means you wish to save us.

¹ Ps 139:9,10, NASB