Jonah 2:5

2:1-9 Observe when Jonah prayed. When he was in trouble, under the tokens of God's displeasure against him for sin: when we are in affliction we must pray. Being kept alive by miracle, he prayed. A sense of God's good-will to us, notwithstanding our offences, opens the lips in prayer, which were closed with the dread of wrath. Also, where he prayed; in the belly of the fish. No place is amiss for prayer. Men may shut us from communion with one another, but not from communion with God. To whom he prayed; to the Lord his God. This encourages even backsliders to return. What his prayer was. This seems to relate his experience and reflections, then and afterwards, rather than to be the form or substance of his prayer. Jonah reflects on the earnestness of his prayer, and God's readiness to hear and answer. If we would get good by our troubles, we must notice the hand of God in them. He had wickedly fled from the presence of the Lord, who might justly take his Holy Spirit from him, never to visit him more. Those only are miserable, whom God will no longer own and favour. But though he was perplexed, yet not in despair. Jonah reflects on the favour of God to him, when he sought to God, and trusted in him in his distress. He warns others, and tells them to keep close to God. Those who forsake their own duty, forsake their own mercy; those who run away from the work of their place and day, run away from the comfort of it.

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 quantities, that they compassed him about, even to the endangering of his life there.

So the Targum, "the waters surrounded me unto death.'' In this Jonah was a type of Christ in his afflictions and sorrows, which were so many and heavy, that he is said to be "exceeding sorrowful", or surrounded with sorrow, "even unto death", Matthew 26:38; see also Psalm 69:1; the depth closed me round about; the great deep, the waters of the sea, both when he fell into it, and while in the belly of the fish: thus also Christ his antitype came into deep waters, where there was no standing, and where floods of sin, and of ungodly men, and of divine wrath, overflowed him; see Psalm 18:4; the weeds were wrapped about my head; the sea weeds, of which there are great quantities in it, which grow at the bottom of it, to which Jonah came, and from whence he rose up again, before swallowed by the fish; or these weeds were drawn into the belly of the fish, along with the water which it took in, and were wrapped about the head of the prophet as he lay there; or the fish went down with him into the bottom of the sea, and lay among those weeds; and so they may be said to be wrapped about him, he being there, as follows. The Targum is, "the sea of Suph being over my head;'' the same with the Red sea, which is so called, Psalm 106:9; and elsewhere, and that from the weeds that were in it; and R.

(5) The waters.— See reference in margin. The weeds were wrapped about my head.—This graphic touch is quite original. The figure of overwhelming waters is a common one in Hebrew song to represent some crushing sorrow, but nowhere is the picture so vivid as here. At the same time the entire absence of any reference to the fish, which would, indeed, be altogether out of place in this picture of a drowning man entangled in seaweed, should be noticed. That on which the prophet lays stress is not on the mode of his escape, but his escape itself.

The former part of this verse seems to be an ingeminating of what was said Jonah 2:3 , and bears the self-same meaning and interpretation. The waters; literally, the waters of the sea; metaphorically, afflictions; mystically, temptations; these last arising from his own guilt, and from the tokens of God’s displeasure against him in so unusual a manner. Compassed me about, even to the soul; to the endangering his life, and were forerunners (as he apprehended) of worse miseries, the foretastes of an eternal damnation: it was a miracle of providence to preserve my life, it was no less wonder of free grace to save my soul. The depth closed me round about; he was carried to the bottom of the sea, lay as in the deepest hole of the sea. The weeds were wrapped about my head; not immediately, as some conjecture, by the fish pulling them from the bottom of the sea and swallowing them down, where they wrapped Jonah’s head; but mediately, when the fish swam amidst these: or rather it is a comparative speech; I was no more likely to escape drowning, than a man in the depth of the sea, wrapped up in, and held fast down by, the weeds in the bottom of the sea.

Verses 5, 6. - In parallel clauses, Jonah describes still more vividly the horrors that surrounded him. Verse 5. - Compassed me about . Not the same word as in ver. 3. Septuagint, περιεχίθη μοι "was poured around me." Even to the soul; so as to reach his life (comp. Psalm 18:5 ; Psalm 69:1, 2 ; Lamentations 3:54 ). The depth closed me round about. The verb is the lame as in ver. 3, translated there, "compassed me about" Vulgate, abyssus vallavit me . The weeds ( suph ); seaweed. Jonah sank to the bottom before he was swallowed by the fish. The LXX. omits the word. The Vulgate gives pelagus , which is probably derived from the fact of the Red Sea being called "the Sea of Suph," the term being thence applied to any sea. Jonah 2:5

5 . compassed me about ] It would be better, perhaps, to render surrounded me , in order to show that this is a different word from that in Jonah 2:3 , and then in the second clause of this verse, where the word is the same as in Jonah 2:3 , to render compassed me about , instead of closed me round about . to the soul ] i. e. so as to endanger my soul, or life. Comp. Psalm 69:1 (where similar language is used figuratively) and Jeremiah 4:10 . the weeds ] The Heb. word is sûph, which so often occurs in the name Red Sea (lit., sea of sûph ). “The sûph of the sea, it seems quite certain, is a seaweed resembling wool . Such sea-weed is thrown up abundantly on the shores of the Red Sea.”—Smith’s Bible Dict. , Art. Red Sea .

The waters compassed me about even to the soul - Words which to others were figures of distress ( Psalm 69:2 . See the introduction to Jonah), "the waters have come even to the soul," were to Jonah realities. Sunk in the deep seas, the water strove to penetrate at every opening. To draw breath, which sustains life, to him would have been death. There was but a breath between him and death. "The deep encompassed me," encircling, meeting him wherever he turned, holding him imprisoned on every side, so that there was no escape, and, if there otherwise had been, he was bound motionless, "the weed was wrapped around my head, like a grave-band." "The weed" was the well known seaweed, which, even near the surface of the sea where man can struggle, twines round him, a peril even to the strong swimmer, entangling him often the more, the more he struggles to extricate himself from it. But to one below, powerless to struggle, it was as his winding sheet.