JonahVoorbeeld

The prayer of Jonah from the belly of the ship

Being tossed in the sea, Jonah must have thought: This is it and that he would die. But then he is swallowed by a big fish. We often think that it must have been a whale. But how? A fish swallowing a human being, is that even possible? That question might seem important but is not the actual question that should be asked. You should rather ask yourself why this story has been passed on for ages. What was it trying to make clear?

For instance, you can discover this by finding the crisis points of the story. Look at the strange things and pay attention to the situations described, but read the story as being blown up slightly. In this story, you read about a recalcitrant prophet, who absolutely does not feel like going to the arch-enemies in Nineveh to pass on the message of the Almighty. And now he is literally at the lowest ebb of his existence. He is deeply buried in the realm of darkness. In the belly of the fish at the depths of the sea. He wanted to flee, but he did not manage to escape from God’s attention.

In the depths, he prays. Like so many people pray if there is no other option left. Earlier on he was on the run, snored through the storm while the heathen cried out to any god they could think of. But here, in the darkness he prays:

Jonah 2:2-5
‘I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,

and he answered me;

out of the belly of Sheol I cried,

and you heard my voice.

For you cast me into the deep,

into the heart of the seas,

and the flood surrounded me;

all your waves and your billows passed over me.

Then I said, ‘I’m driven away from your sight;

yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.

It is a miracle that God is just there when we seem to be so far away from him. God listens and Jonah gets a second life. 

Later on, Jesus uses this story about Jonah, who has been in the belly of the fish for three days, as a sign that he himself would be dead for three days and would come alive again. And Jesus calls himself ‘someone who is more than Jonah’  

Matthew 12:40

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth...

Jesus was in the deepest depths of Sheol but his power of life was so strong that He came alive on the third day. The world lies before Him. His sight is upon the world after the resurrection from the dead and all nations will get to know the mercy of God.