Jonah 2
Notes
Transcript
Review
Review
Structure
Quotes
Allusions
Form
17 And Yahweh provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
1 And Jonah prayed to Yahweh his God from the belly of the fish
2 and said, “I called from my distress to Yahweh, and he answered me; from the belly of Sheol I cried for help— you heard my voice.
3 And you threw me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the sea currents surrounded me; all your breakers and your surging waves passed over me.
4 And I said, ‘I am banished from your sight; how will I continue to look on your holy temple?’
5 The waters encompassed me up to my neck; the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 I went down to the foundations of the mountains; the Underworld—its bars were around me forever. But you brought up my life from the pit, Yahweh my God.
7 When my life was ebbing away from me, I remembered Yahweh, and my prayer came to you, to your holy temple.
8 Those who worship vain idols forsake their loyal love.
9 But I, with a voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you; I will fulfill what I have vowed. Deliverance belongs to Yahweh!”
10 And Yahweh spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out on the dry land.
Great Fish?
Great Fish?
Masoretic Text vs. LXX
Masoretic Text vs. LXX
Masoretic Text is the Hebrew Text preserved and translated by the Masoretes.
The Age of the text dates back to about 1000 AD.
The Age of the LXX dates back to 300 BC.
The older, more preserved text is the LXX.
The Dead Sea Scrolls contain both, dating back over 2000 years (written before Jesus). They include the Septuagint and Hebrew Texts.
The Hebrew Scrolls found in Qumran reflect the LXX, not the later Masoretic text.
All that to say this: The LXX and the Dead Sea Scrolls call this animal in 1:17 a tanin/katos = sea monster.
20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly over the earth across the face of the vaulted dome of heaven.”
21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kind, and every bird with wings according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
24 How many are your works, O Yahweh; all of them you have done in wisdom. The earth is full of your creatures.
25 This is the great and wide sea, in which are moving animals without number, living things small and great.
26 There the ships sail. Leviathan is there that you formed to play with.
7 Praise Yahweh from the earth— great sea creatures and all deeps,
8 fire and hail, snow and cloud, stormy wind doing his bidding,
These large sea monsters were worshiped as gods by many of Israel’s neighbors, which leads the authors of the Bible to refer to them as gods.
9 Awake! Awake; put on strength, O arm of Yahweh! Awake as in days of long ago, the generations of a long time back! Are you not the one who cut Rahab in pieces, the one who pierced the sea-dragon?
10 Are you not the one who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, the one who made the depths of the sea a way for those who are redeemed to cross over?
12 But God has been my king from long ago, working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You split open the sea by your strength; You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food to the desert dwelling creatures.
3 Speak, and you must say, ‘thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Look! I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great sea monster, the one lying down in the midst of his Nile streams, who says to me, “It is my Nile, and I made it for myself.”
We also have example of these great sea monsters/tanin/katos swallowing up things.
34 Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me and sucked me dry; he has made me an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like the sea monster; he has filled his belly with my delicacies; he has rinsed me.
2 “If it had not been Yahweh who was on our side, when men rose up against us,
3 then they would have swallowed us alive, when their anger was kindled against us.
4 Then the waters would have flooded over us, the torrent would have passed over our soul.
5 Then over our soul would have passed the raging waters.”
Three Days and Three Nights?
Three Days and Three Nights?
This phrase is a theme throughout the Hebrew Bible, and is usually used in one of two ways.
It is a time of testing, danger, or nearness to death.
It is used to describe an ominous journey
HERE ARE EXAMPLES ON TESTING
12 part of a cake of pressed figs and two cakes of raisins. He ate and was revived, for he had not eaten any food or drunk any water for three days and three nights.
5 “Go back and tell Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the Lord.
8 Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the temple of the Lord on the third day from now?”
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.
2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.
OR CAN BE OMINOUS JOURNEY
4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.
The first use…the sacrifice of Isaac.
18 “The elders of Israel will listen to you. Then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God.’
3 Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword.”
27 We must take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, as he commands us.”
22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water.
GOD ALSO USES ANIMALS IN CONJUNCTION WITH 3 DAYS & NIGHTS
13 “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his sores, then Ephraim turned to Assyria, and sent to the great king for help. But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores.
14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them.
15 Then I will return to my lair until they have borne their guilt and seek my face— in their misery they will earnestly seek me.”
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.
2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.
3 Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.”
When Yahweh is the agent behind these animals, what would normally destroy and devour becomes a source of change, humbling, and is used by Yahweh to return life to the way it is intended.