Jonah 2.3-Jonah Acknowledges That Yahweh Was Responsible For His Being Thrown Into The Sea And For His Drowning Experience
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday October 19, 2010
Jonah: Jonah 2:3-Jonah Acknowledges That The Lord Was Responsible For His Being Thrown Into The Sea And For His Drowning Experience
Lesson # 27
Please turn in your Bibles to Jonah 2:1.
Next, we will note Jonah 2:3 and in this passage Jonah acknowledges in his prayer of thanksgiving that Yahweh He was responsible for his being thrown into the sea.
Then, he follows this up by beginning to recount his drowning experience.
Jonah 2:1, “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish, 2 and he said, ‘I called out of my distress to the Lord, and He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice. 3 For You had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me.’ 4 So I said, ‘I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ 5 Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, weeds were wrapped around my head. 6 I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, but You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. 7 While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to You, into Your holy temple. 8 Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness, 9 but I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord.’ 10 Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.” (NASU)
Let’s look at verse 3.
Jonah 2:3, “For You had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me.” (NASU)
“For You had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas” emphasizes and affirms the events and circumstances that led to Jonah crying out to the Lord in prayer to deliver him from death.
“You had cast me” is composed of the second person masculine singular hiphil active imperfect form of the verb šā∙lǎḵ (שָׁלַךְ) (shaw-lak), “You had cast” and the first person singular pronomial suffix ǎnî (אֲנִי) (an-ee), “me.”
The verb šā∙lǎḵ means “to throw” however, the word should be translated “to cast” since it is being used here in poetry.
Though it is used of the crew casting Jonah into the sea, the implied subject is Yahweh since Jonah is addressing Him in this prayer of thanksgiving.
The hiphil stem of the verb signifies causation, i.e. the causing of an event indicating that Yahweh “caused” Jonah to be cast into the Mediterranean Sea by the crew.
This does not contradict the statement in Jonah 1:15 where the crew in response to the command of Jonah (1:12), lifted up the prophet and threw him into the sea.
The storm was caused by Yahweh (1:4) and the only action that could bring the storm to an end was to throw Jonah overboard.
The prayer offered up by the crew to Yahweh recognizes that doing so was according to His will as recorded in Jonah 1:14.
The fact that the storm immediately came to a halt also indicates this was the Lord’s will.
Also, indicating that throwing Jonah overboard was the Lord’s will is that the crew does not perish and neither are they punished by the Lord for throwing Jonah overboard.
Therefore, Jonah 2:3 views the crew as the Lord’s instrument in carrying out this action against Jonah.
“Into the deep” is the feminine singular form of the noun meṣô∙lā(h) (מְצֹולָה) (mets-o-law), which means “the ocean depths” or “the depths” of the sea, i.e., the very deep area of the Mediterranean Sea.
“Into the heart of the seas” is composed of the preposition be (בְּ־) (be), “into” and the masculine singular form of the noun lē∙ḇāḇ (לֵבָב) (law-bab), “the heart of” and the masculine plural form of the noun yām (יָם) (yawm), “the sea.”
The noun yām means “sea” and refers once again to the Mediterranean.
The noun lē∙ḇāḇ means “heart” in the sense of the middle or midst of a thing, which in our context would be the Mediterranean.
This prepositional phrase indicates that Jonah is in a predicament from which he cannot possibly escape, apart from Yahweh’s aid.
Jonah 2:3, “For You had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me.” (NASU)
“And the current engulfed me” presents the result of the previous clause.
Thus it indicates that “as a result of” the Lord causing the crew to cast Jonah into the ocean depths, into the midst of the seas, the ocean current engulfed him.
This result clause is Jonah’s first description of drowning in this song of thanksgiving.
We have the figure of asyndeton where there is no connective word between the previous result clause and the statement to follow.
This is done so that the reader will appreciate the gravity of the dire situation of drowning that Jonah experienced.
“All your breakers and billows” is composed of the collective singular construct form of the noun kōl (כֹּל) (kole), “all” and the masculine plural construct form of the noun miš∙bār (מִשְׁבָּר) (mish-bar), “breakers” and the second person masculine singular form of the pronomial suffix ʾǎt∙tā(h) (אַתָּה) (aw-thaw), “your” which is followed by the conjunction wa (וָ) (wa), “and” and the masculine plural construct form of the noun gǎl (גַּל) (gal), “billows” and the second person masculine singular form of the pronomial suffix ʾǎt∙tā(h) (אַתָּה) (aw-thaw), “your.”
The noun miš∙bār refers to the waves of the Mediterranean Sea and the noun gǎl refers to surging waves or turbulent waves from a stormy ocean with strong currents, white water and loud sounds associated with them (Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament).
The latter speaks of waves that are turbulent or violent whereas the former simply speaks of waves in a general sense.
The pronomial suffix ʾǎt∙tā(h), “your” refers to Yahweh and is used to modify both nouns emphasizing possession indicating that these turbulent or violent waves belong to the Lord.
This indicates that Jonah was well aware that the Lord was disciplining him for his stubborn disobedience.
These two nouns form a hendiadys.
This figure takes place when two nouns or verbs are used to express one idea or concept and it literally means “one by means of two” and takes place when the author uses two words but only one idea is intended.
The two words are of the same parts of speech, i.e., two nouns or verbs, and are always joined together by the conjunction “and” and are also always in the same case.
One of the two words expresses the thing, and the other intensifies it by being changed (if a noun) into an adjective of the superlative degree, which is, by this means, made especially emphatic.
So the two nouns express one idea with the noun gǎl intensifying the noun miš∙bār.
Therefore, we can translate “all Your breakers and billows” as “all Your waves, yes, your violent waves.”
This clause is Jonah’s second description of drowning in verse 3 and is taken verbatim from Psalm 42:7.
Not only is Jonah acknowledging God’s sovereignty over him and His providence but also that he is being disciplined by God, which expressed God’s love for Jonah.
Revelation 3:19, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.”
Proverbs 3:11-12, “My son, do not reject the discipline of the LORD or loathe His reproof, for whom the LORD loves He reproves, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.”
There are other Old Testament psalms that use the imagery of drowning to express experiencing great adversity.
Psalm 18:1-6, “For the music director; by the Lord’s servant David, who sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord rescued him from the power of all his enemies, including Saul. 1 He said: ‘I love you, Lord, my source of strength! 2 The Lord is my high ridge, my stronghold, my deliverer. My God is my rocky summit where I take shelter, my shield, the horn that saves me, and my refuge. 3 I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I was delivered from my enemies. 4 The waves of death engulfed me, the currents of chaos overwhelmed me. 5 The ropes of Sheol tightened around me, the snares of death trapped me. 6 In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried out to my God. From his heavenly temple he heard my voice; he listened to my cry for help.” (NET Bible)
Psalm 88:7, “Your anger bears down on me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. (Selah)” (NET Bible)
