Jonah 2.10-The Lord Commands The Fish To Vomit Jonah Up Onto Dry Land
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday November 2, 2010
Jonah: Jonah 2:10-The Lord Commands The Fish To Vomit Jonah Up Onto Dry Land
Lesson # 35
Please turn in your Bibles to Jonah 2:1.
Next we will complete our study of the third scene in the book of Jonah and complete our study of chapter two of this book by noting verse 10, which records the Lord commanding the great fish to vomit Jonah up onto dry land.
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)
The narrative or prose that began in 1:17 is resumed once again here in 2:10.
At this point in the narrative Jonah has confessed his sin of disobeying the Lord and has repented, which is indicated by the statements in Jonah 3:3-4, which record Jonah obeying the Lord’s command to go to Nineveh and pronouncing judgment against it.
However, Jonah has not repented concerning his hateful attitude towards the Ninevites as indicated by the statements he makes to the Lord as recorded in Jonah 4:2-3.
Jonah 2:10 records the sixth miracle that is recorded in the second and third scenes of this narrative.
The first is the Lord causing a great storm upon the Mediterranean Sea (1:4) and the second was Jonah’s lot being chosen (1:7).
The third was the Lord calming the raging sea when the crew threw Jonah into the sea (1:15) and the fourth was the Lord commissioning a great fish to swallow Jonah to save him from drowning (1:17a).
The fifth is Jonah living for three days and three nights in the stomach of this great fish (1:17b).
“Then the Lord commanded the fish” is composed of the conjunction wa (וָ) (wa), “then” and the third person masculine singular qal active imperfect form of the verb ʾā∙mǎr (אָמַר) (aw-mar), “commanded” and the masculine singular form of the proper noun Yahweh (יהוה) (yeh-ho-vaw), “the Lord” and the preposition le (לְ) and the articular masculine singular form of the noun dāḡ (דָּג) (dawg), “the fish.”
The proper noun Yahweh is as we have noted, the covenant-keeping personal name of God used in connection with man’s salvation emphasizing that Jonah possessed a covenant relationship with God.
It reminds the reader of the “immanency” of God meaning that He involves Himself in and concerns Himself with and intervenes in the affairs of men.
Thus, it reminds the reader that God had intervened in the life of Jonah by commissioning the great fish to swallow and save him from drowning and by commanding this fish to vomit him onto dry land so that he could fulfill the commission the Lord gave him to go to Nineveh and announce judgment against it.
The noun dāḡ means “fish” and does not make the distinction between creatures that we classify as mammals and fish since Biblical Hebrew has no technical terminology for different kinds of aquatic life, thus the futility of attempting to classify this fish in Jonah with modern works of zoology.
The NET Bible makes the following comment, they write, “The fish functions as a literary foil to highlight Jonah’s hesitancy to obey God up to this point. In contrast to Jonah who immediately fled when God commanded him, the fish immediately obeyed.”
“And it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land” is a result clause indicating that the enormous fish vomited Jonah onto dry land “as a result of” the Lord commanding the creature to do so.
“It vomited” is the third person masculine singular hiphil active imperfect form of the verb qî(ʾ) (קִיא) (kee), which means “to vomit,” i.e. a state of disgorging the contents of the stomach or mouth, usually as a reflex of the body.” (Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament)
The New American Commentary writes, “The word translated ‘vomited’ in the NIV is a coarse word and is used in the Old Testament only in images that arouse disgust (Isa 19:14; Jer 48:26; Lev 18:28). While in other versions it is translated ‘spit’ or ‘spewed,’ the word used in the NIV is not only graphic but also accurate.” (The New American Commentary: Amos, Obadiah and Jonah; page 252)
The hiphil stem of the verb qî(ʾ) is causative indicating that the great fish caused itself to vomit Jonah onto dry land in response to the Lord’s command to do so.
The text does not say the exact geographical location where Jonah landed but as Stuart correctly observes he more than likely was back in Palestine from where he had fled. (Word Biblical Commentary, volume 31: Hosea-Jonah, page 479)
Jonah’s expulsion from the great fish completes his deliverance since he could not have survived for much longer in its stomach.
By means of His Word, the Lord completes this deliverance, which manifests the omnipotence of His Word.
The fact that the Lord commissioned the great fish to swallow Jonah to save him from drowning, sustained him for three days and three nights in the stomach of this great fish and can commanded the great fish to vomit him onto dry land makes clear that Jonah was the beneficiary of God’s grace.
He deserved death but instead was delivered from drowning by the Lord because of God’s grace policy.
Jonah realizes that he has been delivered by the Lord from drowning after being swallowed by this great fish and that this great fish was not sent to execute him.
Therefore, this great fish was an instrument of God’s grace and mercy for Jonah.
Though he was guilty of insubordination, he was not executed by the Lord but instead was delivered from death.
Grace is all that God is free to do in imparting unmerited blessings to those who trust in Jesus Christ as Savior based upon the merits of Christ and His death on the Cross.
It is God treating us in a manner that we don’t deserve and excludes any human works in order to acquire eternal salvation or blessing from God.
Grace means that God saved us and blessed us despite ourselves and not according to anything that we do but rather saved us and blessed us because of the merits of Christ and His work on the Cross.
By means of faith, we accept the grace of God, which is a non-meritorious system of perception, which is in total accord with the grace of God (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Jonah is also the beneficiary of God’s mercy, which flows from His attribute of love (Eph. 2:1-7).
Therefore, by being delivered from a death he truly deserved because of his rebellion against the Lord, Jonah was being taught grace in order to change his attitude about the Ninevites who were also worthy of death like Jonah because of their disobedience and rebellion against the Lord.
Like the majority of Israelites in his day, Jonah has been involved in self-righteous arrogance as expressed by the fact that he doesn’t believe the Ninevites are worthy of grace like himself and Israel.
However, both Israel and Jonah as well as the Ninevites are guilty before a holy God (Romans 3:10).
God’s perfect holy standards condemn both Jonah and his fellow countrymen along with the Ninevites.
The self-righteousness of the Jew is based upon their false assumption that they would be accepted by God on the basis of their national identity or racial background meaning that they thought that they were saved based upon their father or progenitor, Abraham and the promises God made to Abraham (Romans 2).
The Jews believed that this promise guaranteed salvation for all who retained their connection with Abraham through the observance of the law and the rite of circumcision.
Therefore they expected to be regarded and treated not so much as individuals, each dealt with according to his personal character, but as a community to whom salvation was assured by the promise made to Abraham.
John the Baptist addressed the self-righteous attitude of the Jew who thought their racial background and relationship to Abraham would guarantee their entrance into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 3:5-9).
The Lord Jesus Christ also addressed this self-righteous attitude of the Jews (John 8:34-45; Luke 18:10-14).
Although a self-righteous person may argue that he has not committed every sin in the book, he should remember the following facts taught in the Bible: (1) He is capable of committing all the sins listed in Romans 1:29-31 since everyone has an old sin nature (Romans 5:12-19; 7). (2) By breaking one commandment, he is guilty of all (James 2:10). (3) He has committed sins of thought which he may never have committed in actual deed, and these are forbidden by the Word since the Lord Jesus taught that a lustful look is tantamount to adultery (Matthew 5:28).
The third scene in the book of Jonah that appears in 1:17-2:10 teaches the reader that God is sovereign.
The sovereignty of God is demonstrated in Jonah 1:17, which records the Lord commissioning an enormous fish to swallow Jonah.
God’s sovereignty is also of course revealed in Jonah 2:10, which records the Lord commanding this great fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land.