Chapter 2 Jonah Commentary

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**I have finished chpater 2 of the Commenatary of Jonah. **

Jonah Commentary Chapter 2

“Jonah bears witness to being swallowed up by the great whale and being in the belly three days and three nights. In this passage he recounts his prayer that he made as well a prophetic truth that typifies Christ, and his outstanding repentance.” [Cassiodorus Exposition on Psalms 129:1] 480AD

 

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*2:1And the Lord commanded a great whale to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights.

Apologetic of the History“Either all the miracles wrought by divine power may be treated as incredible, or there is no reason why the story of the miracle should be believed. The resurrection of Christ Himself upon the third day would not be believed by us, if the Christian faith was afraid to encounter ridicule. I would be surprised that it would be reckoned what was done with Jonah to be incredible; unless, perchance, one would think it be easier for a dead man to be raised in life from his tomb, than for a living man to be kept alive in the belly of a whale. But perhaps our objectors find it impossible to believe in regard to this divine miracle that the heated moist air of the belly, whereby food is dissolved, could be so moderated in temperature as to preserve the life of a man. If so, with how much greater force might they pronounce it incredible that the three young men cast into the furnace by the impious king walked unharmed in the midst of the flames (Daniel 3)!

It is neither unreasonable nor unprofitable to inquire what these miracles signify, so that, after their significance has been explained, men may believe not only that they really occurred, but also that they have been recorded, because of their possessing symbolic meaning. Let him, therefore, who proposes to inquire why the prophet Jonah was three days in the belly of a whale, begin by dismissing doubts as to the fact itself; for this did actually occur, and did not occur in vain. For figures which are expressed in words only, and not in actions, aid our faith, how much more should our faith be helped by figures expressed not only in words, but also in action!” [St. Augustine Letter CII 32-33] 400AD

Allegory “For, as Jonah was in the whale’s belly three days and three nights; so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.” [The Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel of St. Matthew 12:40]

Allegory “As Jonah passed from the ship to the belly of the whale, so Christ passed from the cross to the tomb, or into the abyss of death. And as Jonah suffered this for the sake of those who were endangered by the storm, so Christ suffered for the sake of those who are tossed on the waves of this world.” [St. Augustine Letter CII 34] 400AD

Allegory The fish which swallowed Jonah in the sea, shows forth the death which Christ suffered in the world. Three days and nights was the one in the whale’s belly, the other in the tomb; the one was cast up on dry land, the other arose in glory.” [Bl. Maurus Rabanus] 790AD

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Allegory and Moral “And further, he who is persuaded of what ‘great whale’ that which ‘swallowed’ Jonah is a type, and comprehends that it is the one spoken of by Job, ‘Let him that curse that day curse it, even he that is ready to attack that great whale,’ if at any time he should happen to find himself because of disobedience ‘in the belly of the whale’; let him repent and pray, and he shall go forth therefrom; and going forth and continuing to obey the commandments of God he shall be able in the kindness of the Spirit to prophesy to those that are perishing even now and become for them a cause of salvation.” [Origen On Prayer XIII; 4] 185AD

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Very Allegory** **“For it seems that the whale signifies Time, which never stands still, but is always going on, and consumes the things which are made by long and short intervals. And his being swallowed by the whale signifies our inevitable removal by time. For the belly in which Jonah, when he was swallowed, was concealed, is the all-receiving earth, which receives all things, which are consumed by time.” [St. Methodius Fragments On the History of Jonah] 260AD

Allegory “Though all the Jews knew the incidents in the life of Jonah, and Christ said amongst them that He would give the sign of Jonah. And He spoke this in order to be understood by the audience that after His crucifixion He should rise again on the third day.” [St. Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho Chapter CXIII] 130AD

**Allegory “At the dawning of the Lord’s Day (Sunday) He arose from the dead, according to what was spoken about Himself, “For, as Jonah was in the whale’s belly three days and three nights; so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.” [St. Ignatius to the Trallians Chapter 9] 110AD

2:2And Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the whale.

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Allegory “Like Jonah when he was in the belly of the whale, prayed to You on behalf of the people. Similarly, Christ was with God from His mother’s womb, according to what is written, ‘Before the child knew good or evil, he chose the good (Isa. 7:16).’” [St. Ambrose The Prayer of Job and David 6:23] 390AD

Moral “God is not one who heeds the voice; rather, it is the heart which He hears and beholds. Even the speechless He hears, and the silent petition He will answer. Do the ears of God await a sound? If they did, how could Jonah’s prayer from the depths of the whale’s belly have made its way to Heaven, up through the organs of such a great beast from the very bottom of the sea, up through such a vast amount of water? As for those who pray in such a loud voice, what else will they attain but the annoyance of their neighbors? Let us say, rather, when they thus publicize their petitions, what else are they doing but praying in public.” [Tertullian Prayer Chapter 17] 197AD

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2:3And he said, “I have cried in my affliction to the Lord my God, and He has heard me. From the belly of Hades you have heard the cry of my voice.

Etiology “Jonah fulfilled a type of our Savior when he prayed from the belly of the fish and said, ‘I cried for help from the belly of Hades.’ He was in fact in the whale, yet he says that he is in Hades. In a later verse he manifestly prophesies in the Person of Christ. For he typified Christ, who went down into the heart of the earth.” [St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lecture 14:20] 318AD

Etiology “He calls the whale’s belly ‘the belly of Hades’ because the beast is deadly. In fact, Jonah was already presumed dead. He survived only by God’s grace. Moreover, Jonah says that he was in the ‘belly of Hades’ because this is also a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was ‘three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’ It is especially surprising that the one who really tasted death said that he was three days and three nights in the belly of the earth, yet the one who saw the shadow of death called the whale’s belly ‘the belly of Hades.’ This was because the life of Jonah was beyond his control, while in the case of the Lord both his death and his resurrection were voluntary. That is why the Gospel calls the place of Hades and death ‘the heart of the earth,’ while here the belly of the whale is called the ‘belly of Hades.’ [Theodoret Commentary on Jonah 2:3] 393AD

Allegory “Hades was to the Lord what the whale’s belly was to Jonah.” [St. Augustine Exposition on the Psalms LXVI, 5] 400AD

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**2:4You have thrown me into the depths of the heart of the sea, and rivers encircled me; all your billows and your waves have passed upon me.”

Etiology “‘You have thrown me into the depths of the heart of the sea’ means into Hades, and in the Gospel of St. Matthew 12:40 the words ‘in the heart of the earth’ have the same sense, for as the heart is in the middle of an animal, so is Hades supposed to be in the middle of the earth.” [St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica]1225AD

Allegory and Moral “Those waves and that body did not prevent his prayer from reaching God, and the beast’s belly could not contain the voice of his prayer. It penetrated all things, it burst through all things, it reached God. For where is not God present to those whose voice is faithful? Nevertheless, we also ought to understand from what ‘depths’ we cry to the Lord. For this mortal life is our ‘depths’. Whoever has understood himself to be in the depths, cries out, groans, sighs, until he is delivered from the depths. And come to Him who sits above all the depths.” [St. Augustine On the Psalms CXXX, 1] 400AD

Poetic

“The victim swiftly passing through the monster’s jaws,

Escapes the futile sharpress of the teeth, and flies

Unharmed across the bloodless tongue. The molars moist

Are powerless to hold and crush the trembling frame

That journeys through the mouth below the palate’s roof.

“While in the course of three long days and nights the seer

Removed engulfed within the belly of the whale,

He wandered through the shadows of the dark recess,

And as he blindly threaded lebryrin your ways,

He panted from the heat inside his prison house.”

[Prudentius A Hymn For the Times of Fasting] 348AD

 

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*2:5And I said, “I have been driven away from your eyes. Surely I will again look to your holy temple.

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Etiology “Therefore, the hand of God was present with Jonah, working out a marvelous thing, a thing impossible by mans nature, nor the weakness of flesh can prevail against the will of God. For God is not subject to created things, but created things are subject to God; and things yield obedience to His will. Wherefore also the Lord declares, “The things which are impossible with men, are possible with God (Luke 18:27).” [St. Irenaeus Against Heresies Bk. 5.2;2] 125AD

2:6Water encompassed me to the soul. The lowest abyss enclosed me. My head went down into a division of mountains.*

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Allegory “The ‘mountains’ that his head went down to was a figure of the tomb cut out in the rock that Jesus was put into after His death.” [St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lecture 14:20] 318AD

*2:7I descended into the earth, in which its bars hold forever. And let my life ascend from corruption, O Lord my God.

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Moral “‘in which its bars hold forever’, When this purgative contemplation oppresses a man, he feels very vividly indeed the shadow of death, the sighs of death, and the sorrows of Hell, all of which reflect the feeling of God’s absence, of being chastised and rejected by Him, and of being unworthy of Him, as well as the object of His anger. The soul experiences all this and even more, for now it seems that this affliction will last forever.” [St. John of the Cross The Dark Night Chapter 6:2] 1542AD

2:8In the leaving of my soul from me, I remembered the Lord. And may my prayer come to you, into your holy temple.

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Moral“Jonah said*, ‘And may my prayer come to you, into your holy temple’, *for those who have buried themselves in the bowels of holy humility are all the closer to he Highest.” [Cassiodorus Exposition on Psalms 129:1] 480

 

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*2:11And from the Lord it was commanded to the whale, and it cast Jonah out upon the dry land.

Literal and Moral “Jonah was swallowed by the whale of the deep, in whose belly whole ships have been devoured, and after three days he was vomited out again safe and sound. Things like this are written so that we may believe that the Lord is more powerful than all natural laws.” [Tertullian On the Resurrection of the Body 3:591] 197AD

Moral “For when strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9), it shows the kindness and transcendent power of God. For He patiently suffered Jonah to be allowed to be swallowed by the whale, not that he should perish altogether, but that, having been cast out again, he might glorify Him all the more.” [St. Irenaeus Against Heresies Chapter 20:1] 125AD

Literal “Almost all the saints have especially distinguished themselves by miracles worked when they were in danger. I see Peter, powerful in faith, overcoming the force of nature by walking upon the sea, impressing his footprints upon the unstable waters (Matthew 14:29). Jonah was swallowed up and spent three days and three nights in the deep before being cast out. Yet, I do not consider him inferior to Peter on that account; perhaps it is even a greater thing to have lived in the deep then to have passed over it upon the surface.” [Sulpicious Severus Letter to Eusebius] 360AD

Etiology “Jonah came forth from the whale’s belly unhurt, he was led forth by the hand of God, for the purpose of declaring His power.” [St. Irenaeus Against Heresies Bk. 5;5:2] 125AD

Poetic

“But when the third night rolls around, from thence unharmed

The monster whale casts him forth with mighty throbs;

Where sounding billows break upon the narrow shore,

And beat against the cliffs with whitening spray,

Disgorged he stands, astonished at his safety.”

[Prudentius A Hymn For the Times of Fasting] 348AD