Of all the ways to be saved from certain death swallowed by a giant fish is probably not on the list. But the cliché rings true: God moves in mysterious ways. But the most mysterious element of Jonah’s salvation is not its means, but the fact that it happened at all. After all, we’ve already seen that Jonah is a rebel. Why on earth should God rescue him? The evidence for his salvation gets worse too as we read the text. But that is the true mystery of saving grace: that it is offered at all to sinners.
Chapter 1:7-2:10 cover the next major section of the story. We find here Jonah being tossed into the sea and rescued by a rather strange miracle. The text reads:
7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” 9 And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. 11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 12 He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. 14 Therefore they called out to the LORD, “O LORD, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you.” 15 So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16 Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows. 17 And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. ESV Jonah 2:1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying, “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. 3 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. 4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ 5 The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head 6 at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God. 7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 8 Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD!” 10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.
As the story unfolds here we learn a few things about both Jonah and God, things that make Jonah’s salvation all that more stupefying.
There is an immediate contrast coming into play between Jonah and the pagan sailors. While the sailors are fearing for their lives above deck Jonah is sleeping off his guilty conscience below. The sailors are said to fear God in both verse 5 and verse 16. Jonah claims to fear the Lord in verse 9, but his actions speak otherwise. The sailors also seem to have greater respect for human life than Jonah does. When Jonah confesses his sin, which he only does after exposed, he instructs the sailors to throw him into the sea to save themselves. But they try to do everything they can before they are forced to comply with Jonah’s instruction. And even then, they ask for forgiveness from God: O, Lord let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you (v. 14). Jonah would rather see Nineveh perish than offer than hope of redemption, but the pagan sailors have regard for human life. How stark a contrast we get between those who do not know this true God and the one who calls himself a prophet of the God of heaven.
The Bible does sometimes use non-believers to rebuke his people. Jonah should have taken a lesson from the sailors, but instead he remains a bitter bigot to the end of the story. We should do better than Jonah and pray for the awareness to learn from those around us. We should learn even now from the pagan sailors.
Jonah deserved to die in that sea, or inside the belly of a great fish, but God spares him. We don’t know exactly what type of aquatic creature swallowed Jonah. We assume it was a whale, but the Hebrew word for “fish” could refer to any number of beasts of the sea. Regardless of what it was that swallowed him, we know that God was the one who sent it. Jonah knows it too for he begins to pray to God in the belly of this fish and thank him. The prayer is not a prayer for rescue from the fish, but a thanksgiving for God’s rescue of him from the depths of the sea, from a watery grave, from the land of the dead (Sheol).
This salvation is all of grace too. Verse 6 highlights that just when the gates of death were closing on him, God “brought” him up from the pit. It was God’s doing, and Jonah even attests to the fact that you can’t earn this salvation. “Salvation belongs to the Lord” (v. 9). God is gracious, long-suffering. He has a “steadfast love” (v. 8). This is the picture we get of God. He is merciful and gracious. He is “slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6). Jonah deserved destruction, just as Nineveh deserved, but God was offering grace to both.
This is an important lesson for us to grab hold of here. God gives out salvation, it is his to offer to whom ever he pleases. We can appreciate here Jonah’s thankfulness for salvation. We too should express our gratitude to God for saving such wretched people as us. I know when I think of where my life was headed, of who I was becoming, I know I cannot say I deserved his love. But there is a great implication to receiving the grace of God: we must extend it to others. That is the lesson Paul teaches us (Colossians 3:13). Forgive as you have been forgiven, we are told. That’s the power of the gospel. Once we have been forgiven, once we have experienced grace we must be willing to extend it. If we are not, one has to wonder whether we have truly experienced saving grace.
And make no mistake about it, the story of Jonah does point us to the saving grace of the gospel. For Jesus tell us that the sign of Jonah entails, at the very least, a pointer to his death and resurrection, the very events which make this saving grace a reality. Matthew tells us:
39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Jonah’s redemption points us to the means by which all redemption happens: Jesus’ death and resurrection. Saving grace permeates this story. It points us to the means by which we are saved, and the responsibility we incur once we are saved. Learn from Jonah, friends. Learn to thank God for Jesus’ death and resurrection, and learn to respond in active grace towards others.
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