Useful Bible Studies > Jonah Commentary > chapter 2

God commands the fish to return Jonah to the land

Jonah 2:10

After three days, God commanded the great fish to return Jonah to the land. Jonah left the fish, as he had entered it, by its mouth. However, the fish did not, as we might expect, return Jonah to the sea. Instead, it first swam to the shore, so that Jonah went direct to the dry land. We can see how carefully God was looking after him.

For Jonah, this whole experience was very much like resurrection: when God gives new life after death. It was as if Jonah had died in the water. His three days inside the fish (1:17) were like three days in the grave. Then Jonah’s new life began, and soon he would go to declare God’s message to people in a foreign nation.

Jesus spoke in Matthew 12:38-41 about the sign of the prophet (holy man) Jonah. By ‘sign’, he meant evidence to show the powerful things that God would do. Like Jonah, Jesus would suffer death and his body would remain in the grave until the third day. Then Jesus would rise to life and his message from God, called the gospel, would go across the whole world (Matthew 28:19-20).

The Bible does not tell us where the fish returned Jonah to the land. It could have been anywhere on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. However, a likely explanation is that Jonah was back on the coast of Israel. The wind of the storm perhaps blew both the boat and the fish back toward Joppa, where Jonah’s journey began.

After all his troubles, Jonah probably needed time to recover from his experiences. As soon as he was well enough, he went to the temple (God’s house in Jerusalem) to carry out his promise to God (2:9). The sailors had also made similar promises (1:16) – so, it is not impossible that they actually met there. If so, we are sure that Jonah used the opportunity to teach them more accurately about how to serve the true God.

Next part: Jonah waits for God to direct him (Jonah 3:1)

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