Useful Bible Studies > Jonah Commentary > chapter 2
In its form, Jonah chapter 2 is very similar to several of the Psalms. It begins (verse 2) with very similar words to Psalm 120. It continues with a description of how God rescued its author from death, as in Psalm 40. At the end (2:9), there is the declaration that only God can rescue his people – that is also the subject of Psalm 62.
What is truly different in Jonah chapter 2, is the title or introduction in verse 1. Many of God’s people have prayed in difficult circumstances: in prisons and palaces; in foreign countries; in the desperate circumstances of a battle. Only Jonah prayed from inside a fish. However, even there, God heard his prayer. Jonah prayed with faith (active belief and trust in God), and God answered him (compare Hebrews 11:32-38).
This was the first time in the book that Jonah prayed. That was not Jonah’s normal behaviour. In chapter 4, we see that he talks to God as in a conversation with a friend. Normally, we think, therefore, that Jonah was praying constantly. However, his decision not to obey God in chapter 1 badly interrupted his relationship with God.
So, we do not read that he prayed about whether to go to Nineveh. He decided to go to Tarshish without any prayer whatever. In the storm, he was not praying. Even when the captain of the boat told him to pray, there is still no record of any prayer. The sailors prayed to the true God (1:14); but it seems that Jonah did not.
Only now, when death seemed certain, did Jonah decide to pray. The Bible expressly records that he prayed to the Lord, ‘his God’. The Lord is the God of heaven and earth – but Jonah prayed to him as his own, personal God. At last Jonah was returning to a right relationship with God.
Next part: Hope and faith in Jonah's prayer (Jonah 2:2)
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