|
[1] And by divine assent, (for it says this: God commanded), a very great whale81 entrapped Jonah, and did not mutilate him with its teeth.82 The belly of the whale also became the prophet’s home for as many as three days and nights,83 and the digestive process was also prevented from working.
[2] The prophet spent time in such a large spacious place that he even offered a prayer to God: Verse 3: “For I cried out,” it says, “to the Lord in my affliction, and he heard me. From the belly of Hades my cry.” For I, he says, formerly thinking that he appears to prophets only in Jerusalem, also found him present in the belly of the whale. And offering supplication, I benefited from84 his beneficence. He called the belly of the whale, “the belly of Hades”{S 1468}. Both the beast is capable of bringing death, and he was a dead man by virtue of what had happened to him, but he lived by God’s grace alone._ Above all, as a type of the Lord Christ, who spent three days and nights in the heart of the earth (Matt 12:40),89 he states reasonably that he had been in the belly of Hades. And the most amazing thing of all is that the one who truly tasted death said he would be in the belly90 of the earth three days and three nights, but the one who was under the shadow of death calls the belly of the whale “belly of Hades.” For Jonah, life was not in his control; but for the Lord Christ, both his death was voluntary and his resurrection was willed. On account of this, in the text where there is “Hades” and death, it is designated “the heart of the earth;” but here in the text, where there is Hades, it is designated “the belly of the whale.” “You heard my voice,” he says, “since I would not have continued to live even up to the present.” Verse 4: “You cast me into the heart of the sea, and rivers encircled me.” Again, the mention {M 81.1732} of “heart” indicates that the shadow is similar to the truth.91 But, he calls the assault of the waves “rivers.”92 “All your swells and your waves passed over me. (verse 5) And I said, ‘I have been cast away from your eyes.’” When I was caught by the unpredictable nature of calamities, formerly being borne above the high sea by the waves, and now being confined in the belly of the whale, I knew that I was stripped bare of your providence. And because of this, I endure each of these things. “Will I gaze again on your holy temple? (verse 6) Water surrounded me up to my soul, the deepest abyss encircled me.” For being encircled by the abyss itself, having been in the middle of such great waters, I am wavering, and I fear that {S 1469} I will be completely deprived of the beloved sight of your temple. Verse 7: “My head sunk down into the clefts of the mountains, and I went down to the earth, whose everlasting bars are holding it down.” For I see myself being encircled by some great mountains and being hemmed in from all directions by some unbroken bars. And he hints98 through this not only at the magnitude of the whale, but also at the inescapability of the troubles which are confining him. But it is also reasonable that he calls the things hidden under the sea waters “mountains,” against which boats are sometimes dashed and destroyed. The sailors clearly know these things hidden under the sea, and are eager to flee the underwater rocks 99 “And let my life ascend to you from corruption, O Lord my God (verse 8). When my life was leaving me, I remembered the Lord, that my prayer may come to your holy temple.” Since, he says, I did not allow myself to forget about you while being at the very gates of death, Lord, free me from this corruption and bring me back to life again, so that I might offer the customary prayers to you in your hallowed temple.” Verse 9: “The ones who pay attention to vain and false things relinquished their mercy.” Because the ones who have been instructed in vain and false things, he says, were obedient to the casting of lots, they surrendered me to the sea without clemency. Verse 10: “But I, with a voice of praise and thanksgiving, will offer a sacrifice to you. As many things as I vowed, I will give to you, O Lord, for my salvation.” Having been freed from the terrible things holding me down, I will bring before you sacrifices of salvation, recounting both the greatness of your beneficence {S 1470} and the penalty for my flight. And promising these things, the blessed Jonah fulfilled them and transmitted them all in writing, so that not only the people of that time might learn about the events which happened to him, but also the ones who came after him. The blessed David has made a written record of his sin, proclaiming the mercy of God and indicating the cure for sinners by repentance. {M 81.1733} So also the revered Jonah has written down in a narrative his flight, the punishment which was laid upon him, and the salvation freely granted [11] And the benevolent master, after he received the prayer, led forth the prophet from the belly of the whale, as from some sort of prison. |