Out of the depths.
Never surely was prayer offered in so strange a place as this! Men have often prayed upon the sea, but Jonah is represented as praying from the ocean depths.
I. NO PLACE IS UNSUITABLE FOR PRAYER. It is well to pray in stately cathedrals and in consecrated chapels, in the humble meeting house and at the "domestic altar." But the persecuted have prayed upon the remote hillside, and in "dens and caves of the earth." And let it be remembered, that God's will is that "men should pray everywhere, lifting holy hands" to heaven. In the thronged street, the busy market, the legislative hall, the court of justice, in the field of battle, and upon the island where the shipwrecked mariner finds a refuge,—in every place God may be sought and found. If Jonah cried "out of the fish's body," and was heard, is there reason for silence, for refraining from prayer, in any spot where we may find ourselves?
II. ACCEPTABLE PRAYER PROCEEDS FROM NECESSITY. There are those who have never prayed before, who have been driven to supplication by their needs. And many, whose prayers have often been formal, have learned to pray in earnest when they have been plunged into the overwhelming ocean of affliction. None ask so urgently as those who are in want; and one purpose of Providence in permitting men to suffer need may well be this—to call forth entreaties and supplications which shall be sincere, profound, and urgent.
III. ACCEPTABLE PRAYER IS THE OFFSPRING OF A SUBMISSIVE MIND. Rebellion, and even murmuring, are incompatible with a prayerful spirit. It proves that Jonah was not wholly bad that, in his affliction, he did not resent the Lord's treatment, he did not "kick against the goad." He rather behaved and quieted himself as "the weaned child." It is well to acknowledge that justice and mercy are in all the Lord's dealings with his people. Many have been taught by experience to say with the psalmist, "Before I was afflicted,! went astray;" "It is good for me that 1 have been afflicted." Trouble is not designed to lead God's people to cry against the Lord, but unto the Lord. To complain is both foolish and sinful; but they are happy who endure.
IV. ACCEPTABLE PRAYER IS THE UTTERANCE OF FAITH AND HOPE. Even in the depths of the sea Jonah did not lose his faith in the oversight, the care, the goodness of the Lord. He believed that the Lord had overwhelmed, and that the Lord could rescue him. He who brought him into the depths could bring him out of the depths. The believing prayer which the prophet is recorded to have offered in his extremity is a model to all those who because of their iniquities and transgressions have been afflicted. Have faith in God, and hope in his mercy—such is the lesson which this verse teaches.
V. PRAYER FROM THE DEPTHS IS HEARD IN THE HEIGHTS AND ANSWERED. Jonah's subterraneous, subaqueous dungeon became a temple. God was present when his servant prayed. When submission and faith took the place of disobedience and rebellion, the Most High was willing to deliver the captive, to pardon the sinner, to employ again the unfaithful fugitive.
Affliction and prayer.
Doubtless the language of this psalm of thanksgiving was the result of subsequent meditation, for it is evidently a studied composition, resembling in passages several of the sacred Hebrew odes. But the sentiments were those actually experienced by the prophet when in the most humiliating position. In his experience was much which may prove very instructive and helpful to ourselves.
I. DEEP AFFLICTION. The language of Jonah 2:3, literally descriptive of Jonah's state and sufferings, is tinged with poetical feeling, and, like similar passages in the Psalms, is emblematic of the afflictions which, at some periods of human life, are the appointed experience of God's people. The deep waters of trouble must be passed through; the mighty billows must roll over the spirit. Sorrow submerges and apparently overwhelms even the child of God; how much more the impenitent and disobedient!
II. EARNEST PRAYER. How, indeed, can prayer be other than earnest, if it be offered from "the belly of hell"? Those afflictions are, indeed, a blessing which prompt such supplications as those which came from Jonah's lips. Far from human succour, and perhaps from human pity, the afflicted lift their voice, and cry, by reason of their afflictions, unto the Lord. There is something very instructive in the language used by Jonah, attributing his affliction to the Being upon whom he was calling, "Thou hadst cast me into the deep,… thy billows and thy waves passed over me." In this way the distressed may learn the lesson which the wisdom and the love of God would teach.
III. GRACIOUS DELIVERANCE. When in Scripture it is said that God hears, we may usually understand more than is expressed. He hears to answer, to rescue, to save. The Omnipresent did not lose sight of his servant even when he was beneath the waves of the ocean; and the All-gracious was not inattentive to his supplication, though offered from the depths where weeds were about the suppliant's head. If there are those who fear lest their situation or their circumstances should shut them out from the regard and interest of the Supreme, they may well take courage when they think of the experience of the prophet, who called upon the Lord from the depths, and was heard and was delivered.