Jonah

Last week we talked about Jonah’s attempt to flee from the calling that God had placed on his life. We also got a good look at the deeper meaning of the storm and other elements that God used to setup the great moment of Jonah accepting his calling. That is where we will take off this week and expound on; Jonah and the huge fish. We will cover Jonah 1.17-2.10.

Literary Markers

We pick back up in Jonah at the point where the sailors have, by Jonah’s instruction, thrown him overboard to calm the storm. Verse seventeen provides readers information on where Jonah actually is after he is thrown into the water and for how long he is there. So we are looking at three days and three nights in terms of time passing once we get to Jonah 2.10. We are

getting to see in some detail what Jonah goes through while inside the belly of the huge fish. The fish can be seen as symbolic in that God chose to use a fish rather than a piece of wood that Jonah could use for survival. God, in this story chose to control the traditionally uncontainable fish to save Jonah’s life. Inside this fish, God restored Jonah’s life so that Jonah would take up his calling and save a large, violent Gentile nation from their sins. We can also interpret the three days that Jonah was in the fish’s belly as a parallel to Jesus’s death and resurrection time frame.
Summary
Jonah has accepted that God is in control and has come to terms that he is the reason for the situation that he is currently experiencing.

From being thrown overboard to getting swallowed by a fish, I imagine this is what God knew it would take to give Jonah his own Exodus so that he would stop running from God. Rather than drowning, Jonah was gulped by an incredible fish, which God gave. In the gut of the whale, Jonah apologized and shouted out to God in petition. He lauded God, finishing with the shockingly prophetic proclamation in Jonah 2.9; "Salvation originates from the Lord. Jonah was in the mammoth fish three days. God charged the whale, and it spewed the hesitant prophet onto dry

land.
Original context meaning to Jonah’s audience
The huge fish; not made uniquely for this reason, but rather designated in His fortune, to which all animals are subservient.

The fish, through a mistranslation of Matthew 12.40, was earlier expected to be a whale; there, as here, the original signifies a great fish. The whale's neck is excessively thin, making it impossible to fit a man inside. A wonder in any view is required, and we have no information to conjecture promote. A "sign" or wonder it is explicitly called by our Lord in Matthew 12.39. Breath in such a position must be by wonder. The extraordinary intervention was not without an adequate reason; it was figured to influence Jonah, as well as Nineveh and Israel. The life of a prophet was regularly set apart by encounters which made him, through sensitivity, most appropriate for releasing the prophetical capacity to his listeners and his kin. The interminable assets of God in leniency and in addition judgment are prefigured in the devourer being changed into Jonah's preserver. Jonah's condition under discipline, close out from the external world, was rendered however much as could reasonably be expected the symbol of death, a present sort to Nineveh and Israel, of the passing in transgression, as his deliverance was of the otherworldly revival on apology; as additionally, a future kind of Jesus' exacting demise for wrongdoing, and restoration by the Spirit of God. Three days and three nights, most likely, similar to Christ, Jonah was thrown forward on the third

day; Matthew 12.40. The Hebrew numbering the first and third parts of days as entire twenty-four hour days.
Application Today
Let us consider the obvious applications that bridge the gap of meaning from the original audience to readers today. First; God is control! We obviously see this in Jonah being swallowed by the huge fish. We also see a theme and pattern; that no one God calls can get away from Him. We see this in many areas of the bible; Jeremiah 1.6, Moses of course in Exodus 4.1, 3.11, 10, and 13. Additionally, who can forget Gideon with running to the cave to hide from the great display of God’s power in Judges 6.15. The end result here is a heartfelt prayer or talking with God. Jonah’s heart felt prayer, reaching out to God for forgiveness and grace. A prayer worth studying. In the midst of turmoil and what seems to be the end of all, there is one thing we still possess that can make the impossible happen; prayer! It is our final battle; it is our ultimate weapon in which the enemy has no way of blocking. Pray when face with your “huge fish,” you may be one heart felt prayer away from a miracle.