And said
Not unto the Lord in prayer, but to others, to whom he
communicated what passed between God and him in this time of
distress; how he prayed to him, and was heard by him; what a
condition he had been in, and how he was delivered out of it;
what was his frame of mind while in it, sometimes despairing, and
sometimes hoping; and how thankful he was for this salvation, and
was determined to praise the Lord for it: I cried by reason
of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me;
or, "out of my strait" F1; being straitened in his body, and
as it were in a prison in the fish's belly; and straitened in his
soul, being between hope and despair, and under the apprehensions
of the divine displeasure. A time of affliction is a time for
prayer; it brings those to it that have disused it; it made Jonah
cry to his God, if not with a loud voice, yet inwardly; and his
cry was powerful and piercing, it reached the heavens, and
entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts, though out of the
depths, and out of the belly of a fish, in the midst of the sea:
out of the belly of hell cried I, [and] thou heardest my
voice;
or, "out of the belly of the grave" F2; out of the midst of it;
that is, out of the belly of the fish, which was as a grave to
him, as Jarchi observes; where he lay as out of the land of the
living, as one dead, and being given up for dead: and it may also
respect the frame of his mind, the horror and terror lie was in,
arising from a sense of his sins, and the apprehensions he had of
the wrath of God, which were as a hell in his conscience; and
amidst all this he cried to God, and he heard him; and not only
delivered him from he fish's belly, but from those dreadful
apprehensions he had of his state and condition; and spoke peace
and pardon to him. This is a proof that this prayer or
thanksgiving be it called which it will, was composed, as to the
form and order of it, after his deliverance; and these words are
an appeal to God for the truth of what he had said in the
preceding clause, and not a repetition of it in prayer; or
expressing the same thing in different words.