Jonah 2:4 - A Little Bit Softer Now
So I said, “I have been expelled from Your eyes. Nevertheless, I will look again toward your holy temple.” (Jonah 2.4, NASB, marg.)
In verse 4, Jonah’s prayer continues its echo of Jesus’s own words. In this verse we hear him say, “I have been expelled from Your eyes.” The same thought is prayed out in Psalm 31:
“As for me,” I said in my alarm, “I am cut off from before Your eyes”; Nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried to you. (Psalm 31.22, NASB)
The significance of Jonah’s echo is shown in Jesus’s death. While He was on the cross, Jesus cried out to the Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” By this we see that Jesus was “expelled” from God’s eyes, dying apart from Him. (see the posts on Hebrews 2.9) When Jesus finally comes to His last breath, He cries out, “Father, into Your hands I place before you my spirit.” (see Jesus’s Geronimo) The import of this is that Jesus’s last words are found in Psalm 31, the very same psalm that Jonah prays here in verse 4. See Psalm 31.5.
