Jonah 2.6-9 - And A Little Bit Louder Now
In our previous essays, we’ve demonstrated that Jonah’s prayer(s) in Jonah 2.2-5 are actually echoes of the prayers of Jesus when He descended into hell. Jonah 2.6-9 follow the same path. In this essay, I thought we’d wrap up the Jonah series within a series by hitting some of the highlights of these last few verses.
In Jonah 2.6, we see not just an echo of Jesus’s Descent, but the dramatic foretelling of His resurrection. Jonah 2.6b says:
But You have brought up my life from the pit [destruction], O Lord my God. (NASB)
This is a particular reference to Psalm 16:10:
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay [see destruction or the pit]. (NASB)
In Acts 2.27, Peter makes clear by the Spirit of God that David was speaking of Jesus in Psalm 16.10. It is difficult to understand why the vast number of theologians and preachers have failed to make the same connection with Jonah 2.6.
Jonah 2.6 is also mirrored or echoed by Job 33.28:
He has redeemed my soul from going to the pit, And my life shall see the light. (NASB)
This echo in Job is of significant importance for the proper doctrinal treatment of Job. Many modern preachers use the statements in Job for the basis of New Testament doctrine. Job, however, as a book is not doctrinal. As demonstrated in this echo, Job is a type of Christ. Just as we do not formulate doctrine from Jonah’s whale experience, the scapegoat for the Day of Atonement, or the brazen snake in the wilderness, we should not formulate New Testament doctrine from the book of Job.
In Jonah 2.7, we see another clear echo of Psalm 18:
While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, And my prayer came to you, Into Your holy temple. (Jonah 2.7, NASB)
In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, And my cry for help before Him came into His ears. (Psalm 18:6, NASB)
Several years ago, I heard a few ministers speak about Jesus’s Descent into Hell and, frankly, I found their sermons wanting. They stayed true to scripture in getting Jesus down into Hell, but “Elvis left the building” when it came to getting Him out. Some spoke of God saying, “Enough!” while others spoke of some Supreme Court of the Universe adjudicating some kind of judicial decision in letting Him out. I couldn’t find “Enough!” in scripture and my Catholic upbringing makes me quake at extra-biblical courts and purgatories. But that still left me wondering, “How did that resurrection take place?”
I sought the Lord on it in prayer. One day as I pondered it in my heart, as I was sitting down at my desk, I heard “Psalm 18” clear as day on the inside of me. I turned over to Psalm 18 (I don’t know that I had ever really read it before if you know what I mean) and for the first time saw the dramatic picture of God resurrecting Jesus out of the “pit.”
The cords of Sheol surrounded me, And the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, And my cry for help before Him came into His ears. (Psalm 18.5-6, NASB)
Then the earth shook and quaked; And the foundations of the mountains were trembling and were shaken, because He was angry. Smoke went up out of His nostrils, and fire from His mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down with thick darkness under His feet. He rode upon a cherub and flew; and he sped upon the wings of the wind. … He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me … He rescued me because He delighted in me. The Lord rescued me because He delighted in my righteousness. According to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me. (Psalm 18.7-10, 16b-17, 19b-20, NASB)
We don’t have the space here to go through the entire psalm, but if you sit down and read Psalm 18 as the very words of Jesus and a picture of His descent and resurrection, your life will never be the same again. I guarantee it.
