27:34 Now you are wrecked by the seas, in the depths of the waters;
your merchandise and all your company have sunk 3 along with you. 4
“I 5 called out to the Lord from my distress,
and he answered me; 6
from the belly of Sheol 7 I cried out for help,
and you heard my prayer. 8
7:19 You will once again 9 have mercy on us;
you will conquer 10 our evil deeds;
you will hurl our 11 sins into the depths of the sea. 12
18:6 “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, 13 it would be better for him to have a huge millstone 14 hung around his neck and to be drowned in the open sea. 15
1 tn Heb “that was coming after them into the sea.” The referent of “them” (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Heb “not was left among them as much as one.”
3 tn Heb “fallen.”
4 tn Heb “in the midst of you.”
5 sn The eight verses of Jonah’s prayer in Hebrew contain twenty-seven first-person pronominal references to himself. There are fifteen second- or third-person references to the
6 tn Tg. Jonah 2:2 renders this interpretively: “and he heard my prayer.”
7 sn Sheol was a name for the place of residence of the dead, the underworld (see Job 7:9-10; Isa 38:17-18). Jonah pictures himself in the belly of Sheol, its very center – in other words he is as good as dead.
8 tn Heb “voice” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “my cry.” The term קוֹל (qol, “voice”) functions as a metonymy for the content of what is uttered: cry for help in prayer.
9 tn The verb יָשׁוּב (yashuv, “he will return”) is here used adverbially in relation to the following verb, indicating that the
10 tn Some prefer to read יִכְבֹּס (yikhbos, “he will cleanse”; see HALOT 459 s.v. כבס pi). If the MT is taken as it stands, sin is personified as an enemy that the
11 tn Heb “their sins,” but the final mem (ם) may be enclitic rather than a pronominal suffix. In this case the suffix from the preceding line (“our”) may be understood as doing double duty.
12 sn In this metaphor the
13 tn The Greek term σκανδαλίζω (skandalizw), translated here “causes to sin” can also be translated “offends” or “causes to stumble.”
14 tn Grk “the millstone of a donkey.” This refers to a large flat stone turned by a donkey in the process of grinding grain (BDAG 661 s.v. μύλος 2; L&N 7.68-69). The same term is used in the parallel account in Mark 9:42.
15 tn The term translated “open” here (πελάγει, pelagei) refers to the open sea as opposed to a stretch of water near a coastline (BDAG 794 s.v. πέλαγος). A similar English expression would be “the high seas.”