Jonah 2:1-2

2:1 Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish 2:2 and said,

“I ¹  called out to the Lord from my distress,

and he answered me; ² 

from the belly of Sheol ³  I cried out for help,

and you heard my prayer. ⁴ 

¹ 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 Lord.

² tn Tg. Jonah 2:2 renders this interpretively: “and he heard my prayer.”

³ 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.

⁴ 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.