Jonah 2:2-3

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 

2:3 You threw me ⁵  into the deep waters, ⁶ 

into the middle ⁷  of the sea; ⁸ 

the ocean current ⁹  engulfed ¹⁰  me;

all the mighty waves ¹¹  you sent ¹²  swept ¹³  over me. ¹⁴ 

[2:2]  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.

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

[2:2]  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.

[2:2]  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.

[2:3]  ⁵ tn Or “You had thrown me.” Verse 3 begins the detailed description of Jonah’s plight, which resulted from being thrown into the sea.

[2:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “the deep” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “into the ocean depths.”

[2:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “heart” (so many English versions); CEV “to the (+ very TEV) bottom of the sea.”

[2:3]  ⁸ tc The BHS editors suggest deleting either מְצוּלָה (mÿtsulah, “into the deep”) or בִּלְבַב יַמִּים (bilvav yammim, “into the heart of the sea”). They propose that one or the other is a scribal gloss on the remaining term. However, the use of an appositional phrase within a poetic colon is not unprecedented in Hebrew poetry. The MT is therefore best retained.

[2:3]  ⁹ tn Or “the stream”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “the flood.” The Hebrew word נָהָר (nahar) is used in parallel with יַם (yam, “sea”) in Ps 24:2 (both are plural) to describe the oceans of the world and in Ps 66:6 to speak of the sea crossed by Israel in the exodus from Egypt.

[2:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “surrounded” (so NRSV); NAB “enveloped.”

[2:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “your breakers and your waves.” This phrase is a nominal hendiadys; the first noun functions as an attributive adjective modifying the second noun: “your breaking waves.”

[2:3]  ¹² tn Heb “your… your…” The 2nd person masculine singular suffixes on מִשְׁבָּרֶיךָ וְגַלֶּיךָ (mishbarekha vÿgallekha, “your breakers and your waves”) function as genitives of source. Just as God had hurled a violent wind upon the sea (1:4) and had sovereignly sent the large fish to swallow him (1:17 [2:1 HT]), Jonah viewed God as sovereignly responsible for afflicting him with sea waves that were crashing upon his head, threatening to drown him. Tg. Jonah 2:3 alters the 2nd person masculine singular suffixes to 3rd person masculine singular suffixes to make them refer to the sea and not to God, for the sake of smoothness: “all the gales of the sea and its billows.”

[2:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “crossed”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV “passed.”

[2:3]  ¹⁴ sn Verses 3 and 5 multiply terms describing Jonah’s watery plight. The images used in v. 3 appear also in 2 Sam 22:5-6; Pss 42:7; 51:11; 69:1-2, 14-15; 88:6-7; 102:10.