Jonah 2:2-9; Matt 12:39-41; Job 41; Psalm 104/LXX 103:26; Psalm 139/LXX 138: 8-12; Psalm 148:7
The song of Jonah, Old Testament Canticle 6, is notable for its poignancy and substance. Jonah gives voice to the desolation of those who know themselves to be at the brink of death, crying out to the Lord from the depths, and also from the depths of their being. It is a heart-cry of longing, coupled with the confidence that God has listened and will save:
Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the sea monster, saying,
“I called to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me;
out of the belly of Hades I cried, and thou didst hear my voice.
For thou didst cast me into the deep, into the heart of the sea, and the flood was round about me;
all thy waves and thy billows passed over me.
Then I said, ‘I am cast out from thine eyes; how shall I again look upon thy holy temple?’
The water poured around me, even to my soul;
The final abyss encircled me,
My head was plunged into the crevices of the mountains.
I went down to the land whose bars are eternal barriers;
Let the corruption of my life be raised up, O LORD my God.
When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD;
May my prayer came to thee, into thy holy temple.
Those who cherish vain and false things forsake their mercy.
But I, with the voice of thanksgiving and praise, will sacrifice to thee;
All that I have vowed, I will give back to thee, the LORD of my salvation.
The Hebrew version of this prayer is full of imagery; the Greek Old Testament version (from which we have taken this English rendering) is perhaps even more striking, speaking of a “sea monster” rather than a mere fish, the “eschatological abyss,” “Hades,” “bars that are eternal barriers,” and the mountains of the deep, which we see in the icons of Jesus, where he rescues Adam and Eve from the grips of death. It is helpful to remember that the song comes from Jonah’s lips after he has been disobedient to God, endangered a crew of unwitting sailors as a result, and cast into the sea in order to avert disaster for the whole crew. There he does not drown, but is swallowed by a sea monster, prepared for that very purpose by God. As the fifth century monk Cassiadorus puts it, the monster becomes not merely a temporary prison, but (surprisingly!) “a house of prayer for the prophet, a harbor for him when shipwrecked, a home amid the waves, a happy resource at a desperate time” (Exposition on the Psalms 129:1; ACW 53:312).
God’s use of this sea creature, whether simply large, or mysterious in its existence (as suggested by the Greek OT reference to a monster), should not be surprising. Of course, the sea itself, with its chaotic appearance and its threatening aspect, was a fearful thing to the ancient Jewish people. But the seas, and all that are in them, are the handiwork of God, as we hear from the book of Genesis, through Job and the Psalms, and into the New Testament. God creates the waters, and all that swim there; in Job, God speaks with pride of the Leviathan that He has created, and that He alone can control; in the Psalms, we hear of that “Leviathan” whom God made to “sport” in the waters (Psalm 104:26/LXX 103:26), and learn that the sea monsters have their own ways of praising God (Psalm 148:7). And in the Gospels, of course, we see God’s mastery of the deep when Jesus walks in majesty upon the tossing Sea of Galilee. The sea monster may be alien to Jonah and to us, but its very name and purpose are known to God, and it plays a part in Jonah’s repentance, and ultimately in the deliverance of the people of Nineveh.
The LORD, then, uses the sea creature for His own merciful purposes, to call Jonah back to Himself. It is by means of these harsh measures that Jonah is brought to the end of himself, so that he cries out for God’s help. In this way, Jonah’s predicament and response become a paradigm for all those in distress. St. Symeon the New Theologian says of the one who is close to losing hope, but who cries out like Jonah, “The Lord hears that person and delivers him from the abyss of ignorance and love of this world, just like the prophet who came out of the whale, never to go back again” (The Practical and Theological Chapters 1.76. CS 41:54). St. Symeon is thinking particularly about the abyss of unbelief, or rebellion and dark living, which is particularly applicable in the case of Jonah. The pain and extreme circumstances that frequently result from rejecting God drive many, of course, to turn back and call out to Him, as recovering addicts testify. But there are other circumstances in which we may look to Jonah’s example. Jesus himself calls out to God on the cross, though his righteous call from the depths comes after the perfect life of love and service! For most of us, though, the pain that we experience is caught up with the fallen choices that we or others have made. Yet still, God is merciful and hears: “I called to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Hades I cried, and thou didst hear my voice.”
There is nowhere, as the Psalms reminds us, that eludes God’s concern: “If I make my bed in Hades, behold you are there…and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me…The darkness and the light are both alike to you” (Psalm 139/LXX 138: 8-12). There is nothing, not even floods of water or depths of Hades, that can hide us from Him, for He is, after all, the creator of all. As St. Paul exults, “I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-9). God may allow these things to buffet and surround us, like the waves of the sea, but they are under His control, and ultimately He will work all things to our good, if only we will turn to Him. Jonah is the sign of this: Our LORD tramples down death by death, and nothing in creation can undo His love for us.
We may come to the point where we fear never again to be able to worship Him in freedom, as Jonah did; we may see the gates of Hades looming; we may feel the cold of the waters right to our soul. Yet He is there with us. St. Basil, in deep concern for the plight of the Church in his own day, clung to this poignant sign of Jonah:
We have not slackened the intensity of our zeal for the churches, nor do we, as in a storm when the waves rise high, expect destruction. We still hold fast to our earnest endeavors as much as is possible, sensible of the fact that he who was swallowed by the whale was considered deserving of safety because he did not despair of his life but cried out to the Lord. So then, we ourselves, having reached the uttermost limit of evils, do not give up our hope in the Lord but watch and see his help on all sides (St. Basil, Letter 242; FC 28:182).
St. Basil’s confident remembrance of Jonah’s deliverance is important when we fear, in the twenty-first century, that our believing communities will not escape the heterodoxy and the coldness of our day. There is nothing new under the sun to the God who made the celestial bodies and the human heart. The confusion and darkness around us and in the churches are known to Him: and He knows the way out. He knows how to call a people to Himself. Like Jonah, we are given the task to pray, and to care for the people around us who “don’t know their right hand from their left,” as God compassionately pictured the Ninevites. Our care must come in the form of prayers for them (not just for ourselves) and for the damage done in our culture to those who are weak. Our care must also come in the form of whole-hearted witness to the Lord of life, a contrast to Jonah who witnessed reluctantly. For One greater than Jonah said that we are to be both salt and light.
The fantastical and disturbing children’s tale, Pinocchio, is famous for borrowing motifs from the story of Jonah. In it, the puppet Pinocchio longs to be more than wood and strings, but to be a “real boy.” He thinks that this will come by fun, autonomy, and self will, but learns, throughout the course of a long and dangerous adventure, that he becomes real only by loving his father. Though especially the film version of this story is watered down, and in some ways lacking in the Christian mind, this one element is true—authentic love, and especially love from and for our heavenly Father, will make us all that we are meant to be. The prophet Jonah, and not just the Ninevites, learned about God’s character; for Jonah, true illumination comes in the darkness of the abyss. Our Lord, who Himself needed no such dire instruction, travelled this deep path for our sakes. St. Cyril of Jerusalem notes that Jonah himself was only in the belly of the monster, and did not actually visit the mountains at the base of the sea, the crags of Hades. (Perhaps twenty-first century readers may picture the gates of Mordor!) Instead, he tells us, this part of Jonah’s prayer prefigures Christ Himself, who plunged into the depths of earth and hell for our sake (Catechetical Lectures 14:20; FC 64:45).
Of course, St. Cyril was taking his cue from Jesus Himself, who responded, to those of his day who sought a sign, that only one directive would be given:
An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great sea creature, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here (Matthew 12:39-41).
Jonah was both a direct and inverse sign to our Lord. Jesus, was, after all, in control of his life, and able to lay it down and take it up again, over against Jonah, who allowed himself to be cast into the water, but who required a sea creature prepared by God to both bring him to repentance and to rescue him (St. Theodoret of Cyr, Commentary on Jonah 2.3 PG 89:1729). Yet, both were in the heart of the earth for a time associated with three, and both brought about salvation and life for those who sat in darkness. Jonah is the dramatic and imperfect sign of Jesus, who was Himself the true and willing preacher, the voluntary sacrifice for all of humanity, and the bringer of new life. As part of this, Jonah’s prayer recalls the pain of Jesus in Gethsemane, when He sweat even drops of blood, and called on His disciples to watch and pray. May this beautiful and honest prayer from the depths be a pattern for us as we struggle to portray Christ clearly in our own time.
Edith M. Humphrey 