Jonah 2 Devotional

Rescued from the Depths

“But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. I will fulfill what I have vowed. Salvation is from the LORD!””Jonah 2:9 (BSB)

Jonah prays from inside the fish. The waters closed over him, weeds tangled around his head, and he sank to the roots of the mountains (2:3-6). He admits that it was the LORD who threw him into the deep. Yet as his life was fading, he remembered the LORD, and his prayer reached God's holy temple (2:7). The man who ran from God's presence now resolves to look toward it again (2:4).

The prayer ends with the confession at the heart of the whole book: salvation comes from the LORD (2:9). Jonah did not save himself. God answered and raised him from the pit, then commanded the fish to put him on dry land (2:6, 2:10). Jesus pointed to this story when he said that as Jonah spent three days and nights in the fish, so the Son of Man would spend three days and nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40). Whatever depths you are in, the God who rescues is the one to call on.

To think about: What would it look like to call on God from the place where you feel most over your head?