Jonah 2:6

6 I went down to the very roots of the mountains, into the land whose gates lock shut forever. But you, O Lord my God, brought me back from the depths alive.

Jonah 2:6 Meaning and Commentary

Jonah 2:6

I went down to the bottom of the mountains
Which are in the midst of the sea, whither the fish carried him, and where the waters are deep; or the bottom of rocks and promontories on the shore of the sea; and such vast rocks hanging over the sea, whose bottoms were in it, it seems are on the shore of Joppa, near to which Jonah was cast into the sea, as Egesippus ^F6 relates: the earth with her bars [was] about me for ever;
that is, the earth with its cliffs and rocks on the seashore, which are as bars to the sea, that it cannot overflow it; these were such bars to Jonah, that could he have got clear of the fish's belly, and attempted to swim to shore, he could never get to it, or over these bars, the rocks and cliffs, which were so steep and high: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God;
notwithstanding these difficulties, which were insuperable by human power, and these seeming impossibilities of, deliverance; yet the Lord brought him out of the fish's belly, as out of a grave, the pit of corruption, and where he must otherwise have lain and rotted, and freed his soul from those terrors which would have destroyed him; and by this also we learn, that this form of words was composed after he came to dry land: herein likewise he was a type of Christ, who, though laid in the grave, was not left there so long as to see corruption, ( Psalms 16:10 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 "De excidio", Urb. Hieros. l. 3. c. 20.

Jonah 2:6 In-Context

4 I thought I had been banished from your presence and would never see your holy Temple again.

5 The water came over me and choked me; the sea covered me completely, and seaweed wrapped around my head.

6 I went down to the very roots of the mountains, into the land whose gates lock shut forever. But you, O Lord my God, brought me back from the depths alive.

7 When I felt my life slipping away, then, O Lord, I prayed to you, and in your holy Temple you heard me.

8 Those who worship worthless idols have abandoned their loyalty to you.

Footnotes

• [a]. the land whose gates lock shut forever: [A reference to the world of the dead (see 2.2).]