Questions
Chapter 1
17 And YHWH provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
How long was Jonah inside the sea monster? What is the significance of the time in ANE thinking?
Chapter 2
2 And Jonah prayed to YHWH his God from the belly of the fish 2 and said,
This is the first time Jonah prays to YHWH. How does this contrast to the sailors? What is the writer leading us to conclude?
Jonah's prayer draws heavily from the Psalms. These are just some examples…
Discuss some of the similarities.
5 The waters encompassed me up to my neck; the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.
Does this reinforce your answer to qu 1?1
6a I went down to the foundations of the mountains; the Underworld—its bars were around me forever.
Jonah is deep in the ocean. Where to the mountains appear from?2
7 When my life was ebbing away from me, I remembered YHWH, and my prayer came to you, to the temple of your holiness.
What is the significance of the temple in Jonah's plight?3
10 And YHWH spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out on the dry land.
What parallels are drawn between Jonah's experience and other biblical figures or events?4
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BibleProject Guide: The Book of Jonah»
The BibleProject takes a different slant to Jonah as do others. It is good to hear other voices :-)
The modern reader may think we are overstating the case that Jonah was as good as dead, without any hope of being raised back up to the land of the living, but this is how Jesus interpreted the story [Matthew 12:39-41].
In the ANE cosmology the land is a mountain that rises up out of the sea [Genesis 1:9-10]. The underworld, Sheol for the Hebrews, is the foundation of the land, or the mountains
YHWH and the heavenly council meet “in the heavens, on a well-watered, cosmic garden, or a lofty mountain, far removed on high, as those places are the home of God in Scripture” [Douglas Van Dorn, The Unseen Realm: A Question & Answer Companion (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015)]. Mount Zion is not the highest mountain in the region but it did function as a cosmic mighty mountain, a place where heaven and earth met in the temple. Jonah has descended from such a lofty place to the depths of the sea in the belly of a monster.
Being saved out of, or through water, has many links in the broader story. For example, God raised the dry land as a mountain of the sea. The Israelites passed through the Sea of Reeds as they left slavery and death in Egypt. The waters brought death on the Egyptians.