Jonah's prayer from inside the fish reads like a psalm because it is built like one. It follows the shape of the Hebrew thanksgiving psalms, with a summary of answered prayer, a description of the distress, the rescue, a reflection, and a closing vow. The man who ran from God in chapter 1 now prays in the inherited language every faithful Israelite knew by heart.
Chapter 1 traced a descent, down to Joppa, down into the ship, down into the hold. This prayer follows the same descent to its floor. 6"To the roots of the mountains I went down, to the land whose bars closed upon me forever." Weeds wrap his head, the deep surrounds him, and every image presses toward death. Then, at the very bottom, comes the turn. 6"Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God." The one who sent Jonah down through the storm is the one who brings him back up.
Jonah names who did it: 3"You cast me into the deep." The sailors lifted him over the rail, and the sea's violence was no accident. Every wave is the LORD's: "all your breakers and your waves passed over me." The man who spent chapter 1 trying to escape God's presence now confesses that even his escape route was God's doing all along.
Then comes a sentence that reads differently once you know the whole book. 8"Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love." Jonah is drawing a line and standing on the right side of it. Two chapters later he will be furious at the same God for what he calls being "abounding in steadfast love" (Jonah 4:2), because that love has reached Nineveh. The man who said idolaters forsake mercy will complain that God gives too much of it.
The confession that names the prayer arrives last. 9"Salvation belongs to the LORD!" The Hebrew word shares its root with the names Joshua and Jesus. It means that salvation is not something any person or nation owns or hands out. It belongs to the LORD, which means it goes wherever he sends it, whether or not the one confessing it is ready to watch it go there.
And then, almost jarringly, 10"the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land." Interpreters read this scene differently. Some hear a change, though a partial one, a cry of faith that carries Jonah into obedient preaching in chapter 3 before his heart has caught up. Others notice the verb, which is an expulsion, and wonder about the man being delivered. Either way, both agree on something. Right words spoken in deep distress do not prove that a heart has caught up with what it is saying.
Test your own confession. Can you say true things about God's mercy in general and still resent where he decides to send it in one particular case? Jonah's prayer is a good place to notice the gap and ask God to close it.
Prayer
LORD, salvation belongs to you alone, and it is not ours to define or withhold from those you send it to. We confess that we can speak true things about your mercy and still resent where you send it. Bring up our lives from whatever pit our own flight has led us into, and do not let our doctrine outrun our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.