Jonah 1 - Introduction

Jonah 1 and 2. As the ship and company were saved by Jonah's being cast into the waters, and his intended and supposed death, so was the church, which is several times typified by a ship saved by Christ, being cast into and overwhelmed by sorrows and troubled, which are represented by water, and by his death. Jonah being swallowed of a whale, or leviathan, represents Christ being as it were swallowed by him that hath the power of death, the devil, the spiritual leviathan; but however, it was but a means of Christ's being under better advantages to come at his heart, and to give him the mortal wound. The whale thought to have made a sweet feast of Jonah, but he found him a dreadful medicine, he was sick of him at the heart and vomited him up again. Vide Jeremiah 51:44. So the devil thought Christ was his food, but he proved not his meat, but his poison. The devil has deeply regretted putting Christ to death, since he has seen what the effect of it is. As Jonah was three days and three nights buried in the sea, so was Christ in his grave three days and three nights.

It is said, when Jonah was cast into the sea, the sea ceased from her raging: so, when once Christ was swallowed up in God's wrath, his wrath ceased from raging towards the church. The words of Jonah's song, chap. 2, make the thing more apparent. He calls the belly of the fish, the belly of hell, or the belly of the grave, 2nd and 4th verses. "I cried by reason of mine affliction, then said I, I am cast out of thy sight." So Christ said, "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" Jonah 2:3. "The floods compassed me about, all thy waves and thy billows passed over me," (the words of the psalmist, Psalms 42:7, also Lamentations 3:4; Lamentations 3:5) to signify the great sorrow and distress that God brought upon him. Jonah 2:5, "The waters compassed me about, even to the soul," (the words of the psalmist, for great trouble and anguish, Psalms 69:1). Jonah 2:6, "Yet has thou brought up my life from corruption," agreeable to what is said of Christ, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption."

Jon. 2:6