What does it take for God to hear our cry? (Jonah 2)

A Hungarian play written in the early twentieth century called ‘Blue Fox’ describes the tangled relationships of a married couple, a family friend who loves Cecile (the wife), and another man who may be her lover. The story revolves around the question, ‘Has Cecile been to Török Street?’ – either to have an assignation with her lover there or to pick up a blue fox cape from the furrier in the same street. The playwright, Ferenc Herczeg, leaves the question open, but by encouraging the audience to engage their imagination in answering it, he cleverly plumbs the depth of people’s motivation and hearts, the characters’ as well as the audience’s. Jonah’s prayer is likewise ambiguous and in the light of later events some might wonder if he truly had a change of heart and repented. This matters because it relates to the question of what it takes for God to hear our cry.

Jonah’s prayer a psalm

One of the difficulties in evaluating Jonah’s attitude is that his prayer takes the form of a psalm. Whether this is specifically composed for Jonah’s situation, or it is a previously known psalm (one that did not make it into the psalter) that he prays, such a form conceals as much as it reveals. Psalms are to a certain extent formulaic and keep the details vague, so a variety of people recognise their own predicaments in them and identify with their message. While we may crave certainty in our interpretation, imagining ourselves in Jonah’s situation and weighing up his attitude without immediately passing judgment can help us engage more deeply with the issue of what gets God’s attention.

Sinking down

Jonah’s prayer fills the gap of what happened between his sinking to the bottom of the sea and the fish that swallowed him (Jonah 1:15, 17).[1] It recalls his cry of anguish in the waters (Jonah 2:2-3), a common metaphor for distress in the psalms (e.g. Ps 69:1-2, 14-15; 42:7), but a physical reality for Jonah. The very means by which he had hoped to escape God (sailing away from His presence on the sea) has seemingly become the means of his destruction. How often what holds out the promise of escape and help from a difficult situation turns out to be our undoing! In this case, Jonah feels that the consequences are irreversible. As he was going down to Joppa, down the ship, he is now sinking, sinking down… engulfed, surrounded, imprisoned by the waters, the bars clanging shut without escape (Jonah 2:5-6). And yet, God is Lord over the sea, over chaos, over our tangled circumstances. The fish that God appoints becomes a place of rescue from death (‘the pit’ v.6).

Jonah’s attitude

But what led to such a rescue? Did Jonah repent? There is no explicit mention of it in his prayer, though he fully recognises God’s hand (You had cast me…; I have been expelled…; Jonah 2:3-4). God confirmed through events what Jonah had wanted (to flee from God’s presence), but now when he is on the threshold of death – the final outcome of his distance from God – a longing, even a hope for fellowship with God awakens (looking toward the temple [where God’s presence dwells] – v.6). He remembers the Lord (Jonah 2:7), a word that means an active turning towards God rather than idle reminiscing.[2] His comparison with idol worshippers further underlines his commitment to God and to trusting in Him (Jonah 2:8-9), language typical of the psalms that summarises the difference between those who turn to God and those who turn away (e.g. Ps 31:6; 32:10; 50:23). Thus, there is a genuine change of heart in Jonah, and a longing for fellowship with the Lord that goes beyond the cry to be spared from death. Yet, the lack of words acknowledging his disobedience does leave us with some uncertainty about his attitude.

God’s compassion and generosity

More than anything, this passage testifies to God’s amazing generosity in responding to us when we cry to Him. Jonah’s turning around is not fully what we would expect, and compared to the sailors, he takes a lot longer to arrive at this point. The sailors are spiritually more discerning (they connect the storm with divine displeasure) and pray, even though in their ignorance they do so to gods who do not exist, while Jonah sleeps unaware of the storm his actions stirred up and only prays in the face of imminent death in the sea. Jonah has much to learn, and God will continue to work in him, but the Lord’s compassion moves Him to save long before Jonah gets it perfectly. Yes, we are truly saved by grace. We may not fully appreciate all our wrongdoing, nor have all the right words to express it and our lives may be far from what God would want it to be. Yet, when we recognise what we are missing without Him and our longing for Him awakens in the mess of our own making, He hears our cries and comes to our rescue.

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[1] More on the issue of the fish and the question of historicity in my next post. ‘Three days and three nights’ (Jonah 1:17) is an expression commonly used in the OT to refer to an indefinite short time, not necessarily to be taken as literally 72 hours. Stuart helpfully compares this to our phrase ‘six feet under’, which can be used for being ‘dead and buried’, rather than as an exact measurement. Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, WBC 31 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987), 475.

[2] When God remembers, He acts (Gen 8:1). Likewise, Israel is told to remember and not forget their wilderness experiences and God’s provision (Deut 8:1-20). Note in the Deuteronomy passage how such remembering leads to action (obedience and humble thankfulness) and forgetting to pride and self-reliance.

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