Jonah's Prayer

I learned something cool from the People's Bible regarding Jonah's prayer from inside the belly of the fish. It appears Jonah's memory work of the psalms paid off after all! For example:

Jonah says (2:2): "In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry."

Psalm 30:2,3 says: "O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O LORD, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit."

Jonah says (2:3): "You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me."

Psalm 42:7 says: "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me."

If you continue reading the commentary, it points out further references to the psalms that Jonah was making throughout his prayer.

This, to me, is a huge reason to continually be in God's Word--so that when the need is there to recall God's comforting words--either for yourself or someone else--they are on the tip of the mind. And I have been happy to see in my own life that with my yearly reading of the Bible this has started to happen. I hope you have experienced this as well already this year as we've read through the Bible together, and that things only get better from here.