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Jon_2:10 And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry [land].
Ver. 10. And the Lord spake unto the fish] He spake the word and it was done: he is the great centurion of the world, that saith to his creature, Do this, and he doth it. Dei dicere est facere (Aug.). Yea, he is the great, great Induperator, {Imperator} to whom everything saith, Iussa sequi tam velle mihi quam posse necesse esse (Lucan.): I am wholly at thy beck and check. Jonah spake to God, and God to the fish. It may be said of faithful prayer, that it can do whatsoever God himself can do; since he is pleased to yield himself, overcome by the prayers of his people, and to say unto them cordially, as Zedekiah did to his courtiers colloquingly, The king is not he that can deny you anything. Prayer is of that power that it can open the doors of leviathan, as we see here (which yet is reckoned as a thing not feasible, Job_41:14), yea of the all devouring grave, Heb_11:35. If the Lord, pricked on by the prayer of his people, set in hand to save them, and shall "say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth," Isa_43:6, they shall come amain, and none shall be able to hinder them; "Come, therefore" (with those good souls in Hosea, who had smarted for their folly, as well as Jonah), "and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight," Hos_6:1-2. A time we must have to be in the fire, in the fish’s belly, as in God’s nurturing house; but he will take care that we be not there overly long; what is two or three days to eternity? Hold out, faith and patience: "Yet a very little, little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry," Heb_10:37.
And it vomited up Jonah upon the dry land] And here death was defeated and wiped; it was much more so when it had swallowed up Christ; and little dreamt that itself should have been thereby "swallowed up in victory." Quantum in devoratione mors laetata est, tantum luxit in vomitu (Jerome). But then was fulfilled that of the prophet, O death, I will be thy death. And as there, so here, in a proportion, and as a type, omnia iam inversa, saith Mercer, all things are turned the other way. Before the fish was an instrument of death; now of life, and serves Jonah for a ship to bring him to dry land. This fish useth not to come near the shore, but to sport in the great waters; howbeit now he must, by special command, "vomit up Jonah upon the dry land." "Why then should it be thought a thing incredible with any that God should raise the dead?" Act_26:8. The sea shall surely give up the dead that were in it; and death and hell deliver up the dead that were in them; and they shall be judged every man according to his works, Rev_20:13. This some of the heathens believed; as Zoroaster, Theopompus, and Plato. And the Stoics’ opinion was, that the world should one day be dissolved by fire or water; and all things brought to a better state, or to the first golden age again (Sen. Nat. Quaest. 1. 3, c. 26-30). But we have a more sure word of prophecy; and this that is here recorded may serve as an image and type of our preservation in the grave, and our resurrection from the dead, by one and the same almighty power of God.