Minor Prophets LI: Drowning Man

Jonah is sinking down. He is both solemn and “depressed”, both mentally and in terms of “physical” orientation. They parallel one another. Perhaps the experience of sinking in the water has affected him psychologically? He sinks in water and simultaneously sinks and drops away from God. There are also hints of Psalms 40 in the latter portions “But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit” A glimmer of hope in the end. A hand that reaches down when we think we are going under for the last time. Suffocating and drowning in our sin as it inundates and engulfs us in life. In this moment, the last before we lose consciousness...when life ebbs away, people reach too the last thing that matters and the only thing that matters…God.


In this epiphany (which I believe is from God himself) we have enough sense to reach our hands to the sky. In this nearly unconscious repentance and acknowledgement of God, God then reaches down into our overwhelming adversity and saves us. This I suppose is not ironic when we consider than some of people’s most teachable moments are in their suffering and adversity when they have “reached the bottom”


“In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me.”


“From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.”


“But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit.”


“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.”