properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
fainted
בְּהִתְעַטֵּ֤ףbe.hit.'a.Tef
H5848
to shroud · preposition + verb, hithpael infinitive construct
remembered
זָכָ֑רְתִּיza.Kha.re.ti
H2142
properly · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
LORD
יְהוָ֖הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
prayer
תְּפִלָּתִ֔יte.fi.la.Ti
H8605
intercession · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
in
וַתָּב֤וֹאva.ta.Vo'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
holy
קָדְשֶֽׁךָkod.She.cha
H6944
a sacred place or thing · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
temple
הֵיכַ֖לhei.Khal
H1964
a large public building · noun, common masculine singular construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 18:6 In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his…
2 Chronicles 30:27 Then the priests the Levites arose and blessed the people: and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy dwelling place, e…
1 Samuel 30:6 And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his son…
Psalms 11:4 The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’s throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.
Psalms 143:5 I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.
Psalms 20:7 Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.
Psalms 27:13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Psalms 77:10-11 And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Jonah 2:7
soul fainted . . . I remembered the Lord--beautifully exemplifying the triumph of spirit over flesh, of faith over sense (; ). For a time troubles shut out hope; but faith revived when Jonah "remembered the Lord," what a gracious God He is, and how now He still preserves his life and consciousness in his dark prison-house.
into thine holy temple--the temple at Jerusalem (). As there he looks in believing prayer towards it, so here he regards his prayer as already heard.
Adam Clarke on Jonah 2:7
When my soul fainted - When I had given up all hope of life.
My prayer came in unto thee - Here prayer is personified, and is represented as a messenger going from the distressed, and entering into the temple of God, and standing before him. This is a very fine and delicate image. This clause is one of those which I suppose the prophet to have added when he penned this prayer.
John Gill on Jonah 2:7
When my soul fainted within me,.... Covered with grief; overwhelmed with sorrow; ready to faint and sink at the sight of his sins; and under a sense of the wrath and displeasure of God, and being forsaken by him:
I remembered the Lord; his covenant and promises, his former mercies and lovingkindness, the gracious experiences he had had of these in times past; he remembered he was a God gracious and merciful, and ready to forgive, healed the backslidings of his people, and still loved them freely, and tenderly received and embraced them, when they returned to him:
and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple; into heaven itself, the habitation of God's holiness, the temple where…
Jonah 2:7
7. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.
7. Quum deficeret in me anima mea (vel, dum se convolveret supra me anima mea,) Jehovae recordatus sum, et ingressa est oratio mea ad templum sanctitatis tuae.
Here Jonah comprehends in one verse what he had previously said, -- that he had been distressed with the heaviest troubles, but that he had not yet been so cast down in his mind, as that he had no prospect of God's favor to encourage him to pray. He indeed first confesses that he had suffered some kind of fainting, and that he had been harassed by anxious and perplexing thoughts, so as not to be able by his ow…
The Church Fathers
Although he ought to have been corrupted and digested in the belly of the whale and diffused through the veins and joints of the fish, he came out safe and whole. calling the God who is common to all his own and personal God; because of the magnitude of such great favor, he especially feels that God is his God ad Lord.
When a person has completely abandoned the world, it seems to one that one is living in a remote desert, full of wild beasts. One is filled with unutterable fear and indescribable trembling, and cries to God like Jonah from the whale, from the sea of this life, or like Daniel from the pit of the lions and the fierce passions, or like the three children from the burning furnace and the flames of innate desire, or like Manasseh from the brazen statue of this earthly mortal body. The Lord hears that person and delivers him from the abyss of ignorance and love of this world, just like the prophet who came out of the whale, never to go back again.
Having been saved by the ineffable power of God, he wished to send up more splendid odes of thanksgiving. He surely recounts in some way what happened, and he teaches subtly with what calamity he was encompassed, and again he proclaims how he was saved. That he was, then, in the sea, and in a great abyss, and in the clefts of mountains, as the sea monster likely plunged down among rocks and the caves in the sea, he was not ignorant as a prophet; but he says he reached a land whose bars are eternal bolts, that is, Hades, not that he had been there; for we shall not find him to have died; but that the greatness of the danger and the weight of what had happened was in no way short of seeming to have died completely, and to have arrived in Hades itself, from where no one could depart, and one who had once been entrapped would in no way return. For I think this is what signifies to have its bars as possessors forever, as it were unbreakable and never overcome or loosened by anyone. But that he did not die, but lived, as I said, in the sea monster, and was in it, having suffered nothing that leads to death or corruption, would easily show that he was also in hope of being saved again. For this reason he says, "Let my life come up from corruption, O Lord my God." For he prays to be given to the light, and to be brought up, as it were, from Hades, from the belly of the sea monster.
Dictionary and topics
Afflictions Made Beneficial · Exemplified: Jonah — Exemplified: Jonah
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
5 Waters surrounded me even to the soul: the flood encompassed me,
Sea-grass was wound round my head.
6 I went down to the foundations of the mountains;
The earth, its bolts were behind me for ever:
Then raisedst Thou my life out of the pit, O Jehovah my God.
7 When my soul fainted within me, I thought of Jehovah;
And my prayer came to Thee into Thy holy temple.
This strophe opens, like the last, with a description of the peril of death, to set forth still more perfectly the thought of miraculous deliverance which filled the prophet's mind. The first clause of the fifth verse recals to mind Psa 18:5 and Psa 69:2; the words "the waters pressed (בּאוּ) even to the soul" (Psa 69:2) being simply…
I remembered the Lord: In this context, Jonah’s statement means “I turned my thoughts to the Lord in prayer.” • earnest prayer . . . holy Temple: The Temple was God’s special dwelling place in Israel’s worship, even though God is present everywhere at all times (Ps 139:7-10; Jer 23:23-24).
Rashi on Jonah 2:7
To the bottoms of the mountains I descended—To the end of the measure of the mountains fixed to the deep, I descended.
And I said... the earth - its bars are closed on me Heb. בַּעֲדִי, against me, over me it is closed, and I will never go out. closed on me Heb. בַּעֲדִי. cf. (II Kings 4:4) “And you shall close the door about yourself (בַּעֲדֵךְ).” And so is every instance of בְּעַד in Scriptures, e.g. (Job 2:4) “Skin against (בְּעַד) skin,” a limb against a limb.
forever This refers to what he said above, “And I said, ‘I have been driven away,’” and I said, “The earth - its bars are closed on me forever.”
but You brought up my life from Gehinnom—But I saw Gehinnom here, and from there Yo…
