My Soul Fainted Within Me

Jonah’s experience, in the belly of the fish, was documented for the benefit and instruction of the after-church of Jesus Christ. The prophet recorded how he felt, thought and cried in the throes of his affliction and how the Lord heard him. Jonah also reveals ‘my soul fainted within me’. This is strange language to the ears of many of us. What does it mean when a man’s soul faints within him? Would you know what to do if it happened to you?

Faint

The Bible words rendered ‘faint’ or ‘fainted’ have physical and metaphorical meanings. Physically it can be used for exhaustion or weariness from over-exertion or lack of food and water. Figuratively it can mean depression or despondency brought on by deep loss or sadness. Spiritually it applies to remorse for sin, sorrow in guilt and the fear of just deserts. It is a discouragement of heart that drains and exhausts the soul when judgment and fear grip our mind.

Subdued

In the belly of the fish Jonah is convicted and subdued by the Lord when faced with his sinful rebellion. He has no more strength to resist nor will to run. He has been halted in his flight from the face of God, overcome with guilt at his foolishness and shamed with his attitude and ingratitude towards God. Then, when it seemed Jonah’s exhausted soul might fall, never again to rise, the prophet remembered God’s power and goodness.

Jonah’s faith

We are again reminded Jonah had faith in Christ. As an Old Testament believer he looked to God’s covenant promises to Abraham and David. He saw the Messiah by faith in the types and symbols of mercy delivered to the ancient Jews under Moses. Jonah knew the gospel promises of grace and here in this critical moment of soul-distress he ‘remembered the Lord’. When troubles seem to shut out hope God grants repentance and faith revives. Remembering the Lord is remembering His works of mercy and His promises in Christ.

Confession

Jonah’s soul was revived by this recollection and his prayer is a petition for forgiveness, an appeal for deliverance and an offering of thanksgiving. It sped from the whale’s belly to the throne of grace. God in heaven heard it because it was tendered with an eye to Christ’s sacrifice and death, bound up in the typology of the temple. Jonah had personally ‘observed lying vanities’. He was the man who had rejected God by giving place to the urges of carnal sense and reason. This was Jonah’s acknowledgment of sin and prayer for forgiveness.

Serving with gratitude

It was also an appeal characterised by faith and attended with a pledge of re-dedication. Jonah promised ‘I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed’. Jonah’s offering was ‘a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God’ and well-pleasing in His sight because Jonah looked to the precious blood of God’s own Son. Perhaps Jonah foresaw an opportunity to bring an offering again at the temple and vowed to do so should he be enabled. Perhaps it is his willingness to go now to Nineveh. 

Salvation’s source

Jonah’s simple declaration ‘Salvation is of the LORD’ is both a statement of confidence and a testimony of experience. It has adorned many sermons and encapsulates the gospel of God’s grace. The form of the word used for salvation is expansive and incorporates every kind of salvation and deliverance. Jonah affirmed the gracious source of all salvation. Whether we think of Jonah’s physical location in the great fish, or more broadly deliverance from the trials of life, the snares of sin, or our eternal redemption, the statement holds good. ‘Salvation is of the LORD’.

On solid ground

No sooner had the humbled prophet made his confession than the Lord spoke to the fish and instructed it to spew Jonah onto dry land. The location is not specified and not important. Jonah had been heard and God answered. For three days and three nights Jonah typified death in the belly of the whale and signified the death and burial of the Lord Jesus Christ. The whale could hold Jonah no longer than God allowed. Nor could death and the grave hold our Saviour.

A lasting sign

This astonishing miracle of Jonah’s deliverance from the belly of the whale signalled our Saviour’s own detention in the heart of the earth for the salvation of His people. It has strengthened faith and encouraged fainting souls ever since. Jonah’s history reveals the wonderful mystery of Jesus Christ’s incarnation and humiliation for us. To paraphrase Robert Hawker in verse:

 ’Twas for us, and our salvation,

Thou didst condescend to lay,

In the grave until the morning,

Of Thy resurrection day.

Amen.