Section 2:1–10

Jonah thanked the LORD for rescuing him

This section records the prayer that Jonah prayed after he was swallowed by the fish. Notice that the prayer is in the form of poetry. (Both Berean Standard Bible and Good News Translation show this.) Therefore the structure of chapter two is very different from the other three chapters in Jonah, which are narrative material. If possible, try to translate the material in this chapter in a natural poetic form in your language. However, remember that the message is more important than the form in which it is written.

When the sailors threw Jonah overboard into the sea, he thought he would drown. However, the large fish which the LORD sent swallowed him, so he was saved from the stormy sea.

2:1

From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the LORD his God: Then Jonah prayed the following prayer thanking the LORD for rescuing him (even though he was not yet on dry land!).

his God: This does not mean Jonah owned God. It means the God whom Jonah served and worshiped. Depending on how you have chosen to translate “LORD,” there may be difficulties in translating this combined expression. See the discussion on LORD in the Introduction.

© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.