Jonah Sure Knew Those Psalms!

We often read Old Testament narratives as if people were ignorant and trying to figure out things from scratch. But Israel’s saints didn’t live in a vacuum. They had God’s written word, and when life collapsed around them, they called to mind the things they had been taught. Psalms were especially useful to God’s people. Long before they became the Church’s prayerbook, the psalms were already shaping the faith and speech of God’s people. Well known psalms gave faithful saints vocabulary and phrases for fear, guilt, hope, repentance, and praise.

Jonah is a prominent example. Trapped in the darkness of a fish’s belly, with no plan and no hope, Jonah does the one thing a helpless sinner can do: he prays. And when he prays (Jonah 2), he doesn’t merely vent emotion; he borrows lines, images, and theology from specific psalms. His spontaneous prayer is saturated with Scripture, demonstrating how many Old Testament saints would have endured difficult situations.

As you work through Jonah 2, there are at least four places where there seems to be a clear knowledge of (and reliance on) the Psalms. Jonah uses them as a framework to confess his sin and ultimately to affirm that salvation belongs to the Lord.

Jonah 2:2-3,7	Psalm 18:4-6
I called out of my distress to the LORD, And He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice. “For You had cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me.“While I was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, And my prayer came to You, Into Your holy temple.	The cords of death encompassed me, And the torrents of ungodliness terrified The cords of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the LORD, And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

Jonah 2:2b-3	Psalm 116:3-4, 18
I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice.	The cords of death encompassed me And the terrors of Sheol came upon me; I found distress and sorrow.

Jonah 2:8	Psalm 31:6
Those who regard vain idols Forsake their faithfulness.	I hate those who regard vain idols, But I trust in the LORD.

Jonah 2:10	Psalm 116:18
That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the LORD.”	I shall pay my vows to the LORD, Oh may it be in the presence of all His

Jonah’s allusion to Psalm 116 is especially pertinent. Psalm 116 describes a situation where the psalmist is in death’s clutches (vv. 2-4), yet God is compassionate and gracious, able to rescue the soul from death (vv. 5-11). In light of this great delivery from the Lord, the psalmist proclaims that he will pay his vows to the Lord before the people because of his gratitude to the Lord (vv. 12-19).

It appears that Jonah weaves these allusions together in his prayer, acknowledging the Lord as the only hope of salvation. Then Jonah finishes his prayer with the affirmation that he (like the psalmist) would give due honor and thanksgiving for deliverance from the Lord.

Even in the Old Testament, the psalms already were providing a framework through which the men and women of God could pray to the Lord in every circumstance.

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