and said, “I ¹  called out to the Lord from my distress, and he answered me; ²  from the belly of Sheol ³  I cried out for help, and you heard my prayer. ⁴ 

biblegateway Jon 2:2

and he said, "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.

I called to the LORD in my distress, and He answered me. I cried out for help in the belly of Sheol; You heard my voice.

Jonah prayed: "I called to the LORD in my distress, and he answered me. From the depths of my watery grave I cried for help, and you heard my cry.

biblegateway Jon 2:2

He said: "In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry.

saying, "I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

bibleoremus Jon 2:2

saying, "I called to the LORD out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

“In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me; from deep within Sheol I cried for help, and you heard my voice.

biblegateway Jon 2:2

And he said: "I cried out to the LORD because of my affliction, And He answered me. "Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice.

And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, [and] thou heardest my voice.

biblegateway Jon 2:2

and said, “I ¹  called out to the Lord from my distress, and he answered me; ²  from the belly of Sheol ³  I cried out for help, and you heard my prayer. ⁴ 

¹ sn The eight verses of Jonah’s prayer in Hebrew contain twenty-seven first-person pronominal references to himself. There are fifteen second- or third-person references to the Lord.

² tn Tg. Jonah 2:2 renders this interpretively: “and he heard my prayer.”

² sn The first verse of the prayer summarizes the whole – “I was in trouble; I called to the Lord for help; he rescued me; I will give him thanks” – before elaborating on the nature and extent of the trouble (vv. 3-7a), mentioning the cry for help and the subsequent rescue (6b-7), and promising to give thanks (8-9). These elements, as well as much vocabulary and imagery found in Jonah’s prayer, appear also in other Hebrew psalms. With Jonah 2:1 compare, for example, Pss 18:6; 22:24; 81:7; 116:1-4; 120:1; 130:1-2; Lam 3:55-56. These references and others indicate that Jonah was familiar with prayers used in worship at the temple in Jerusalem; he knew “all the right words.” Consider also Ps 107 with Jonah as a whole.

³ sn Sheol was a name for the place of residence of the dead, the underworld (see Job 7:9-10; Isa 38:17-18). Jonah pictures himself in the belly of Sheol, its very center – in other words he is as good as dead.

⁴ tn Heb “voice” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “my cry.” The term קוֹל (qol, “voice”) functions as a metonymy for the content of what is uttered: cry for help in prayer.