Jona 2:5

Lutherbibel

Wasser umgaben mich bis an mein Leben, die Tiefe umringte mich; Schilf bedeckte mein Haupt.

Parallel Translations

Schlachter Bibel (1951)
Und ich sprach: Ich bin von deinen Augen verstoßen; dennoch will ich fortfahren zu schauen nach deinem heiligen Tempel!

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Psalms 40:2, Psalms 69:1, Psalms 69:2, Lamentations 3:54

Reciprocal: Psalms 18:16 - many waters Jeremiah 18:8 - that nation

Gill's Notes on the Bible

The waters compassed me about, [even] to the soul,.... Either when he was first cast into the sea, which almost suffocated him, and just ready to take away his life, could not breathe for them, as is the case of a man drowning; or these were the waters the fish drew into its belly, in such large quantities, that they compassed him about, even to the endangering of his life there. So the Targum,

"the waters surrounded me unto death.''

In this Jonah was a type of Christ in his afflictions and sorrows, which were so many and heavy, that he is said to be "exceeding sorrowful", or surrounded with sorrow, "even unto death", Matthew 26:38; see also Psalms 69:1;

the depth closed me round about; the great deep, the waters of the sea, both when he fell into it, and while in the belly of the fish: thus also Christ his antitype came into deep waters, where there was no standing, and where floods of sin, and of ungodly men, and of divine wrath, overflowed him; see Psalms 18:4;

the weeds were wrapped about my head; the sea weeds, of which there are great quantities in it, which grow at the bottom of it, to which Jonah came, and from whence he rose up again, before swallowed by the fish; or these weeds were drawn into the belly of the fish, along with the water which it took in, and were wrapped about the head of the prophet as he lay there; or the fish went down with him into the bottom of the sea, and lay among those weeds; and so they may be said to be wrapped about him, he being there, as follows. The Targum is,

"the sea of Suph being over my head;''

the same with the Red sea, which is so called, Psalms 106:9; and elsewhere, and that from the weeds that were in it; and R. Japhet, as Aben Ezra observes, says the sea of Suph is mixed with the sea of Joppa; that is, as a learned man e observes, by means of the river Rhinocorura, through which the lake of Sirbon mingles with the great sea; and which lake itself is so called from the weeds in it; yea, was anciently called Suph, and the sea of Suph, or "mare Scirpeum", hence Sirbon: and the same writer thinks that the father of Andromede, said to be devoured by a whale about Joppa, had his name of Cepheus from hence.

e Texelius, Phoenix, l. 3. c. 6. p. 242, 243, 244, 228, 229.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The waters compassed me about even to the soul - Words which to others were figures of distress (Psalms 69:2. See the introduction to Jonah), “the waters have come even to the soul,” were to Jonah realities. Sunk in the deep seas, the water strove to penetrate at every opening. To draw breath, which sustains life, to him would have been death. There was but a breath between him and death. “The deep encompassed me,” encircling, meeting him wherever he turned, holding him imprisoned on every side, so that there was no escape, and, if there otherwise had been, he was bound motionless, “the weed was wrapped around my head, like a grave-band.” “The weed” was the well known seaweed, which, even near the surface of the sea where man can struggle, twines round him, a peril even to the strong swimmer, entangling him often the more, the more he struggles to extricate himself from it. But to one below, powerless to struggle, it was as his winding sheet.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jonah 2:5. The waters compassed me about even to the soul — So as to seem to deprive me of life. I had no hope left.

The weeds were wrapped about my head. — This may be understood literally also. He found himself in the fish's stomach, together with sea weeds, and such like marine substances, which the fish had taken for its aliment.