{"id":77847,"date":"2020-07-22T15:47:43","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T12:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=77847"},"modified":"2020-07-22T15:47:43","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T12:47:43","slug":"watery-salvation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/watery-salvation\/","title":{"rendered":"Watery Salvation"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"77847","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":54356,"related_cahpter":"530","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Where almost drowning is suddenly more than a metaphor\r\n\r\n","content":"

2:3 \u201cAnd he said: \u2018I called out from my straits to the LORD, and He answered me. From the belly of Sheol I cried out–you heard my voice.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As is the regular practice in biblical narrative, a poem is inserted that was originally composed for another context (compare Hannah\u2019s thanksgiving psalm, 1 Samuel 2:1-10). This poem is a psalm of thanksgiving, exhibiting many of the formulas and metaphors of that genre. It fits the narrative situation somewhat imperfectly because, while it is introduced as Jonah\u2019s prayer from the belly of the fish, it is not actually a plea for deliverance but the rendering of thanks to God for having already delivered the speaker, as this opening line at once makes clear. The image of almost drowning in the depths of the seas as a metaphor for near death (often because of a grave illness) is conventional in thanksgiving psalms, but here it is made to apply literally to Jonah\u2019s desperate aqueous plight. Not surprisingly, the inserted psalm makes no mention of being swallowed by a fish because the maws of gigantic fish do not figure in thanksgiving psalms. Nevertheless, the poem does incorporate several relevant points of connection with Jonah\u2019s story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From: Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible<\/em>, vol. 2: Prophets, W. W. Norton & Co., 2019, ad loc. 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