I cried by reason of mine affliction - , or, "out of affliction" which came "to me." So the Psalmist thanked God in the same words, though in a different order ; "To the Lord in trouble to me I called, and He heard me." He "called," and God heard and answered , "He does not say, I "call," but I "called"; he does not pray for the future, but gives thanks for the past." Strange cause of thankfulness this would seem to most faith, to be alive in such a grave; to abide there hour after hour, and day after day, in one unchanging darkness, carried to and fro helplessly, with no known escape from his fetid prison, except to death! Yet spiritual light shone on that depth of darkness. The voracious creature, which never opened his mouth save to destroy life, had swallowed him, to save it . "What looked like death, became safe-keeping," and so the prophet who had fled to avoid doing the will of God and to do his own, now willed to be carried about, he knew not where, at the will; as it seemed, of the huge animal in which he lay, but in truth, where God directed it, and he gave thanks. God had heard him. The first token of God's mercy was the earnest of the whole. God was dealing with him, was looking on him. It was enough.
Out of the belly of hell cried I. - The deep waters were as a grave, and he was counted "among the dead" Psalm 88:4. Death seemed so certain that it was all one as if he were in the womb of hell, not to be reborn to life until the last Day. So David said Psalm 18:5, "The bands of death compassed me round about;" and Psalm 30:3, "Thou hast drawn my life out of hell." The waters choked his speech; but he cried with a loud cry to God Who knew the heart. "I cried; Thou heardest." The words vary only by a kindred letter . The real heart's cry to God according to the mind of God and His hearing are one, whether, for man's good, He seem at the time to hear or no.
"Not of the voice but of the heart is God the Hearer, as He is the Seer. Do the ears of God wait for sound? How then could the prayer of Jonah from the inmost belly of the whale, through the bowels of so great a creature, out of the very bottomless depths, through so great a mass of waters, make its way to heaven?" "Loud crying to God is not with the voice but with the heart. Many, silent with their lips, have cried aloud with their heart; many, noisy with their lips, could, with heart turned away, obtain nothing. If then thou criest, cry within, where God heareth." "Jonah cried aloud to God out of the fish's belly, out of the deep of the sea, out of the depths of disobedience; and his prayer reached to God, Who rescued him from the waves, brought him forth out of the vast creature, absolved him from the guilt. Let the sinner too cry aloud, whom, departing from God, the storm of desires overwhelmed, the malignant Enemy devoured, the waves of this present world sucked under! Let him own that he is in the depth, that so his prayer may reach to God."

Out of the belly of hell - Among the Hebrews שאול sheol means the grave, any deep pit, the place of separate spirits, etc. Here the prophet represents himself as in the bottom of the sea; for so sheol must be understood in this place.

And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly (b) of hell cried I, [and] thou heardest my voice.
(b) For he was now in the fishes belly as in a grave or place of darkness.

And said,.... Not unto the Lord in prayer, but to others, to whom he communicated what passed between God and him in this time of distress; how he prayed to him, and was heard by him; what a condition he had been in, and how he was delivered out of it; what was his frame of mind while in it, sometimes despairing, and sometimes hoping; and how thankful he was for this salvation, and was determined to praise the Lord for it:
I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; or, "out of my strait" (a); being straitened in his body, and as it were in a prison in the fish's belly; and straitened in his soul, being between hope and despair, and under the apprehensions of the divine displeasure. A time of affliction is a time for prayer; it brings those to it that have disused it; it made Jonah cry to his God, if not with a loud voice, yet inwardly; and his cry was powerful and piercing, it reached the heavens, and entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts, though out of the depths, and out of the belly of a fish, in the midst of the sea:
out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice; or, "out of the belly of the grave" (b); out of the midst of it; that is, out of the belly of the fish, which was as a grave to him, as Jarchi observes; where he lay as out of the land of the living, as one dead, and being given up for dead: and it may also respect the frame of his mind, the horror and terror lie was in, arising from a sense of his sins, and the apprehensions he had of the wrath of God, which were as a hell in his conscience; and amidst all this he cried to God, and he heard him; and not only delivered him from he fish's belly, but from those dreadful apprehensions he had of his state and condition; and spoke peace and pardon to him. This is a proof that this prayer or thanksgiving be it called which it will, was composed, as to the form and order of it, after his deliverance; and these words are an appeal to God for the truth of what he had said in the preceding clause, and not a repetition of it in prayer; or expressing the same thing in different words.
(a) "ex angustia mea", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "ex arcto mihi", Cocceius. (b) "e ventre sepulchri", Calvin, Piscator, Liveleus; "e ventre sepulchrali", Junius & Tremellius.

His prayer is partly descriptive and precatory, partly eucharistical. Jonah incorporates with his own language inspired utterances familiar to the Church long before in , ; in , ; in , ; in , ; in , ; ; in , ; in , , and . Jonah, an inspired man, thus attests both the antiquity and inspiration of the Psalm. It marks the spirit of faith, that Jonah identifies himself with the saints of old, appropriating their experiences as recorded in the Word of God (). Affliction opens up the mine of Scripture, before seen only on the surface.
out of the belly of hell--Sheol, the unseen world, which the belly of the fish resembled.

2 I cried to Jehovah out of my distress, and He heard me;
Out of the womb of hell I cried: Thou heardest my voice!
The first clause recals to mind Psalm 18:7 and Psalm 120:1; but it also shows itself to be an original reproduction of the expression מצּרה לי, which expresses the prophet's situation in a more pointed manner than בּצּר־לי in Psalm 17:1-15 and בּצּרתה לּי in Psalm 120:1-7. The distress is still more minutely defined in the second hemistich by the expression מבּטן שׁאול, "out of the womb of the nether world." As a throat or swallow is ascribed to she'ōl in Isaiah 5:14, so here it is spoken of as having a בטן, or belly. This is not to be taken as referring to the belly of the shark, as Jerome supposes. The expression is a poetical figure used to denote the danger of death, from which there is apparently no escape; like the encompassing with snares of death in Psalm 18:5, and the bringing up of the soul out of sheol in Psalm 30:3. In the last clause the words pass over very appropriately into an address to Jehovah, which is brought out into still greater prominence by the omission of the copula Vav.

Affliction - Straits with which he was encompassed, his body and mind being both shut up, the one by the monstrous dungeon of the fish's belly, and the other by the terrors of the Almighty. Heardest my voice - Of which undoubtedly God gave him an assurance in his own soul.