Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.
When men turn away to false gods, they rob themselves of the chief good, they forsake the mercy that alone brings life and salvation. Jonah sets his own true worship against all those vain inventions men devise to deceive themselves, through which they withdraw from the only true God.
AI summary
And the Lord spake unto the fish,.... Or gave orders to it; he that made it could command it; all creatures are the servants of God, and do his will; what he says is done; he so ordered it by his providence, that this fish should come near the shore, and be so wrought upon by his power, that it could not retain Jonah any longer in its belly.
Idols are powerless to save. Jonah had forsaken God Himself, who is mercy, to flee to heathen lands. Now, preserved in the fish's belly and taught that even the mariners' idols could not still the storm, he sees that estrangement from God is estrangement from his own happiness.
AI summary