John Trapp on Jonah 2:10

Verſe 10.Dci dicere eſt facere. Aug. And the Lord ſpake unto the fiſh, [He ſpake the word and it was done: He is the great Centurion of the world, that ſaith to his creature, Do this, and hee doth it. Yea, he is the great, great Induperator, to whom every thing ſaith. Iuſſa ſequi tam velle mihi quàm poſſe neceſſe eſſe. Lucan. I am wholly at thy beck, and check. Jonah ſpake to God, and God to the fiſh. It may be ſaid of faithfull prayer, that it can do whatſoever God himſelf can do: ſith he is pleaſed to yeeld himſelf overcome by the prayers of his people, and to ſay unto them cordially, as Zedekiah did to his Courtiers colloguingly. The king is not he that can deny you any thing. Prayer is of that power, that it can open the doors of Leviathan, as wee ſee here, (which yet is reckoned as a thing not feiſible, Iob 41.14.) yea of the all-devouring grave, Heb. 11.35. If the Lord, pricked on by the prayers of his people, ſet in hand to ſave them, and ſhall ſay to the North, Give up; and to the South, Keep not back, bring my ſonnes from farre, and my daughters from the ends of the earth, Eſay 43.6. they ſhall come amain, and none ſhall be able to hinder them: Come therefore (with thoſe good ſouls in Hoſea, who had ſmarted for their folly, as well as Ionah) and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, Hoſ. 6.1, 2. and he will heal us: he hath ſmitten, and he will bind us up. After two dayes will he revive us: in the third day he will raiſe us up, and we ſhall live in his ſight. A time we muſt have to be in the fire, in the fiſhes belly, as in Gods Nurturing-houſe; but hee will take care that wee be not there overlong: what's two or three dayes to eternity? Hold out faith and patience: Yet a very little, little while, Heb. 10. and hee that ſhall come, will come, and will not tarry.

and it vomited up Ionah upon the dry land.] And here Death was defeated and wiped: it was much more ſo, when it had ſwallowed up Chriſt;Quantum in devoratione mors laetata eſt, tantum luxit in vomitu; Hieron. and little dreamt that it ſelf ſhould have been thereby ſwallowed up in victory. But then was fulfilled that of the Prophet, O death, I will be thy death. And as there ſo here in a proportion, and as a type, omnia jam inverſa, ſaith Mercer, all things are turned t'other way. Before the fiſh was an inſtrument of death; now, of life, and ſerves Jonah for a ſhip to bring him to dry land. This fiſh uſeth not to come neer the ſhore, but to ſport in the great waters: howbeit now he muſt, by ſpeciall command, vomit up Ionah upon the dry land. Why then ſhould it be thought a thing incredible with any, that God ſhould raiſe the dead? The Sea ſhall ſurely give up the dead that were in it: and death and hell deliver up the dead that were in them:Acts 26. S. Sen. Nat. quaeſt. l. 3. c. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. and they ſhall be judged every man according to his works, Rev. 20.13. This, ſome of the Heathens beleeved: as Zoroaſtres, Theopompus, and Plato. And the Stoikes opinion was, that the world ſhould one day be diſſolved by fire or water: and all things brought to a better ſtate, or to the firſt golden age again. But we have a more ſure word of Propheſie: and this that is here recorded may ſerve as an image and type of our preſervation in the grave, and our reſurrection from the dead, by one and the ſame Almighty power of God.