At this point Good News Translation quotes the wording of the prayer, though Hebrew introduces the prayer by “and he said,” which can, of course, be rendered by some such expression as “saying” or “as follows.”
The form of Good News Translation obscures the fact that there is a change halfway through the verse from a statement about the Lord in the third person to an acknowledgment of his help in the second person. A similar change occurs in verse 7, but for the sake of clarity Good News Translation keeps to second person throughout as being appropriate for a prayer. In view of the fact that the Lord is referred to by a second person singular pronoun you, it may be wrong in some languages to employ a title of direct address, as in Good News Translation O LORD. This may be particularly inappropriate in view of the fact that there is a mention in verse 1 of the prayer as being addressed to the LORD.
The phrase In my distress may be rendered in a number of languages by a clause, “when I was in great trouble,” or in a more figurative expression, “when great troubles overwhelmed me.”
The tense of the verbs I called and you answered has been interpreted as implying that the prayer is uttered by someone looking back in gratitude to a deliverance that has already taken place, not looking forward to some future rescue. Knox evades this difficulty by using the present tense.
In some languages a literal rendering of you answered me may imply merely that God responded verbally. This is what is specifically meant in this passage, but the implication is of course much greater, and a literal rendering might suggest that God only answered verbally and paid no further attention to Jonah. Obviously the Lord answered by helping; therefore it may be better in some instances to render you answered me as “you came to my help” or “you answered by helping me.”
In the second half of the Hebrew text, the Lord is addressed directly, but in other respects, it is a close parallel to the first half, in that it speaks of the worshiper’s prayer arising out of his dangerous situation, and the answer he receives from the Lord.
The prayer is described as coming from deep in the world of the dead, or “out of the belly of Sheol” (New English Bible). In other words the worshiper is pictured as having “one foot in the grave,” to use an English idiom, or in “the jaws of death,” as Luther 1984 expresses it. The expression used in Good News Translation, the world of the dead, corresponds to the Hebrew word Sheol (for example, An American Translation “heart of Sheol”). The word occurs often in the Psalms and the book of Job to refer to the place to which all dead people go. It is represented as a dark place, in which there is no activity worthy of the name. There are no moral distinctions there, so “hell” (King James Version) is not a suitable translation, since that suggests a contrast with “heaven” as the dwelling place of the righteous after death. In a sense, “the grave” in a generic sense is a near equivalent, except that Sheol is more a mass grave in which all the dead dwell together.
This is by no means the only place where Sheol is personified in such a way as to be represented as having bodily parts. Here “belly” (New English Bible) simply means the innermost part, hence deep in the world of the dead in Good News Translation. This is the only place where Sheol is said to have a “belly” or a “womb”; the Hebrew word may have either meaning. Sheol has a “throat” and “jaws” in Isa 5.14 (New English Bible), and there we find the same kind of imagery, with the underworld represented as a vast cavern into which one may go down, but out of which it is not possible to come up. Sheol has a mouth (Psa 141.7) with which it can swallow people (Prov 1.12), and it has a great appetite (Hab 2.5; Prov 27.20). The use of this particular imagery may have been considered suitable here in view of Jonah’s imprisonment in the interior of the fish, though the word used in Hebrew is not the same as in the previous verses.
The world of the dead is rendered in a number of languages as “the place where the dead are” or “… dwell.” A literal rendering of world might suggest that there are two distinct earths, one for the living and another for the dead. An adequate equivalent for deep may be simply “down in the place where the dead are.”
The use of the perfect tense “heard” in New English Bible (“have heard” in Jerusalem Bible) is not based on any difference in the form of the Hebrew verb from that of “cried,” but may be justified by supposing that Jonah here is speaking of an action in the past continuing into the present. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, those in the world of the dead are completely cut off from God, with no possibility of any prayer being heard (for example, Psa 88.5, 10, 11; Isa 38.18).
I cried for help must frequently be rendered as “I shouted for help” or “I shouted to you, ‘Help me.’ ” One should avoid a rendering of cried that would suggest “weeping” or “lamenting.”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on the Book of Jonah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .