Jonah 1:15
“So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →The sailors throw Jonah into the sea, and immediately the raging waters grow still.
What Does Jonah 1:15 Mean?
At last the sailors do as Jonah said, taking him up and casting him into the sea. The moment he goes down, the sea ceases from her raging and falls still. The suddenness is unmistakable: this was no ordinary storm but the very hand of God, and now that hand is stayed. The calm itself is a sign as much as the tempest was.
The instant stillness shows that judgment and peace alike rest in God's power, not in wind or wave. Where Jonah goes down into the deep, calm comes to those left in the ship, a foreshadowing of the One who would go down into death so that others might find peace. The sea that swallowed the prophet becomes, in God's design, not his grave but his deliverance. What looks like an ending is the start of mercy. God's stilling of the storm assures us that He governs even the chaos that overwhelms us.
In the Original Language
za'aph (זַעַף), 'raging' -- a word for furious raging, used of both a storming sea and human wrath, here describing the violent waters that suddenly fall silent.