In the Belly of the Whale

Several years ago I read Psalm 69, which is a Messianic Psalm, meaning that it is a prophecy of the life of the Messiah (Jesus Christ). That particular Psalm can be identified as a Messianic Psalm because of the following two phrases: “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” (Psalm 69:21, fulfilled as recorded in Matthew 27:34), and “the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up” (Psalm 69:9, fulfilled as recorded in John 2:14-17). I was struck with the first several verses of that Psalm, which seem to be a prayer for relief that Christ would say while in the Garden of Gethsemane and/or on the cross, in which he would compare his suffering to drowning in water and mud:

1) Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.

2) I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

3) I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.

4) They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.

5) O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.

14) Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.

15) Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.

17) And hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.

18) Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.

20) Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.

21) They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. (Psalm 69:1-21)

However, verse 5 talks about “my foolishness” and “my sins”, which didn’t make sense to me if this were Christ’s prayer, because he has declared that he “did no sin” (D&C 45:4). It wasn’t until many years later that the meaning of that passage came to me. Those verses are indeed the prayer of Christ while suffering during the atoning sacrifice. In verse 5 he talks about his sins because he had so fully taken on our sins and taken ownership for them that they were, in that moment, his. Paul explained it this way – “For [God] hath made [Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Jonah’s suffering in the belly of the whale was mentioned in a previous post and linked to Christ’s suffering during the atoning sacrifice. Here is part of Jonah’s own account of his experience in the belly of the whale:

 

3) For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

4) Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; …

5) The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.

6) I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever … (Jonah 2:3-6)

 
Jonah’s suffering also gives insight into the suffering that Christ experienced. Notice how he uses the same imagery of drowning in deep water as Psalm 69 does. My conclusion from Psalm 69 and Jonah 2 is that Christ’s suffering included feeling as if he were drowning in a sea of filthiness or sin that had an acidic effect (like the stomach acid of the whale that swallowed Jonah) where the water penetrated deep into his soul. For Christ, it was like a baptism in sin. Like Alma, Jonah was given relief from his suffering – “… out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice… thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.” (Jonah 2:2, 6, & 10). However, when Christ was in agony, he “looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but [he] found none.” (Psalm 69:20).