My Soul Fainted

When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.

(Jonah 2:7) KJV

Jonah’s soul faints from the shock of realizing that his life is over and he must spend forever in the belly of hell at the bottoms of the mountains, a chamber in the lower mantle overlooking the molten core of Earth.

However, he’s sufficiently contrite that God resurrects him inside the belly of a fish and sends him on his way. He thinks it’s all about Nineveh, but his book is more important for recording his eyewitness account of the internal structure of the Earth.

It’s also an important clue in understanding the relationship between the soul and the body. It would appear that Jonah’s body was asleep (dead) in the belly of a great fish while his soul was in sheol, the underworld realm of the dead.