Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
Parallel translations
- KJV They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
- BSB Those who cling to worthless idols forsake His loving devotion.
- NKJV “Those who regard worthless idols Forsake their own Mercy.
- NASB “Those who are followers of worthless idols Abandon their faithfulness,
- NLT Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Jonah declares that those who cling to worthless idols forsake the mercy that could be theirs. It matters because it warns that idolatry abandons the only true source of grace.
Overview
'Lying vanities' are empty idols that promise help but cannot deliver, as the sailors' useless prayers had shown. To pursue them is to forsake 'their own mercy,' the steadfast love available only in the true God. Coming from a man being saved from death, this is a heartfelt testimony that grace is found in Yahweh alone.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Ps 31:6I hate those who regard lying vanities, but I trust in Yahweh.
- Jer 2:13“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
- 2 Kgs 17:15They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them.
- 1 Sam 12:21Don’t turn aside to go after vain things which can’t profit or deliver, for they are vain.
- Jer 10:8But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.
- Hab 2:18–20“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?
- Jer 10:14–15Every man has become brutish and without knowledge; every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
- Jer 16:19Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Christ at the center
Three days in the belly of the fish is the sign Jesus gave of his own death and resurrection (Matt 12:40); and God's mercy on pagan Nineveh foreshadows the gospel going to the nations.
How Jonah 2:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.