I went down to the foundations of the mountains; the earth with her bars closed about me forever: yet have you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.
All Commentaries on Jonah 2:6 Go To Jonah 2
Jerome
AD 420
LXX: 'my head has penetrated to the base of mountains; I descended to into the earth whose bars are eternal bonds'. No one doubts that the ocean covered Jonah's head, that he went down to the roots of mountains and came to the depths of the earth by which as bars and columns by the will of God the earthly sphere is supported. This earth about which is said elsewhere, "I consolidated her columns". With regard to the Lord Saviour, according to the two editions, this seems to me to be what is meant. His heart and his head, that is the spirit that he thought worthy to take with a body for our safety, went down to the base of the mountains which were covered by waves; they were restrained by the will of God, the deep covered them, they were parted by the majesty of God. His spirit then went down into hell, into those places to which in the last of the mud, the spirits of sinners were held, so too the psalmist says: "they will go down to the depths of the earth, they will be the lot of wolves". These are the bars of the earth and like the locks of a final prison and tortures, which do not let the captive spirits out of hell. This is why the Septuagint has translated this is a pertinent way: "eternal bonds", that is, wanting to keep in all those whom it had once captured. But our Lord, about which we read these lines of Cyrus in Isaiah: "I will break the bronze bars, I will crack the iron bars", He went down to the roots of the mountains, and was enclosed by eternal bars to free all the prisoners.
