We look at the facts.
1) Jonah ran from God's command to witness to Nineveh (sin)
2) Jonah swallowed by a fish. Fish live under water. Fish don't have economy class bubble seats and their own airconditioning.
3) Jonah dies within the fish (in fact it says belly of the fish). Not some Lung. A belly. An acidic environment. I would in fact not even give Jonah 2 minutes of life - and I am being generous here. Ever dived to any reasonable depth on a single breath (assuming Jonah had the opportunity to take a breath). You don't go down very far before the pressure on your lungs and system, and the panic set in. Holding your breath on the surface (untrained) maybe 2 mins at best. Down there....halve it.
4) Now what to do with the remaining 2 days 23 hours and 59 minutes? Circa of course. Did Jonah pray in the minute he still had consciousness, i.e the first minute? Or did he pray sometime in an unconscious state during those 3 days in the acidic belly of the fish?
5) Or did he in fact pray from his Soul? Do we take Jonah's account of being in Sheol? His account of going down below the roots of the mountains? His account of the Earthly with its bars (Jail-Sheol) closing in behind him? Him being delivered from the pit? How did the large fish go below the mountains with the earth closing behind it? Was it a catfish? Maybe Jonah could hold the world record for freediving. Perhaps Herbert Nietzsche doesn't really hold this record at all.
Nah....I will go with this soul having departed his body (as do all souls upon the death of a person). I will also go with Jonah's repentance, God's hearing, and God's deliverance). I will also go with Jonah's testimony as it is written. I will also go with Jesus account of the sign of Jonah, wherein Jesus died for 3 days, went to Sheol, and was resurrected alive. Just like Jonah.
Will God do it again? Someone mentioned Samuel being raised and addressing Saul (his spirit and not bodily) So there is more than one occasion that God has done this. There were a large number of people resurrected in the 40 days after Jesus resurrection. So the Bible is literally abounding with examples of those who have left Sheol (in this latter instance it was Abraham's Bosom).
Will God do it again (from Sheol)? I don't know. I don't think so. But God is God and He is sovereign.
Since you like nkjv
2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said:
“I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction,
And He answered me.
This is the scenario.
Jonah prayed from fish belly...(not from any spiritual realm)
He prayed because of his affliction...
And God answered him by God talking to the fish and spewing him out...
1. Is the fish belly livable? Daniel was in the furnace and yet lived. So biblical history shows it is possible.
2. Did God talk to sheol or fish? The fish can understand God...so endless possibilties.
NOW WHAT WAS JONAH'S PRAYER?
“Out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
DID HE KNOW A BIG FISH SWALLOW HIM? FOR HIM IT WAS DARK WHERE HE WAS.
And You heard my voice.
3 For You cast me into the deep,
Into the heart of the seas,
And the floods surrounded me;
HE KNOWS HE WAS IN THE SEA AND HE CAN FEEL THE WATER SORROUNDING HIM.
All Your billows and Your waves passed over me.
4 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight;
BEING LEFT ALONE IN THE DARK.
Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’
5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul;
The deep closed around me;
Weeds were wrapped around my head.
THE WEED WRAPPED AROUND HIS HEAD. CAN THE WEEDS WRAPPED AROUND A SOUL WITHOUT A BODY?
6 I went down to the [a]moorings of the mountains;
The earth with its bars closed behind me forever;
Yet You have brought up my life from the pit,
O Lord, my God.
DEFINITELY HES NOT IN THE PIT? SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
7 “When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord;
And my prayer went up to You,
Into Your holy temple.
SOUL FAINTED WITHIN ME. SOUL AND BODY INTACT.
THE PRAYER IS POETIC, SHOWING THE AFFLICTION OF JONAH.
YOUR ASSUMPTION THAT INSIDE THE BELLY OF FISH IS NOT LIVABLE WITH ITS ACIDIC NATURE AND NO OXYGEN. IS BASED ON WHAT? HAVE YOU ENCOUNTERED THAT FISH PREPARED BY GOD? OR WOULD GOD PRESERVED HIS LIFE LIKE DANIEL?