Psalm 107

Psalms 107:1-3

Book V of the Psalter opens on this call, and the whole psalm answers it: four rescues in one form, each turning on the trouble cried and the Lord's reply. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so names the psalm's audience, those already saved recounting it rather than the psalmist alone speaking. The four directions gathered in verse 3, east, west, north and south, use a Hebrew word for the last that Barnes and Delitzsch both note more literally reads from the sea, a variant they discuss without resolving. The four rescues that follow each end in the same double refrain, then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, stated here once rather than repeated at each of the four.

Psalms 107:4-9

The first rescue is wanderers lost in a solitary way with no city to dwell in, hungry and thirsty till their soul fainted, a plain description of the danger of the open desert. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble names the turn the whole psalm shares, and he led them forth by the right way answers wandering with direction, hunger with satisfaction, for he satisfieth the longing soul. Henry and Spurgeon both read the four rescues as pictures the soul may find itself in, but the plain sense stands first: real travelers, real hunger, real deliverance.

Psalms 107:10-16

The second rescue is prisoners, sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, bound in affliction and iron because they rebelled against the words of God, the only one of the four rescues that states its own cause. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder reverses the sentence of verse 10, and he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder in verse 16 is read by Gill and Delitzsch as description that also carries the imagery of an ancient fortified city's gates, breached rather than merely opened. The refrain form repeats exactly as stated in the opening note.

Psalms 107:17-22

The third rescue is the sick, called fools because of their transgression, whose own iniquity brings the affliction, another stanza that names its own cause. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat pictures loss of appetite near death, and they draw near unto the gates of death, until he sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Barnes and Spurgeon both note the healing verb tied to God's own word rather than to any remedy, and verse 22's sacrifice of thanksgiving with rejoicing is the psalm's own named liturgical response to the healing.

Psalms 107:23-26

The fourth rescue turns to sailors, those that go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters, the only one of the four whose trouble comes from an occupation rather than a wandering or a wrong. The storm is raised by the same Lord who will calm it, for he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, and the mounting to heaven and sinking to the depths of verse 26 plainly describes a small vessel in a great swell. Delitzsch reads the melted soul of the sailors as the most physical fear of the four rescues, since it comes with no solid ground beneath it at all.

Psalms 107:27-32

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man pictures men who are not drunk but cannot stand, and are at their wits' end closes the psalm's most vivid line among the four rescues. He maketh the storm a calm answers wind with silence, and the desired haven of verse 30 names a goal none of the other three rescues state so plainly, safe harbor rather than mere survival. Verse 32 widens the fourth rescue's thanks past the household into the congregation of the people and the assembly of the elders, a public praise the other rescues do not name so explicitly.

Psalms 107:33-38

The psalm turns from the four rescues to God's general rule over land and harvest: he turneth rivers into a wilderness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein, judgment falling on a place rather than a named person. Verse 35 reverses the same power for blessing, the wilderness made a standing water, the hungry settled to a city, sowing fields and planting vineyards until they are multiplied greatly. Henry reads the pairing as one more instance of the psalm's whole method, the same hand that judges also restores, the same power that made the storm before it also makes the calm.

Psalms 107:39-42

A second reversal follows at once, the multiplied families of verse 38 minished and brought low through oppression, affliction and sorrow, so prosperity is not left standing as the psalm's last word without a fall. He poureth contempt upon princes echoes Job 12:21 closely, and setteth he the poor on high from affliction, and maketh him families like a flock lifts the needy by the same hand that humbled the great. The righteous shall see it, and rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth, closes the pattern the same way each of the four rescues closed, praise silencing complaint.

Psalms 107:43

The single closing verse turns the whole psalm into instruction: whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord, a wisdom-psalm ending appended to a thanksgiving psalm. Spurgeon and Delitzsch both note the kinship with Hosea 14:9's nearly identical close, wise and prudent men shall know these things, and read Psalm 107 as written to be studied as well as sung. The four rescues become, in this last verse, one lesson: mercy answers trouble in every shape it takes.