Psalms 107:26

Here are set forth the perils of seafaring, futility of man's, and efficiency of God's, help. go . . . sea--alluding to the elevation of the land at the coast.

They mount up to the heaven. Borne aloft on the crest of the wave, the sailors and their vessels appear to climb the skies, but it is only for a moment, for very soon in the trough of the sea they go down again to the depths. As if their vessel were but a sea bird, the mariners are tossed "up and down, up and down, from the base of the wave to the billow's crown." Their soul is melted because of trouble. Weary, wet, dispirited, hopeless of escape, their heart is turned to water, and they seem to have no manhood left. Those who have been on the spiritual deep in one of the great storms which occasionally agitate the soul know what this verse means. In these spiritual cyclones presumption alternates with despair, indifference with agony! No heart is left for anything, courage is gone, hope is almost dead. Such an experience is as real as the tossing of a literal tempest and far more painful. Some of us have weathered many such an internal hurricane, and have indeed seen the Lord's wondrous works.

They mount up to the heaven - This is a most natural and striking description of the state of a ship at sea in a storm: when the sea appears to run mountains high, and the vessel seems for a moment to stand on the sharp ridge of one most stupendous, with a valley of a frightful depth between it and a similar mountain, which appears to be flying in the midst of heaven, that it may submerge the hapless bark, when she descends into the valley of death below. This is a sight the most terrific that can be imagined: nor can any man conceive or form an adequate idea of it, who has not himself been at sea in such a storm. Their soul is melted because of trouble - This is not less expressive than it is descriptive. The action of raising the vessel to the clouds, and precipitating her into the abyss, seems to dissolve the very soul: the whole mind seems to melt away, so that neither feeling, reflection, nor impression remains, nothing but the apprehension of inevitable destruction! When the ship is buffeted between conflicting waves, which threaten either to tear her asunder or crush her together; when she reels to and fro, and staggers like a drunken man, not being able to hold any certain course; when sails and masts are an incumbrance, and the helm of no use; when all hope of safety is taken away; and when the experienced captain, the skillful pilot, and the hardy sailors, cry out, with a voice more terrible than the cry of fire at midnight, We are All lost! we are all Lost! then, indeed, are they at their wit’s end; or, as the inimitable original expresses it, וחל חכמתם תתבלע vechol chochmatham tithballa, “and all their skill is swallowed up,” - seems to be gulped down by the frightful abyss into which the ship is about to be precipitated. […]

They mount up to the heaven - The mariners. That it refers to the seamen, and not to the waves, is apparent from the close of the verse: “their soul is melted.” They go down again to the depths - The word here is different from that used in Psa 107:24, and rendered “deep,” but the idea is essentially the same. It is the sea or ocean considered as “deep;” as bottomless. The idea here is, that they seem to descend into the very depths of the ocean. Their soul is melted because of trouble - It seems to dissolve; it loses all its vigor; it faints. The word used - מוג mûg - means to melt; to flow down; to soften; and is then applied to the heart or mind that loses its courage or vigor by fear or terror. Exo 15:15; Jos 2:9, Jos 2:24; Nah 1:5. The “trouble” here referred to is that which arises from fear and danger.