They shall understand the lovinq-kindness of the Lord ] hwhy ydsj chasdey Yehovah, the exuberant goodness of Jehovah. This is his peculiar and most prominent characteristic among men; for "judgment is his strange work." What a wonderful discourse on Divine Providence, and God's management of the world, does this inimitable Psalm contain! The ignorant cannot read it without profit; and by the study of it, the wise man will become yet wiser.

ANALYSIS OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTH PSALM

The title of this Psalms is Hallelujah, because it sets forth the praises of God for delivering such as are oppressed from four common miseries; after each of which is expressed those intercalary verses: "O that men would praise the Lord," &c., " They cried unto the Lord in their trouble." It also praises God for his providence in its effects.

I. A preface in which he exhorts all to praise God, especially the redeemed, ver. 1, 2.

II. A declaration of his goodness in particular.

I. To the travelers and strangers, famished, ver. 3-9.

2. To the prisoners and captives, ver. 10-16.

3. To the sick, ver. 16-23.

4. To the mariners, ver. 23-32.

III. A praise of God's power and providence. which is evidently seen in the changes and varieties in the world, of which he gives many instances, that prove him to be the sole Disposer and Governor of the universe, ver. 33-42.

IV. The conclusion, which sets forth the use we are to make of it, ver. 42, 43.

I. 1. This Psalm, like the former, begins: "That we celebrate and set forth God's praise," and for the same reasons. "O give thanks unto the Lord;" 1.

"For he is good;" 2. And merciful: "For his mercy endureth for ever." 2. And those whom he invites to perform this duty are all who are sensible that they have received any mercy or goodness from him in either soul or body, whom he calls the redeemed of the Lord; that men may know, when they are freed from any evil, that it is not by chance or their wisdom: God's hand is in it; he is the First Cause; the rest are only his instrumenbts.

1. "Let the redeemed of the Lord say," i.e., that he is good and merciful.

2. "They say so whom he hath redeemed," &c. If the Holy Ghost means, when he speaks of our redemption by Christ, the enemy, the devil, or some tyrant, tribulations &c.; then a corporeal and temporal redemption is meant. The next verse seems to refer to their banishment.

3. "And gathered them out of the lands," &c. Which is yet as true of our spiritual redemption. Matt. viii. 11; John x. 16; xi. 52.

II. Most expositors begin the second part at the second verse, but some at the fourth; but it is not material. In those two there was mention made of God's goodness in their deliverance, in their collection from all lands. But the following is a declaration of what they suffered during their absence from their country. And this is the misery which the prophet first instances in this place, then shows the course the travelers took, and lastly acquaints us with the manner of their deliverance. Their misery was: - 1. "That they wandered." No small discomfort for an ingenious native to go from place to place as a vagrant. God's people were for a time pilgrims; "few and evil were their days." 2. The place adds to their misery. Travellers are not confined always to solitary places, they occasionally have company; but these "wandered in the wilderness in a solitary place," &c. Literally it was fulfilled in the Israelites, while they traveled through the wilderness.

3. "Hungry and thirsty." Men may wander and be solitary; and yet have a sufficient supply of food; but God's people sometimes fast, as Elijah, David, &c.

4. And the famine was so great "that their soul," that is, their life, "was ready to faint." This is the incrementum that the prophet uses to aggravate the misery of the travelers, and the several steps by which it rises.

The prophet shows the course which these travelers and hungry souls took for ease and help; and that it did not fail them, nor any one else who has tried it.

1. "Then in their trouble." God let them be brought into trouble to bring them back to himself.

2. "They cried." In their petition they were very earnest; it was no cold prayer, which froze on the way before it got to heaven; but fervent.

A cry.

3. "And they cried." Not to any false god, but unto the Lord.

The success was answerable to their desire.

1. In general, "He delivered them out of their distresses." 2. But in particular, the deliverance was every way fit.

1. "They wandered in the wilderness," &c., ver. 4. "But he led them forth, that they might go to a city of habitation." 2. "They were hungry, and thirsty," &c. But "he filled the hungry soul," &c.

And upon this he concludes his exhortation to praise God, which he is so earnest for them to do, that he inserts the exhortation between each mention of the mercies.

1. The Lord delivered: "The Lord led them forth." Praise him then.

2. Of his mere mercy, not of desert. "For he is good." 3. And the effects of his goodness were seen in his works; let his praise then be as public as his works; "O that men," &c.

The second corporeal misery to which men are subject is captivity and imprisonment; he then shows the course the captives took, and God's mercy in their deliverance.

1. Captives; they were taken by the enemy, put in dungeons and prisons, where they were debarred the comfort of the sun: "For they sat in darkness," &c., and in fear of death.

2. Besides, in this place "they were fast bound with affliction," &c., because of their rebellion against the Lord: "The iron entered into their soul."He brought them low;" but they sought help of the Lord.

"They cried unto the Lord in their trouble."And found the same favour as the travelers did. "And he saved them out of their distresses." The manner was suitable to their distress.

1. "For they sat in darkness," &c. "But he brought them out," &c.

2. "They were bound in affliction and iron," &c. The prison was not so strong but he was stronger, and delivered them from captivity. Now the psalmist interposes his thanksgiving: "O that men," &c.

The third misery is some great sickness or pining away of the body under some grievous disease, such as when stung by fiery serpents, as the Israelites. 1. He describes the danger under which they languished. 2.

Shows the method they took for their recovery.

1. The appellation he fastens on the diseased persons, fools; not but that, generally speaking, they were wise enough; but in that they sinned with a high hand against God, "they are fools." 2. Now such fools God often smites with an incurable disease: "Fools, because of their transgression," &c. Not but that all sickness is from sin; but this that the prophet speaks of was their general apostasy, rebellion, and contempt of God's will and commandment.

The effect was lamentable and double.

1. "Their soul abhorred all manner of meat." Meat, with which the life of man is sustained, became loathsome to them, the disease was so grievous.

2. And deadly too; no art of the physician could cure them. "For they drew near to the gates of death," that is, the grave, where Death exercises his power, as the judges of Israel did in the gates.

But these, being but dead men in the eye of man, took the same course as they did before.

1. "They cried unto the Lord in their trouble." 2. And by God's blessing they recovered; God was alone their Physician.

3. This was the manner of their cure. "He saved them out of their distress." 1. "He sent his word, and healed them." He said the word only, and they were made whole. Or if any medicine were made use of, it was his word which made it medicinal, as in the case of the bunch of figs, and therefore the prophet uses an apt word to put them in mind.

"He sent his word," as a great prince sends forth his ambassadors to do his commands. Most probably the centurion had this in his mind when he said, "Say the word only, and my servant shall be whole." 2. "And he delivered them from their destructions," which are opposed to their previous danger. "They drew nigh," &c.

3. But he exhorts the saved to be thankful: "O that men," &c.

And he adds, 1. "Let them sacrifice their sacrifices." 2. But with these conditions and limitations: 1. That it be with a thankful heart, for an outward sacrifice is nothing. 2. That with the sacrifice there go an annunciation; that men declare and publish that the cure came from God. 3. That it be done with rejoicing; that we have an experience of God's presence, favour, and mercy, for which the heart ought to rejoice more than for the cure of the body.

The fourth misery arises from the danger at sea.

1. He describes.

2. Shows the course they take in a storm.

3. And the event following upon their prayers.

Upon which he calls upon them, as upon the three before, to praise God.

1. "They that go down to the sea in ships." For the sea is lower than the earth.

2. "That do business in great waters." As merchants, mariners, &c.

3. "These men see the works of the Lord," &c. Others hear of them by relation, but these see them: they see the great whales, innumerable kinds of fish, and monsters; islands dispersed and safe in the waves, whirlpools, quicksands, rocks; and have experience of the virtue of the loadstone. They discover many stars we know not; and they behold the vast workings of the sea, which fill the most valiant with fear.

4. "For he commandeth," &c.

Now he describes the tempest: - 1. From the cause. God speaks the word.

2. By it "he raiseth the stormy wind." 3. Which, inspired by his word, "lifts up the waves thereof." - Fluctus ad sidera tollit.

"The waves arise to heaven." 4. "They" (that is, the passengers) "mount up to heaven," &c.

Hi summo in fluctu pendent, his unda dehiscens.

"They hung upon the wave; the sea yawns under them; and the bottom seems to be laid bare between the surges." 5. "Their soul its melted because of trouble." Their spirit fails.

Extemplo AEneae solvuntur frigora membra.

"The limbs of the hero himself dissolve with terror." 6. "They reel to and fro." Tossed this way and that way.

Tres Eurus ab alto in brevia, et syrtes urget.

"They are dashed against the shoals and quicksands." 7. "They stagger and totter," &c. An apt simile.

Cui dubli stantque labantque pedes.

"They cannot keep their feet." 8. "And are at their wit's end." Omnis sapientia eorum absorbetur. - "Their judgment roves; their art fails; their skill is at an end." Et meminisse viae media Palinurus in unda.

"Even the pilot loses his way in the troubled deep." Hitherto the prophet has poetically described the tempest and storm; and now he gives an account of the course they took to save their lives. "Then they cried unto the IJord," &c. An old proverb says: Qui nescit orare, discat navigare. "He who knows not how to pray, let him learn to be a sailor." And the consequence of their praying was: "And he brings them out," &c. In this manner: - 1. " He makes the storm a calm." - Dicto citius tumida aequora placat.

"By his word the swelling sea becomes calm." 2. "So that the waves thereof are still." Et cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor.

"And the noise of it is hushed to silence." 3. "Then they are glad," &c., no more reeling to and fro; whence arises their joy.- Laeto testantur gaudia plausu.

"The clapping of hands expresses their joy." 4. And to increase it: "So he brings them to their desired haven." - Magno telluris amore, Egressi optata nautae potiuntur arena, Et sale tabentes artus in littore ponunt.

"The weather-beaten marines having reached the shore, in an ecstacy of joy kiss the sand, and lay themselves down upon the beach." And now, in the last place, he calls upon them to pay their tribute of thankful duty for the miracle done them in their preservation: "O that men would praise the Lord," &c.

And probably in their danger they might have made a vow, which is frequently done in such cases. Read the Life of Nazianzen. This vow the prophet would have them pay openly.

1. "Let them exalt him also in the congregation," &c.

2. And that not only before the promiscuous multitude; but "let them praise him in the assembly of the elders," &c. Sua tabula sacer votiva paries indicat, uvida suspendisse potenti vestimenta maris Deo. "Let them here suspend their votive tablet; and hang their wet clothes against a wall, as a grateful offering to him who rules the seas." III. The prophet had exalted God's mercies in freeing men from these four miseries and calamities; these travelers through the wilderness, captivity, sickness, shipwreck; and now he manifests his power, providence, and wisdom, in the vicissitudes we meet with below. In the earth we see strange mutations; in kingdoms, wonderful revolutions; yet we must go higher, and not rest short of the hand which governs all.

The prophet first instances the earth's changes.

1. "He turns rivers into a wilderness," &c. The fertility of any land arises from its rivers, as is apparent in Egypt from the overflowing of the Nile. And when Elisha would free the soil from barrenness, he first healed the waters. The drying up of rivers produces famine, and when the channels are directed from their courses, the fruitful land becomes a wilderness.

2. And the cause of this is: "The iniquity of them that dwell therein." On the contrary, God illustrates his mercy by sometimes changing the wilderness into a fruitful and abundant place.

1. "He turneth the wilderness into a standing water," &c. They shall be fruitful for man's sake.

2. "For there he makes the hungry to dwell." God puts it into men's minds to plant colonies in some newly found and good land, where the hungry find plenty and are satisfied.

3. And to build houses: "That they may prepare a city," &c.

Pars aptare locum tecto, pars ducere muros.

"Some dig out the foundations, others raise the walls." 4. The endeavours of the colonists are: 1. "To sow fields." 2. "To plant vineyards." Which was the first trade in the world.

5. And God's blessing on those endeavours: "God blessed them also." 1.

In children: "So that they multiplied greatly." 2. In cattle: "And suffered not their cattle to decrease." But there is nothing in this world perpetual and stable: even those whom God had sometimes blessed and enriched continued not at one stay.

Matthew Henry Commentary

Original Hebrew