For Teaching

Psalms 107: What the Passage Says

96 claims across 43 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Psalms 107 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm calls the people the LORD has rescued to give thanks, and then tells four stories of rescue: wanderers lost in the desert, prisoners in chains, sick people who could not eat, and sailors caught in a storm. In each case the people cry out to the LORD in trouble, he brings them out, and the psalm repeats a call for them to thank him for his goodness and his wonderful works. The last section describes how the LORD turns rivers into desert and desert into springs, blesses the hungry with a place to live, brings the powerful low and lifts the poor. It closes by saying that the wise person who pays attention to these things will understand the LORD's faithful love.

Claim by Claim

107:1
- Give thanks to the LORD.
- The LORD is good.
- The LORD's steadfast love endures forever.
107:2
- The redeemed of the LORD are to say so.
- The LORD has redeemed them from the hand of the adversary.
107:3
- The LORD gathered them out of the lands.
- He gathered them from the east and from the west.
- He gathered them from the north and from the sea, which may mean the west or the south.
107:4
- They wandered in the wilderness on a desert road.
- They found no inhabited city.
107:5
- They were hungry.
- They were thirsty.
- Their soul fainted within them.
107:6
- They cried out to the LORD in their trouble.
- He delivered them out of their distresses.
107:7
- He led them by a straight road.
- The purpose was that they might go to an inhabited city.
107:8
- Let them give thanks to the LORD for his steadfast love.
- Let them give thanks for his wonderful works to the children of men.
107:9
- He satisfies the longing soul.
- He fills the hungry soul with good.
107:10
- Some sat in darkness and deep gloom.
- They were prisoners in affliction and iron.
107:11
- They rebelled against the words of God.
- They spurned the counsel of the Most High.
107:12
- He humbled their heart with hard labor.
- They stumbled and fell.
- There was no one to help.
107:13
- They cried out to the LORD in their trouble.
- He saved them out of their distresses.
107:14
- He brought them out of darkness and deep gloom.
- He tore their bonds apart.
107:15
- Let them give thanks to the LORD for his steadfast love.
- Let them give thanks for his wonderful works to the children of men.
107:16
- He has broken doors of bronze.
- He has cut through bars of iron.
107:17
- Fools are afflicted because of their way of transgression.
- They are afflicted because of their iniquities.
107:18
- Their soul loathes all food.
- They come near to the gates of death.
107:19
- They cry out to the LORD in their trouble.
- He saves them out of their distresses.
107:20
- He sends his word.
- He heals them.
- He rescues them from their destructions, which may mean their ruin or the pit.
107:21
- Let them give thanks to the LORD for his steadfast love.
- Let them give thanks for his wonderful works to the children of men.
107:22
- Let them sacrifice sacrifices of thanksgiving.
- Let them declare his works with joyful singing.
107:23
- Some go down to the sea in ships.
- They do business on great waters.
107:24
- They see the works of the LORD.
- They see his wonders in the deep.
107:25
- He speaks.
- He raises up a stormy wind.
- The wind lifts up the waves.
107:26
- They go up to the heavens.
- They go down to the depths.
- Their soul melts away in calamity.
107:27
- They reel and stagger like a drunken man.
- All their wisdom is swallowed up.
107:28
- They cry out to the LORD in their trouble.
- He brings them out of their distresses.
107:29
- He stills the storm to a whisper.
- The waves are hushed.
107:30
- They are glad because the waters are quiet.
- He guides them to the haven they desired.
107:31
- Let them give thanks to the LORD for his steadfast love.
- Let them give thanks for his wonderful works to the children of men.
107:32
- Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people.
- Let them praise him in the seat of the elders.
107:33
- He turns rivers into a wilderness.
- He turns springs of water into thirsty ground.
107:34
- He turns fruitful land into a salt waste.
- He does this because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it.
107:35
- He turns the wilderness into a pool of water.
- He turns dry land into springs of water.
107:36
- He settles the hungry there.
- They establish an inhabited city.
107:37
- They sow fields.
- They plant vineyards.
- These yield a fruitful harvest.
107:38
- He blesses them.
- They multiply greatly.
- He does not let their cattle decrease.
107:39
- They are diminished and brought low.
- This comes through oppression, calamity, and sorrow.
107:40
- He pours contempt upon nobles.
- He makes them wander in a trackless waste.
107:41
- He sets the needy on high, out of affliction.
- He makes his families like a flock.
107:42
- The upright see it.
- The upright rejoice.
- All iniquity shuts her mouth.
107:43
- Whoever is wise will keep these things.
- They will consider the steadfast love of the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

107:1: LORD printed in capitals marks the places where the Hebrew has God's personal name, the four consonants usually written YHWH; readers said "the Lord" aloud instead of pronouncing it. "Mercy" here translates *hesed*, the loyal, committed love owed between parties bound to each other, closer to steady faithfulness than to pity or feeling. The word returns at the very end of the psalm, framing the whole poem.
107:2: "Redeemed" translates a Hebrew word from family law: paying a price to get something back. It was used of a relative buying a family member out of slavery or debt, or buying back land the family had been forced to sell. The image is a purchase, not a feeling.
107:3: Hebrew reckons direction as if facing east, so "before" is east and "behind" is west. The fourth term here is literally "from the sea," which normally means west; a nearly identical Hebrew word means "south," which is why translations differ. The phrase "gathered out of the lands" was standard wording for scattered exiles being brought home from the countries they had been dispersed to.
107:4: "Wilderness" in the Bible is dry, unfarmed open country, scrub and rock used for grazing, not forest. The danger in it is thirst and exposure, and the absence of any settlement to shelter in.
107:5: "Soul" translates the Hebrew *nephesh*, which means the throat, the appetite, and by extension the life or the whole person, not an immaterial part inside a body. "Their soul fainted in them" describes life itself ebbing away from hunger and thirst.
107:6: "Distresses" translates a Hebrew word whose root sense is narrowness or a tight, cramped place; being rescued is being brought out into open ground. This two-line cry-and-rescue is a refrain: it recurs almost word for word at verses 13, 19 and 28, marking off four separate scenes of trouble.
107:8: "The children of men" is an old way of saying human beings, or people in general. This line comes back four times, like the chorus of a song.
107:10: "The shadow of death" translates *tsalmaveth*, a word for the thickest possible darkness; the form of the word suggests both "deep shadow" and "death," and it was used of dungeons and of the grave. Prisoners in the ancient world were commonly held in dark underground pits and secured with iron fetters, which is the picture here.
107:11: "The Most High" (*Elyon*) is an ancient title for God, used of the highest god over all others. "Contemned" is 1611 English for despised or treated as worthless.
107:12: "Labour" here means hard forced work given to prisoners. In the KJV, the "heart" is where a person's courage and pride live.
107:14: "Brake their bands in sunder" is old English for "broke their chains apart." "Bands" means the ropes or chains tying a prisoner up.
107:16: City gates were the weak point in a wall, so they were faced with bronze and secured by heavy iron cross-bars slotted into the gateposts. Breaking gate and bar was the decisive moment in capturing a city, here the image is applied to letting prisoners out.
107:17: A "fool" in Hebrew writing is not someone unintelligent but someone morally reckless, a person who ignores warnings and lives in a way that wrecks him. The affliction described follows from their own conduct.
107:18: "Meat" in 1611 English meant food of any kind, not flesh in particular. Losing all appetite was understood as a sign that a sick person was near death.
107:20: "Their destructions" renders a Hebrew word meaning a pit or a grave, often a trapping pit dug for animals. It stands for death itself closing over someone.
107:22: The "sacrifice of thanksgiving" (*todah*) was a specific offering: an animal was killed, part burned, and the rest eaten in a shared meal by the worshiper and his household and guests. Telling the assembled company what had happened to you was part of the ritual, which is why sacrificing and declaring are named together.
107:23: Israel had almost no seafaring tradition of its own; long-distance shipping was the business of Phoenician neighbors, and in Hebrew poetry the open sea is a place of dread rather than of adventure. "Great waters" means the deep sea, out of sight of land.
107:26: "Their soul is melted" is a stock Hebrew idiom for courage draining away in terror, the way wax loses its shape in heat. The same phrase is used elsewhere of armies losing their nerve before a battle.
107:27: "Wit" in 1611 English meant skill or practical knowledge, not humor; the Hebrew says their expertise was swallowed up, the sailors' seamanship counted for nothing. The English expression "at their wit's end" entered common speech from this verse.
107:30: A "haven" is a harbor: a sheltered spot along the coast where ships can stop safely, out of the wind and waves.
107:32: "The congregation" is the assembled community of Israel gathered for worship; "the assembly of the elders" is the council of senior heads of families, who governed the town and settled disputes, usually meeting in the open space just inside the city gate. Thanks for a rescue was expected to be given publicly, in front of both bodies.
107:33: A spring is a place where water comes up out of the ground by itself.
107:34: "Barrenness" is literally "salt land." Salt flats surround the Dead Sea, and scattering salt on captured ground was a known way of declaring it permanently ruined; salted soil grows nothing.
107:37: A vineyard is a field of grapevines. Grapes were one of the main crops in Israel, eaten fresh, dried into raisins, or made into juice and wine.
107:38: In the KJV, "suffereth not" means "does not allow." Herds of sheep, goats, and cattle were a family's wealth.
107:39: The Hebrew does not say who "they" are here, and it can be read either as the same people of verses 36–38 later suffering a reversal, or as a new group set against the rulers of verse 40. Translations differ, and the ambiguity is in the original.
107:40: "Princes" in 1611 English means nobles and leading men generally, not the sons of a king. "Pouring out contempt" is the language of publicly stripping someone of their standing.
107:41: Flocks of sheep grow quickly, since many lambs are born each spring. So a family "like a flock" is a family with lots of children.
107:42: Shutting the mouth is courtroom language: the party who has lost the argument falls silent because there is nothing left to say. "Iniquity" is pictured as a speaker being silenced.
107:43: "Observe" in 1611 English means to watch closely and take note of, not to obey. The closing line returns to the word of verse 1, *hesed*, the loyal, binding love that the four scenes have been illustrating.

Read Psalms 107