1071 Oh, thank God - he's so good! His love never runs out. 2 All of you set free by God, tell the world! Tell how he freed you from oppression, 3 Then rounded you up from all over the place, from the four winds, from the seven seas. 4 Some of you wandered for years in the desert, looking but not finding a good place to live, 5 Half-starved and parched with thirst, staggering and stumbling, on the brink of exhaustion. 6 Then, in your desperate condition, you called out to God. He got you out in the nick of time; 7 He put your feet on a wonderful road that took you straight to a good place to live. 8 So thank God for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves. 9 He poured great draughts of water down parched throats; the starved and hungry got plenty to eat.
10 Some of you were locked in a dark cell, cruelly confined behind bars, 11 Punished for defying God's Word, for turning your back on the High God's counsel - 12 A hard sentence, and your hearts so heavy, and not a soul in sight to help. 13 Then you called out to God in your desperate condition; he got you out in the nick of time. 14 He led you out of your dark, dark cell, broke open the jail and led you out. 15 So thank God for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves; 16 He shattered the heavy jailhouse doors, he snapped the prison bars like matchsticks!
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 107:1-16
Commentary on Psalm 107:1-9
(Read Psalm 107:1-9)
In these verses there is reference to the deliverance from Egypt, and perhaps that from Babylon: but the circumstances of travellers in those countries are also noted. It is scarcely possible to conceive the horrors suffered by the hapless traveller, when crossing the trackless sands, exposed to the burning rays of the sum. The words describe their case whom the Lord has redeemed from the bondage of Satan; who pass through the world as a dangerous and dreary wilderness, often ready to faint through troubles, fears, and temptations. Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, after God, and communion with him, shall be filled with the goodness of his house, both in grace and glory.
Commentary on Psalm 107:10-16
(Read Psalm 107:10-16)
This description of prisoners and captives intimates that they are desolate and sorrowful. In the eastern prisons the captives were and are treated with much severity. Afflicting providences must be improved as humbling providences; and we lose the benefit, if our hearts are unhumbled and unbroken under them. This is a shadow of the sinner's deliverance from a far worse confinement. The awakened sinner discovers his guilt and misery. Having struggled in vain for deliverance, he finds there is no help for him but in the mercy and grace of God. His sin is forgiven by a merciful God, and his pardon is accompanied by deliverance from the power of sin and Satan, and by the sanctifying and comforting influences of God the Holy Spirit.