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 107:10-16
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.