Bible Study - Psalm 107

Psalm 107 is the third in a series of psalms that describe the history of God’s Old Testament people. Psalm 105 begins with the covenant with Abraham and tells of Jacob and Joseph and times in Egypt, and then God’s rescue of His people from slavery in Egypt through Moses, and the wilderness years, before they reached the Promised Land by God’s mercy and blessing, and God gave them “lands of the nations” (Psalm 105:44).

Psalm 106 tells of God’s mighty deeds and His steadfast love for His people. It also tells of how sinful and rebellious His people were, while they traveled to the Promised Land, and again and again, as they lived in the land God gave them. Instead of following the Lord, they followed the ways of the nations around them and their false gods and idols. Finally, God “gave them into the hands of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them” (Psalm 106:41). (Many of the people were carried away into captivity by the Assyrians and later on by the Babylonians, as a consequence of their sins.) A faithful remnant of the Israelites cried out to God, “Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations” (Psalm 106:47).

Psalm 107, then, describes how the Lord answered these prayers and brought some of His people back again to Israel, after the Babylonian captivity. The psalm begins with a prayer that is still used today by many people, before or after meals. “Oh give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy, His steadfast love, endures forever!” (Psalm 107:1) Verses 2-3 reminded His redeemed and rescued people to tell others what He had done for them, “redeeming them from trouble and gathering them in” from every direction, from wherever they had been scattered. (See also Isaiah 62:12.)

This rescue plan of God is described in a highly poetic way in Psalm 107, giving four situations in life in which people were faced with great trouble and even death. As Dr. Roehrs describes it in the Concordia Self-Study Commentary, the exiles in various places “needed help just as desperately as people saved from (1) death from hunger and thirst in a desert wilderness (verses 4-9); (2) from imprisonment and hard labor (verses 10-16); (3) from illness that could lead to death (verses 17-22); and (4) from being lost in a terrible storm at sea (verses 23-32).” In each case, the people “cried out to the Lord for help and He delivered them” (verses 6,13,19,28) and they are reminded to “thank the Lord” (verses 8,15,21,31).

Some of the translations are a little misleading in that they use the word “some” in verses 4,10,17, and 23, as if these particular problems happened only to “some” of the people. The Hebrew actually says, “They wandered… (v.4), “They sat… (v.10), and so forth. That indicates that many of the people may have faced more than one of the difficulties described. They all faced very challenging times where they were in captivity and in getting back to the land of Israel, and the poetic descriptions fit them in various ways.

Skip ahead in Psalm 107 to verses 10-16. Many of the Israelites were taken into captivity by force. They knew why this had happened. It was because of their “rebellion against the Words of God” and against the “counsel” he and His prophets had given them (v. 11). (See Isaiah 63:10 and Zechariah 1:4 as other examples  of this sin and evil.) The Israelites had some freedoms, but were under the control of others and were largely servants and slaves to others.

Think of Daniel and his friends in Babylon. They could serve in high positions one moment but could quickly be thrown into a lion’s den or a fiery furnace, as we hear in the Book of Daniel. Yet they knew the promise of the Lord made so simply in Psalm 50:15, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” “They cried to the Lord” (Psalm 107:13) and “He delivered  them.”

Verse 16 quotes words from Isaiah 45:1-4, predicting that much later, God would use a Persian leader, Cyrus, to begin to bring freedom to “Israel, His chosen people.” See also the prediction in Isaiah 49:8-9, where the Lord would “say to the prisoners, ‘Come out.’” Some of this was also predicting the work of the ultimate Rescuer, our Lord Jesus. See the prophecy of Him as the Servant of God and what He would do in Isaiah 42:6-9, to free people from the prison of their sins.

Psalm 107:17-22 speaks of Israelites who had been “fools through their sinful ways” and now suffered “affliction (v.17). Some were “near to the gates of death” and could not or would not even eat any food any more (v.18). This seems to refer to very serious illnesses. Again, “they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress” (v.19). There was “healing” and “deliverance from destruction,” at least for some (v.20).

Psalm 107:23-32 talks about those who were able to work and travel on ships. They saw the majesty and power of God in “great waters” (v.23-24), but also the danger of storms and waves, which left them “at their wits’ ends,” with “their courage melted away in their evil plight,” their impossible situation, where they could not help themselves (v.25-27). Again, “they cried to the Lord” and “He made the storm and waves be stilled and hushed,” and “brought them to their safe, desired haven” (v.28-30). This passage again also reminds us of our ultimate Savior, our Lord Jesus. More than once, He stilled storms and rescued His disciples on the Sea of Galilee. (See Mark 4:35-41 and 6:46-52. If the disciples knew Scriptures like this one, it seems as if they would not have had to ask, ”Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”)

Go back then to Psalm 107:4-9. No matter where God’s people were scattered by captivity, as both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms were overthrown and Jerusalem and much of their homeland was destroyed, it was not easy for them to get back to Israel, even when they finally had the freedom to do so. Other Scriptures tell us that some did not even want to go back to Israel, with all the “starting-from-scratch” and rebuilding that would be necessary. For those who did go home, it was a long, hard journey for many, “wandering in desert wastes… hungry and thirsty and with fainting souls” and discouragement and finding no good “city” or place to dwell in, as they traveled and when they finally reached their destination (v.4-5). Again, it was only as “they cried to the Lord in their trouble,” that “He delivered them from their distress” (v.6-7).

Then, over time, they could see that the Lord “satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things” (v.9). In all these different circumstances, God’s people are called to “thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man” (v.8,15,21,31). As Psalm 107 ends, the people are reminded that the Lord can bring judgment, “turning rivers into a desert,” because of evil, as had happened during the time of captivity (v.33-34).

But the Lord can also “turn a desert… into springs of water with many blessings,” as he was now doing for His people (v.35-38). And whether they are “diminished and brought low” if necessary, in God’s judgment and plans (v.39-40) or “raised up out of affliction” by the “steadfast love of the Lord” (v.41-43), let “the upright” in the Lord “see it and be glad.”

Psalm 107 takes us, though, only to the return of God’s people to Israel. Still to come would be the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple and eventually the coming to our Lord Jesus, as true man from the Jews, and as the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, and the Savior for His own people and the whole world, (“all the children of man,” as said in this psalm four times and as we heard predicted in Psalm 2, last week). The last verse of Psalm 107 is for us, too: “Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord.”

Aren’t we much like the children of Israel? We have many joys, but also a whole variety of troubles and difficult circumstances in our lives. We have the old saying, “When it rains, it pours” - meaning that one bad situation can come after another and another, and we wonder if we can carry on. We are headed to our own Promised Land, the eternal life we have through our Savior, but we probably have a lot of living ahead for us before we are called home, according to His wisdom.

“You are my God. My times are in Your hands,” says Psalm 31:15. We are called to be wise, as Psalm 107:43 says. Four times the psalmist says the same thing, ”They cried to the Lord in their trouble” and then trusted that He would “deliver” them, as he knew best. That is repeated and repeated, because we, too, may forget the blessing of prayers and the need to continue to cry to the Lord with our needs. He wants us to ask. It is a sign of faith and trust in Him. Four times it is also said, “Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, His mercy, and for His wondrous works to the children of man.” How often do we forget to thank the Lord for so, so many blessings we clearly do have, along with the challenges we face?

Finally, the psalmist himself speaks of the “goodness” of the Lord (Psalm 107:1) and calls upon “the redeemed of the Lord” (which includes us, through Jesus and His sacrifice for our sins and His bringing us to faith) to “say so,” also (v.2). The psalmist calls us “to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and tell of the Lord’s deeds in songs of joy”(v.22). And we are called to gather with other believers and “extol the Lord in the congregation of the people,” and extol Him in the assembly of the elders” (v.32). That is especially where psalms were to be used - in worship with fellow believers, as well as in our own personal worship and devotions.

“Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things” (v.43). “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 1:7 and many other places). And most of all, let us “consider the steadfast love of the Lord” (v.43), which we see most clearly in the gift of His Son, Jesus, in His Word and works for us and His forgiveness earned for us. “Listen to Jesus,” we heard the Father saying to us, too, at the Transfiguration of our Lord last week. The Lord’s continued wisdom and love and mercy be with you all.