Psalms 107

Psalms 107. The Psalm begins in ver. 1 with an exhortation to praise God, as the object of which, in ver. 2, 3, there is given the deliver-ance of the church out of great trouble, and its collection out ofall lands. These gracious deeds are celebrated, in ver. 4-32, under different images: of those who wander up and down in the wilderness, hungry and thirsty, and now were led to an inhabited city, ver. 4-9; of those bound with fetters in dark prisons, who are now set at liberty, ver. 10-16; of those sick, who are now healed, ver. 17-22; of those who survive a great storm at sea, ver. 23-32. In this portion there exists a great similarity; first always the trouble, next the prayer, after this the deliverance, and finally the exhortation to give thanks. The words “they cry unto the Lord out of their trouble, and he delivers them out of their distresses,” and “these may praise the Lord for his mercy, and for his wonders to the children of men,” perpetually return. In the last strophe the similarity ceases. It celebrates, in three sections, the overthrow of the power of the world, and the exalta-tion of Israel, who has now been restored to his own home, has rebuilt his city there, cultivated his land, reaped its fruit, and prospers joyfully in all respects.

A conclusion in ver. 43 con-tains an exhortation to render suitable thanks to the Lord for his favour. The fundamental number of the Psalm, which praises the ga-thering of Israel from the four ends of the earth (comp. ver. 3), is four.

The introduction (the opening, ver. 1, the theme, ver. 2, 3) and the conclusion contain four verses. These enclose four strophes, one of twelve, one of seven, and two of ten verses. The strophe of twelve verses is divided into two halves, vet. 4-9, and ver. 17-22, in the midst of which there stands the strophe of seven verses. The signature of the people of the covenant is thus grouped round that of the covenant. The Psalm was, according to ver. 32, sung at a joyful national religious service, and, accord-ing to ver. 22, in connection with the bringing forward of thank-offerings, to which it stands related as soul to body. A very suitable occasion is furnished by the first celebration of the feast of tabernacles after the return from exile, when the whole of Israel were assembled at Jerusalem, and sacrifices were offered to the Lord upon the newly-erected altar; comp.

Ezra 3:1 ss. The Psalm cannot have been composed earlier, because public worship was then for the first time resumed, and also because, as intimated in ver. 37, the first harvest was then over.

And it cannot have been composed later, because, in the whole Psalm,there is no mention whatever made of the temple, which, had it existed, could not but have been mentioned in ver. 33-42, as it must have occupied a very prominent place among the gracious deeds of God; everywhere the language refers only to a new building of the city, ver. 36, and to a new cultivation of the land, ver. 37. In addition to this, we find everywhere the first joy and elevation of spirit; we see the congregation enjoying its recovery festival. Another state of mind very soon prevailed, the beginning of which was first seen at the second great festival, at the laying of the foundation of the house of the Lord in the se-cond year, comp. Es. 3:12; although, at that time, upon the whole, the joyful feeling still prevailed. The machinations of the enemies then came into view. Instead of this, the comparison is between the present and the immediate mournful, and the more remote prosperous past, and the splendid predictions of the pro-phets.

In the prophecies of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, we find ourselves upon an altogether different territory; comp. the introduction to these prophets in the Christol. Our Psalm is closely related to Psalms 106.

The similarity of the beginning points to this. Thanks are given here, ver. 3, for what forms there the object of desire, ver. 47. The praise of the Lord, which, in Psalms 106:47, is promised; should salvation be im-parted, is here rendered to him now that salvation is enjoyed. The points of contact, however, are only of the same kind as are those of Psa 104:104; Psalms 104:103., and are to be explained by suppos-ing that another Psalmist, at a later period, appended our Psalm to the group Psa_101:-106., and thus completed the number seven, the first and last word of which is the mercy of the Lord. Even the other points of connection are not of such a kind as neces-sarily to demand the identity of the author. The author, how-ever, may be the same (what renders it very possible, yea, pro-bable, is that Psa_104:-106. were composed towards the end of the captivity, and our Psalm in the first year after the return): we must, at the same time, maintain, that the trilogy, Psa_104:-106., joined to the Davidic one so as to form one whole, existed as a previously completed group, before the number seven was com-pleted by the addition of our Psalm, and that the 107. was added as a later supplement.

We are led to the same conclusion by the last verse of Psalms 106., which manifestly belongs, not merely tothis Psalm, but to the whole group, by the indirect testimony of the compilers, who would assuredly not have separated what is inseparably connected together, by elevating the conclusion of Psalms 106. to the rank of the conclusion of the fourth book; and, finally, by the want of the Hallelujah in Psalms 107.; whereas, had the connection of Psa_104:-107. been original and absolute, it would, like a connecting band, have closed the whole. The state of matters is this: to the Davidic trilogy, some Psalmist added, towards the close of the captivity, one of his own composition.

This group was rounded off, internally and exter-nally, after the return from the captivity, by the addition of a seventh Psalm. A great many expositors have failed completely to observe the special reference of the Psalm to the return from the Babylonish captivity; and, led astray by the different figures under which the deliverance of God here appears, have referred every thing to the constant course of divine providence, and to the deliverances which God works out on behalf of different classes of sufferers,a–a mistake against which a careful consideration of ver. 2, 3, might have been sufficient to have guarded, as these verses regulate the whole, whose theme they contain. At the same time, there lies a measure of truth at the bottom of this error, in so far as the Psalmist was conscious that he was not a poet for a mere occasion, but that he sang for the church of God of all times. The special references, therefore, are designedly as little marked as possible, so that the Psalm is, in reality, very suitable as a song of thanks-giving for the church, and also for particular members after every deliverance. The general references, however, to mankind at large, must be given up entirely; we find ourselves everywhere in the domain of Jehovah, not of Elohim; the expression, they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, which does not suit the heathen, a Amyraldus, with whom J. H. Michaelis agrees, says: Of the more illustrious inter- preters of the Psalms, there is not one who does not acknowledge, that, while many others, and especially the two preceding. Psalms, treat of the special providence of God, as exercised on behalf of the Israelites, this one has for its object to celebrate that general care by which God continually governs all men and all nations. It would be difficult to explain how it is said of the heathen that they call upon Jehovah. At the same time there have been individuals who took the correct view. The Syrian translator gives as the title: God collects the Jews out of captivity, and brings them back out of Babylon; the only begotten Son of God also, Jesus Christ, collects the nations from the four cor-ners of the world, by calling upon man to be baptized. continually recurs; and ver. 11 is suitable only for the people of the law and of revelation. The strong dependance upon Isaiah and Job is characteristic of the Psalm.

Psalms 107:1-3

Ver. 1-3. -Ver. 1. Praise the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth, for ever.-Ver. 2. The redeemed of the Lord may say so, whom he has redeemed from the hand of trouble. Ver. 3. And whom he has assembled out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the sea.-It must have made a deep impression when the Psalmist put into the mouth of the redeemed the same words, vet. 1, with which, on a former occasion, when in deep misery, they had praised their God on the ground of his former glorious deeds,, and in the exer-cise of hope, Psalms 106:1. It is obvious that the verse before us is borrowed from this passage, because the words are not, as is the obvious view at first sight, addressed by the Psalmist to the church, but are put into the lips of the church.-In defining those who are called upon to praise the Lord, the Psalmist announces, in ver. 2 and 3, the theme of the Psalm. The “redeemed of the Lord,” ver. 2, is from Isaiah 62:12; Isaiah 63:4. The צר, according to ver. 6, 13, Psalms 106:44, is not opponents, but trouble, which is here per-sonified and represented as a dangerous enemy, which has Israel in its hands. Throughout the whole Psalm, the discourse is not of enemies, but of trouble.-That ver. 3 refers to the return from the captivity is evident from Psalms 106:47, and from the reference to the fundamental passages in Isaiah 56:8, but especially 43:5, 6, “From the rising of the sun will I bring thy seed, and from the going down of the sun I will assemble thee, I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Keep not back,” and 49:12, “Behold, these come from afar, and behold these from the north and from the sea and from the land of Sinim.” This last passage bears such a close resemblance to the passage before us, particularly in the juxtaposition of the north and the sea, as to ex-clude the possibility of its being accidental.

Still the reference to the return from captivity is so framed as to admit of the words being applied to those whom the Lord has brought home “from the different places to which necessary duty or severe misfortune had driven them.” (Amyr.) The reference to the prophetical fundamental passages shows that we are not carefully to enquirewhether the exiles returned from all these different places. From supposing that the four quarters of heaven must be here fully named, every possible attempt has been made to make out that ים, which can denote only such a sea as represents a quarter of the heavens, viz., the west, or the Mediterranean sea, must mean the south. The correct view, however, is, that the Psalmist here, like the prophet in ch. 49:12, is content with naming the places according to the number of the quarters of heaven, without exactly naming each quarter. The omission of the south, and the substitution instead of it of the sea, on which the scattered exiles returned from Egypt and other lands (comp. Deuteronomy 28:68), might be occasioned by the circumstance that there was no-thing in that quarter but a wilderness. The omission of the north in Psalms 75:7, in the enumeration of the quarters of the heavens, proceeded from an exactly similar cause..

Psalms 107:4-9

Ver. 4-9. -Ver. 4. They wandered in the wilderness, the path-less desert, they found not a city of habitation. Ver. 5. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Ver. 6. And they cry to the Lord in their trouble, he delivers them out of their oppressions. Ver. 7. And led them in the right way, that they might go to the city of habitation. Ver. 8. These should praise to the Lord his mercy, and his wonders to the children of men. Ver, 9.

For he satisfied the languishing soul, and he filled the hungry soul with good.-The representation of Israel languishing in exile under the image of those who wander up and down in the wilderness, in this strophe, depends upon the typical import of the march through the wilderness, just as, on the same basis, Isaiah, in the second part of his prophecy, had not unfrequently described the miserable condition of Israel by the figure of the wilderness; for example, 40:3, 43:19, 20. Comp. on other typical applications of the march through the wilderness, the Christol. on Hosea 2:16. The desert of the way (comp. ישימון of the Arabic wilderness, Deuteronomy 32:10, Psalms 68:7; Psalms 78:40) is one which is this in reference to the way, in its way-lessness; comp. ver. 40, “And allowed them to wander in the wilderness without a way.” Against the connection of the דרך with what follows, we have, besides this parallel pas-sage, the accents and the want of the article in ישימון. The מושב signifies only seat, place of abode. It is obvious, fromver. 36, that allusion is made to Jerusalem, which, in a certain sense, because it was the city of God, was the dwelling-place of the whole people; comp. at Psalms 101:8.-The hunger, and thirst, and the fatigue thereby induced (comp. the עטף Lam. 2:19, Psalms 77:3) are named in ver. 5 merely as descriptive of the miserable condition of the Israelites in the wilderness pro-per. That the Israelites were not so badly off in a temporal point of view, during the captivity, is manifest from the circum-stance, that so many who knew nothing of higher wants, the hunger and the thirst after the beautiful worship of God, and, after the land where the footsteps of God were everywhere visible, preferred remaining where they were. Psalms 137. shows us what corresponded in the spiritual wilderness to the hunger and the thirst. -The subject in ver. 8 is, “those thus led.” The ל must manifestly be construed in the same way in both clauses; it is not the won-ders, therefore, but the praise, that belongs to the children of men (Luther which he does to the children of men). The praise be-longs to the Lord in so far as it is given to him, and to the children of men in so far as it is uttered by them, for the glorifying of God among them.-The languishing soul, in ver. 9, is not one which languishes in itself, but, as is obvious from the opposition of the hungry soul in the second clause, the soul of the thirsty; comp.

Isaiah 29:8. To satisfy, by delivering from thirst, occurs also in Psalms 104:13; Psalms 104:16. With good, Psalms 103:5.

Psalms 107:10-16

Ver. 10-16. -Ver. 10. Who must have sat in darkness and the shadow of death, bound in misery and iron. Ver. 11. For they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the Most High. Ver. 12. Wherefore he brought down their heart in suffering, they fell down and there was none to help. Ver. 13. And they cried to the Lord in their trouble, he de-livered them out of their distresses. Ver. 14. And led them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and break their bands. Ver. 15. These should praise to the Lord his mercy, and his wonders to the children of men. Ver. 10. For he break the doors of brass, and destroyed the bars of iron.-The des-cription of the subject in ver. 10 is in reality pre-supposed in ver. 11-44, and after that there is appended, “May these praise."-The first clause of ver. 10 is from Isaiah 9:1.

The dark prison, as an image of the misery, occurs also in ch.42:7; Psalms 49:9. On “the shadow of death,” at Psalms 23:4,That the עני denotes the misery of the past, and that, therefore,the discourse is of iron = iron fetters, Psalms 105:18, only in a figurative sense, is evident from ver. 41, and from the funda-mental passage, Job 36:8, “And if they be bound in fetters and be holden in cords of affliction,” where, according to the con-nection, the discourse is only of suffering generally, and not of literal imprisonment and fetters.-On המרו, in ver. 11, comp. Psalms 106:7; Psalms 106:33; Psalms 106:43. There is a paronomasia between המרו and אמרי and between עצת and נאצו. The words of the Lord are those which he had spoken to them in his law, and by his holy servants the prophets. The counsel of the Lord is either the counsel which he has taken to destroy secure and rebellious sin-ners, and to impart salvation only to the penitent-in this case, Isaiah 5:19 is to be compared, where the rebellious sinners, des-pising the counsel of the Lord, say, “Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come that we may know it,” and also Isaiah 19:17, Luke 7:30, and Psalms 106:13 -or the counsel which the Lord gave them; in this case, we must comp.

Proverbs 1:25, and 2 Kings 17:13. The latter explanation is favoured by the pa-rallel to the words of God.-He brought down their heart, in ver. 12,-which had proudly risen up in rebellion and contempt. -On ver. 15 comp.

Psalms 116:16, where it is said, “Thou hast loosed my bands,” in reference to deliverance from captivity.–Ver. 16 depends upon Isaiah 45:2, where it is said of Cyrus: “I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight, I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron.”

Psalms 107:17-22

Ver. 17-22.-Ver. 17. Fools, because of their walk in ini-quity, and because of their iniquities, were afflicted. Ver. 18. Their soul loathed all food, and they came to the gates of death. Ver. 19. And they cried to the Lord in their trouble; he delivered them from their oppressions. Ver. 20. He sent his word and healed them, and delivered them from their pits. Ver. 21.

These should praise to the Lord his mercy, and his won-ders to the children of men. Ver. 22. And offer sacrifices of praise and recount his works in triumph.-The אוילים of the first clause corresponds to the יתענו of the second: fools, because of their evil way, i. e., those who, by their wicked conduct, becamefools, were openly represented as such by the punishments which were manifestly the consequences of this conduct.-That the cause of the loathing of food, in ver. 18, was not grief, as several unsuitably referring to Psalms 102:4 have supposed, but severe sick-ness, under the figure of which the suffering is here spoken of, (comp. at Psalms 103:3) is manifest from ver. 20, “He healed them,” and from the fundamental passage, Job 33:20, where it is said of the sick man, “His life abhorreth food and his sold dainty meat.” On the second clause comp. Job 33:22, Psalms 88:3; on the gates of death, at Psalms 9:13.-The word of the Lord, by which he procured the salvation of Israel, with its sure conse-quences (comp. Psalms 33:9, Matthew 8:8) appears here under the figure of the physician whom he sends to heal the sick, comp. at Psalms 30:3. That the pits are equivalent to the graves in which they were almost already lying, is evident from ver. 18, and from the fundamental passage, Job 33:28, “he has delivered my soul from the grave and my life sees the light,” (instead of שהם, there, and in ver. 22, 24, 30, we have here the rare form שתיתה, which only occurs again in Lamentations 4:20); comp.

Psalms 103:4, “who delivers thy life from the pit."-The thank-offerings, ver. 22, occur here, according to the second clause, chiefly in connection with what constitutes their essence, thanks; comp. at Psalms 1:14; Psalms 1:23.

Psalms 107:23-32

Ver. 23-32.-Ver. 23. Those who cross the sea in ships, do duty in many waters. Ver. 24. They see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. Ver. 25. And he spoke and stilled a storm of wind which lifted its billows. Ver. 26. They go up to heaven, down to the floods, their soul is melted in trouble. Ver. 27. They dance and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wits end. Ver. 28. And they cry to the Lord in their trouble, he delivered them out of their distresses. Ver. 29. He changed the storm into a calm, and its waves were si-lent. Ver. 30. And they were glad that they had rest, and he brought them to the object of their wish. Ver. 31. These should praise to the Lord his mercy, and his wonders to the children of men. Ver. 32. And exalt him in the assembly of the peo-ple, and praise him in the seat of the elders.–The sea is thestanding emblem of the world; comp. at Psalms 46., and at Psalms 93:3; Psalms 104:6, ss. The church of God, therefore, whichhas its existence in the world, appears, ver. 23, under the em-blem of those who cross the sea, and carry on their business there,such as mariners, merchants, or fishermen. What is here afigure is, in Mark 4:36, ss., Matthew 8:23, ss., Luke 8:22,ss., embodied in a symbolical action.a Those interpreters whocould not understand the figurative representation, have, in somecases, been obliged to have recourse to strange expedients. Thisis the case with those who suppose that the Psalmist has beforehis mind, not as is the case throughout the whole preceding partof the Psalm, the whole church, but a few of its members, who,during the captivity, were obliged to have recourse, as a tempo-rary occupation, to a seafaring life!-The works and wondersof the Lord upon the deep, ver. 24, are such as are described inthe following verses, the glorious deliverances which he impartsto his own people when they are sent by him on the sea of theworld, and are overtaken by a fierce storm of oppression.-On"he said,” ver, 25, comp.

Psalms 105:31. The suffix in “his bil-lows,” does not refer to the sea, ים,�language in the im-mediately preceding clauses had not been used of it, but of thedeep-but to the Lord; comp. “all thy waves and thy billowsgo over me,” in Psalms 42:7.-On ver. 26, comp. Psalms 104:8. Tothe floods-the usual place which these occupy. In trouble–coml.). Genesis 44:29.

Melts-comp. Psalms 22:14; Psalms 42:4.-Onver. 28, Berleb.:-“To the Lord, I mean, men learn then tocry, according to the common saying: whoever cannot pray lethim become a sailor."-The יקם, in ver. 29, the abbreviatedfuture, instead of the common form (comp. ver. 33, Psalms 18:10), not he quieted, he calmed-this sense is not attested-but he put it, like the העמיד in ver. 25, into a calm, he changedit into a calm, or even he restored it; comp. Amos 9:12.The דממה is not a gentle breeze, but always silence (דבכחםח,8:26), even in 1 Kings 19:12. Seasons of rest andrevival had already been spoken of in that passage under thefigure of a calm after a storm. The suffix in “their waves,“does not refer to the sea, of which, in the plural, no mentionhad been made, but to the sailors, to whom the suffixes in the a Ven.: There are three seas in which the church, like a ship, was tossed about by its billows, at great risk, but with a most prosperous issue; viz., the Jewish, the Pagan, said the Antichristian world. preceding and following words refer:-their waves, the trouble which threatened to ruin them. “Their waves” here corre-sponds to “his waves,” in ver. 25. The waves belong the Lord, in so far as he raises them (“he raises the sea, its waves roar,” Is. Ii. 15), and to the church in so far as she is overflowed by them. It is very consolatory that all the waves of the church are also the waves of her Lord; and the corresponding suffixes are fraught with a meaning of deep importance. The waves act as if they intended, at their own hand, to engulph the church; but it is in reality far otherwise. The Lord on high sends them; and hence the unqualified truth of the maxim, “he can change mis-fortune, he has it in his hands.”–The שהק, in ver. 30 occurs only in Jonah 1:11, הים שתק, he stills or silences the sea.

The Psalmist appears generally to have had before his eyes the description of the storm which occurs there. The best derivation of מהוז is that of Gousset from הוז=הזה to see, the object looked at, the mark.-It is obvious from ver. 22, that in ver. 32 we are to think of a public assembly for the worship of God in the then existing sanctuary of the nation; comp. at Psalms 22:22, 2 Chronicles 20:3-5. On the second clause, comp. at Psalms 1:1. The elders are the overseers of the people (comp. Psalms 105:22), the heads of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, Esr. 1:5, the guides of the congregation in conduct, and also in praise.

Psalms 107:33-43

Ver. 33-42. -Ver. 33. He changes rivers into a wilderness, and fountains of water into dry ground. Ver. 34. A fruitful land into salt, on account of the wickedness of its inhabitants. Ver. 35. He changes the wilderness into a water-pond, and dry land into streams of water.-Ver. 36. And maketh the hungry to dwell there, and they build a city of habitation. Ver. 37. And sow fields and plant vineyards, and produce fruit of in- crease. Ver. 38. And he blesses them, and they multiply greatly, and he does not suffer their cattle to decrease,-Ver. 39. They, whom he diminishes and brings down by the oppression of suf- fering and sorrow.-Ver. 40. He poureth contempt upon princes, and causes them to wander in a pathless desert. Ver. 41. And lifteth the needy out of suffering, and maketh families like a flock. Ver. 42. The righteous behold it, and are glad, and all wickedness stops its mouth.-The best view to take of this strophe, is to consider it as the response to the exhortation,“these may praise to the Lord his mercy,” which had run through-out the preceding part of the Psalm, as the song with which the Lord is honoured in the assembly of the people, and praised on the seat of the elders,, so that we should read it as if it were divided by marks of quotation from the conclusion of the preced-ing verse.-“The verbs of this paragraph, partly futures, partly futures with the Van Con., and partly participles, are most na-turally taken in a present sense.” Still we should every where consider as added: as we see it before our eyes. What the Lord does generally is represented on the ground of what he is now doing. This is clear from the relation of the present strophe to the one which precedes it, and also from the very manifest refe-rences to present times, especially in the 36th (comp. ver. 4 and 7) and the following verses.-First, in ver. 33-35, the Lord, as is obvious from the figure, causes the waters of prosperity and hap-piness belonging to the world to sink into the ground (the ישם, in ver. 35, in its reference to the one in ver. 33), and those of the church to flow copiously; or, Babylon is drained, and the land of the Lord is watered.–Ver. 33 and 34 are usually referred to Israel and his misery. But this is not suitable; and the funda-mental passages render it obvious that the whole passage refers to Babylon, the representative of the world at emnity with the kingdom of God, which had recently been destroyed.

On com-paring Isaiah 44:26; Isaiah 44:27, we find the same two positions occurring in an inverted order: “Who saith to Jerusalem, she shall be in-habitated, and to the cities of Judah, they shall be built, and I will raise up the decayed places thereof; that saith to the deep, be dry and I will dry up thy rivers.” In Isaiah 1:2, we read, “Behold at my rebuke, I dry up the sea, I change the rivers into a wilderness,” in Isaiah 21:1, Babylon is called “the wilderness of the sea” (see the Christol. p. 98), in Jeremiah 1:38, “a drought is upon her waters, they shall be dried up, for it is the land of graven images,” 51:36, “And I dry up her sea, and make her springs dry.” As the sea is the image of masses of people, the water of streams and of fountains represents happiness, pros-perity, and fortune; comp. the Treatise on Balaam, at Numbers 24:6; Numbers 24:7. The streams in ver. 33 comprehend the surrounding country. On the second. clause, comp. Deuteronomy 8:15, Isaiah 35:7, to the latter of which passages allusion is made. It is theresaid of Sion: “the parched ground shall become a pool.” The state of matters in the world is being reversed.–Ver. 34 alludes to the great type of all the judgments upon the ungodly world, the de-struction of Sodom and Gomorrha, the change of its fruitful terri-tory into a salt sea and a salt soil on which nothing grows. Comp. Deut. 29:22, and Ez. ch. 47., where Sodom and Gomorrha appear as a type of the world throughout the whole of a symbolical picture. Babylon had already undergone the beginning of a great change, the completion of which was descerned by the eye of faith as revealed in the sure word of prophecy; comp., for example, Isaiah 13:19, “And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the haughty ornament of the Chal-deans, shall be destroyed by God like Sodom and Gomorrha.” -Ver. 35 is literally from Isaiah 41:18, “I will make the wilder-ness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water;” comp. 35:7, “And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water,” 43:20, and, in opposition, the world, 42:15, “I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.” Allusion is made to the water which the Lord sent to his people in the wilderness, a type of the fountain of salva-tion which he opens at all times in the wilderness of misery. It is obvious, from what follows, that the wilderness here denotes the then miserable condition of Canaan.-The second portion of the strophe, which, when added to the preceding one, makes up seven verses, refers wholly to the prosperous change which bad recently taken place in favour of the people of the Lord, or it continues the description which had been begun at the end of the first.-On ver. 36, comp. ver. 4, 5, 7.-The עשה in ver. 37 is to make, comp.

Psalms 60:12. The increase is the year’s harvest, comp.

Leviticus 25:16.-The רבה in ver. 38 is not only to increase, in reference to the number of the people, but also to improve, to prosper, Deuteronomy 30:16, comp. also ver. 41. The המעיט is from Leviticus 26:22.-In whatever way we may construe the future with Vau in ver. 39, it is, at all events, certain that this verse refers to the mournful past, and, by pointing to it, leads to a deeper consciousness of the prosperity of the present, and to more lively gratitude. The best way to translate is: and they were diminished, instead of they, the diminished and the sunk.-The first clause of ver. 40 is from Job 12:21 -the quotation is markedby the circumstance that the participle there stands in a string of participles, while here it is the only one that occurs in the whole strophe-, the second from ver. 24th of the same chapter. The wandering in the desert without a way denotes, according to the fundamental passage, helpless embarrassment. Some expositors have erroneously applied to Israel what was intended for Babylon; and as the penalty of this mistake, they cannot understand why they should begin with the participle. Our verse corresponds to ver. 33, 34; and the opposite, the salvation of Sion, follows in ver. 41.

The concluding verse, the 42d, exhibits the impression which this great turn of things, this change of condition, makes on both parties.-The expression, “like a flock,” or “like sheep,” ver. 41, denotes great multitudes; comp. Job 21:11, “They sendforth their children like sheep.” Whoever comes out of great misery is thankful even for such beginnings of salvation, as may be, for the first time, seen in the above description.-Israel is meant by the righteous in ver. 42; comp. at Psalms 33:1. The second clause is from Job 5:16. The wickedness here is heathen wickedness, wicked Babylon, with its associates, the sons of Edom, Psalms 137:7. Oppressed herself by misery, she now shuts that mouth with which she had so long insulted God and his chosen ones. In ver. 43 we have the conclusion of the whole.-He who is wise understands this; and may men observe the mercies of the Lord! An expressive nota bene! Heartfelt thanks for the past favours of the Lord form the indispensable condition of the continuance of these favours. He who does not give thanks is a fool, for he brings it about that clouds of wrath again collect over his head.a Upon the cycle of ten and the cycle of seven Psalms there follows now one of twelve, introduced as in the preceding case by a Davidic trilogy, to which there are then added nine new Psalms. a Calvin: By a question he indirectly reprobates a false opinion which prevails throughout the world to a great extent, while the most audacious despiser of God fan-cies himself very wise, as if he sail that all the fools will be detected who do not exercise discernment in this matter.

Psalms 107:43

In ver. 43 we have the conclusion of the whole. He who is wise understands this; and may men observe the mercies of the Lord! An expressive nota bene! Heartfelt thanks for the past favours of the Lord form the indispensable condition of the continuance of these favours. He who does not give thanks is a fool, for he brings it about that clouds of wrath again collect over his head. [Note: Calvin: “By a question he indirectly reprobates a false opinion which prevails throughout the world to a great extent, while the most audacious despiser of God fancies himself very wise, as if he sail that all the fools will be detected who do not exercise discernment in this matter.”]Upon the cycle of ten and the cycle of seven Psalms there follows now one of twelve, introduced as in the preceding case by a Davidic trilogy, to which there are then added nine new Psalms.