Psalm 107
At this point we begin the Fifth and last Book of the Psalms. If we have profited by our study of the first four books, we have discovered how admirably they supplement the writings of the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi, and illuminate the portions of the New Testament which speak of what is to take place on earth in connection with the Jews and the whole nation of Israel. How marvelous in its scope and its unity is the Word of God!
We have been considering in the psalms recently examined, the reign of the Son of David, Jehovah-Jesus, with its consequences, — His rule established, enemies put down, His earthly people blessed as they have never been before, in the thousand years of righteousness and peace foretold by other scriptures for this sin-racked, sorrow-laden world. At this point the Divine Author pauses, as it were, and then in the psalms which follow, gives us a comment on, or review of, the subjects and circumstances presented in the preceding 106 psalms.
Psalm 107 forms a sort of introduction to the Fifth Book. It is a call for the giving of thanks to Jehovah because He is good; because His loving kindness endureth forever, and because of His wondrous works to the children of men (verses 1, 8, 15, 21, 31). The redeemed ones here spoken of comprise all the twice-born souls who will form the Israel of God, and we observe in verses 2 and 3 the two classes into which they fall.
The Jews who are delivered in and near the Holy Land when at extremity of trial, as we have learned from Matthew 24:9-30; Psalms 54, 55, 56, 69, 70, and other passages, are referred to in verse 2; while the redeemed of the lost ten tribes of Israel, yet to be brought back from other lands (Matthew 24:31; Isaiah 11:11-13; Jeremiah 31:7-9; Ezekiel 20:34-44) are seen in verse 3 together with the Jews.
With what rejoicing, what heartfelt thanksgiving will the redeemed of Israel consider their former and present case, we may gather from these psalms. The long years of oppression and of homeless wandering, away from God in heart, are then forever past, but their deliverance is owned as entirely God’s doing.
Three times in this Psalm (verses 4-9; 10-16; 17-22), in deepening understanding, the objects of divine forbearance view their former condition, and (later) what in themselves was the cause of it.
In the first of these, they were simply homeless and needy, and as such they cried to Jehovah and found deliverance in Him; He had brought them to a city of habitation.
But a deeper work is going on in their souls, we judge, and they see themselves more as God saw them; they now reckon that they had been in a pitiable state—prisoners bound in affliction and iron, in darkness and the shadow of death, and that this was due to their rebellion against His words, and despising His counsel; He had bowed down their hearts with labor; they stumbled, and there was none to help. In such evil case as this, had the redeemed of Jehovah been, but, crying to Him in their trouble, He had brought them out and freed them.
Again, in verse 17, the matter is taken up, and this third time the evil is judged at its source: it is not so much the trouble into which they were, but their own character as they now see themselves: fools persons without understanding, and wicked besides. Jehovah answered their cry, sent His Word and healed them, delivered them from their pitfalls.
In verses 23-30 the sovereign power of God, both in bringing man into troubled circumstances, and in taking him out of them when he has learned his helplessness and cries out for deliverance, is set out in the example of the shipmen in a great storm at sea.
Verses 33 to 41 carry on the thought of Jehovah’s power, exercised in delivering His redeemed ones, to consider what He will do in altering the course of things on this earth.
The psalm closes with a word of encouragement: first to the righteous or upright, and after to the wise. The saint of God rejoices in all that His Lord does (verse 42), and the wise—those saints who seek to add to their knowledge of Him—will understand His loving kindnesses. May we be not only “upright,” but “wise” before God.
ML 09/13/1931