Scripture Daily

Context No. 289 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 107:17-32: in context

17Fools are afflicted because of their disobedience, and because of their iniquities. 18Their soul abhors all kinds of food. They draw near to the gates of death. 19Then they cry to the LORD in their trouble, and he saves them out of their distresses. 20He sends his word, and heals them, and delivers them from their graves. 21Let them praise the LORD for his loving kindness, for his wonderful deeds to the children of men! 22Let them offer the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his deeds with singing. 23Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business in great waters, 24these see the LORD’s deeds, and his wonders in the deep. 25For he commands, and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up its waves. 26They mount up to the sky; they go down again to the depths. Their soul melts away because of trouble. 27They reel back and forth, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end. 28Then they cry to the LORD in their trouble, and he brings them out of their distress. 29He makes the storm a calm, so that its waves are still. 30Then they are glad because it is calm, so he brings them to their desired haven. 31Let them praise the LORD for his loving kindness, for his wonderful deeds for the children of men! 32Let them exalt him also in the assembly of the people, and praise him in the seat of the elders.

Psalm 107 is a thanksgiving song built like a string of rescue stories. It moves through one kind of person in trouble after another, and each story follows the same four beats. This passage holds two of them, the sick and the sailors, and the repetition is doing the teaching.

The first group are people brought low, some by their own foolishness, sick to the point that they can no longer stand the sight of food and are drifting toward the gates of death. The second are those who go down to the sea in ships, caught in a storm God himself stirred up, tossed so violently that they mount to the sky and drop to the depths and stagger like drunk men, at their wits' end. Two very different troubles, one self-inflicted and one that fell out of the sky. But watch the hinge, which is identical in both: then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. For the sailors it comes as one of the loveliest lines in the psalms, he makes the storm a calm, and the waves are still, and he brings them to their desired haven. And each rescue ends the same way too, with a command: let them thank the LORD, and say so in the assembly, out loud, among the people.

The pattern says the cry from the bottom is the turn, and that it usually comes only at the wits' end, when the thrashing has run out. And the rescue is not finished until it is spoken. Do I keep struggling on my own strength all the way to the end, and then, once I am safely in the haven, forget to say out loud who brought me there?

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