Psalms 107:21

107:17-22 If we knew no sin, we should know no sickness. Sinners are fools. They hurt their bodily health by intemperance, and endanger their lives by indulging their appetites. This their way is their folly. The weakness of the body is the effect of sickness. It is by the power and mercy of God that we are recovered from sickness, and it is our duty to be thankful. All Christ's miraculous cures were emblems of his healing diseases of the soul. It is also to be applied to the spiritual cures which the Spirit of grace works. He sends his word, and heals souls; convinces, converts them, makes them holy, and all by the word. Even in common cases of recovery from sickness, God in his providence speaks, and it is done; by his word and Spirit the soul is restored to health and holiness.

Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness,.... Both in restoring to bodily health, which is an instance of divine goodness; and in healing the diseases of the soul, or in the pardon of sin, which is according to the multitude of his mercies, and the riches of his grace. And for his wonderful works to the children of men; bodily health is sometimes restored in a wonderful manner, when all means used are without success, and the prescriptions of doctors fail; and pardon of sin is a wonder of grace now, and will be to all eternity; and for these things praise ought to be given to the Lord, and they should be declared to men for his glory.

21, 22 . Let them give thanks to Jehovah for his lovingkindness, And for his wonderful works to the sons of men: And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, And tell of his works with glad singing. Here and in Psalm 107:32 the call to thanksgiving is amplified, instead of a reason for it being assigned as in Psalm 107:9; Psalm 107:16 . Cp. Jeremiah 33:11 .

Oh that men... - See the notes at Psalm 107:8 . Who can help joining in this wish, that those who have been restored from sickness, who have been raised up from the borders of the grave, "would" praise God for it! Who can help wishing that they had the feelings of Hezekiah when he was saved from the sickness which threatened his life - saved by the direct and manifest interposition of God - when he said Isaiah 38:20 , "The Lord was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments, all the days of our life in the house of the Lord!" Who can help wishing that people everywhere would see in such interpositions the proof of the benevolence of God, and would thank him that he has not forgotten guilty and suffering people!

Others were brought to the brink of the grave by severe sickness; but when they draw nigh in earnest prayer to Him who appointed that they should suffer thus on account of their sins, He became their Saviour. אויל (cf. e.g., Job 5:3 ), like נבל (vid., Psalm 14:1 ), is also an ethical notion, and not confined to the idea of defective intellect merely. It is one who insanely lives only for the passing hour, and ruins health, calling, family, and in short himself and everything belonging to him. Those who were thus minded, the poet begins by saying, were obliged to suffer by reason of (in consequence of) their wicked course of life. The cause of their days of pain and sorrow is placed first by way of emphasis; and because it has a meaning that is related to the past יתענּוּ thereby comes all the more easily to express that which took place simultaneously in the past. The Hithpa. in 1 Kings 2:26 signifies to suffer willingly or intentionally; here: to be obliged to submit to suffering against one's will. Hengstenberg, for example, construes it differently: "Fools because of their walk in transgression (more than 'because of their transgression'), and those who because of their iniquities were afflicted - all food," etc. But מן beside יתענּוּ has the assumption in its favour of being an affirmation of the cause of the affliction. In Psalm 107:18 the poet has the Book of Job ( Job 33:20 , Job 33:22 ) before his eye.

And in connection with Psalm 107:20 , ἀπέστειλεν τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ καὶ ἰάσατο αὐτοὺς (lxx), no passage of the Old Testament is more vividly recalled to one's mind than Psalm 105:19 , even more than Psalm 147:18 ; because here, as in Psalm 105:19 , it treats of the intervention of divine acts within the sphere of human history, and not of the intervention of divine operations within the sphere of the natural world. In the natural world and in history the word (דּבר) is God's messenger ( Psalm 105:19 , cf. Isaiah 55:10 .), and appears here as a mediator of the divine healing. Here, as in Job 33:23 ., the fundamental fact of the New Testament is announced, which Theodoret on this passage expresses in words: Ὁ Θεὸς Λόγος ἐνανθρωπήσας καὶ ἀποσταλεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος τὰ παντοδαπὰ τῶν ψυχῶν ἰάσατο τραύματα καὶ τοὺς διαφθαρέντας ἀνέῤῥωσε λογισμούς. The lxx goes on to render it: καὶ ἐῤῥύσατο αὐτοὺς ἐκ τῶν διαφθορῶν αὐτῶν, inasmuch as the translators derive שׁחיתותם from שׁחיתה ( Daniel 6:5 ), and this, as שׁחת elsewhere (vid., Psalm 16:10 ), from שׁחת, διαφθείρειν, which is approved by Hitzig. But Lamentations 4:20 is against this. From שׁחה is formed a noun שׁחוּת (שׁחוּת) in the signification a hollow place ( Proverbs 28:10 ), the collateral form of which, שׁחית (שׁחית), is inflected like חנית, plur. חניתות with a retention of the substantival termination.

[Hymns] Now they feel His fiery rod, Striking terrors through their soul. Wrung with agony, they fall To the dust, and, gazing round, Call for help;--in vain they call; Help, nor hope, nor friend are found. Then unto the Lord they cry; He inclines a gracious ear, Sends deliverance from on high, Rescues them from all their fear. He restores their forfeit breath, Breaks in twain the gates of brass; From the bands and grasp of death, Forth to liberty they pass. O that men would praise the Lord, For his goodness to their race, For the wonders of His word, And the riches of His grace! part III. From Malignant Disease. Sinners, for transgression, see Sharp disease their youth consume, And their beauty, like a tree, Withering on an early tomb. Food is loathsome to their taste, And the eye revolts from light; All their joys to ruin haste, As the sunset into night. Then unto the Lord they cry; He inclines a gracious ear, Sends deliverance from on high, Rescues them from all their fear. He with health renews their frame, Lengthens out their number'd days, Let them glorify His name With the sacrifice of praise. O that men would praise the Lord, For his goodness to their race, For the wonders of His word, And the riches of His grace! part IV. Perils on the Deep. They that toil upon the deep, And, in vessels light and frail, O'er the mighty waters sweep, With the billow and the gale,-- Mark what wonders God performs, When He speaks, and, unconfined, Rush to battle all His storms, In the chariots of the wind. Up to heaven their bark is whirl'd