Psalm 107 Part 3 

The first of The four vignettes (v4-9) is of fainting travellers needing direction and finding a guide. Their wanderings are an endless maze of desolation. Like any unsaved person, they were lost in the worst possible place. ‘Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them:’ In the trouble of the wilderness, they ‘cried out to the Lord,’ and God answered. Before I knew the Lord I was hungry and thirsty in a desolate place and ‘He satisfied the longing of my soul:’ God’s literal guidance and deliverance for His redeemed in the wilderness becomes a spiritual picture of how He delivers the lost, thirsty, and hungry soul, and fills it with goodness. Jesus’ mother quoted v9 (Luke 1:53). This is one of many scriptural quotations and allusions found in Mary’s song recorded in Luke 1:46-55, showing that she was a woman who knew and loved God’s word.  

The second picture, v10-16, is of weary captives needing freedom and finding a deliverer. When God gathered His people (vs2-3), they had to come to the Promised Land from every direction. Some came from prisons and chains, or literally, in the cords of affliction, as they are called in Job36:8. Imprisoned because they had ‘rebelled against’ God and because they ‘despised the counsel of the Most High.’ But they ‘cried out to the Lord’ and their ‘chains’ were shattered. 

This was pure grace and unfailing love from God; these prisoners were under God’s own discipline. Yet when they cried out to Him, He mercifully answered.  They were God’s chosen people by virtue of the covenant made with Abraham. It was always God’s plan to bring them back from captivity as prophesied by Jeremiah. 

In this, we can find comfort – pray and ‘the darkness & gloom” will flee away.  
The returning remnant, numbering only thousands, can be compared to Rev18:1-4. The majority chose to remain in Babylon. The refrain is then repeated. Spiritually the Lord Jesus has broken the most powerful of spiritual bonds and made us free. ‘Brass and iron’ are quickly consumed before the flame of Jesus’ love. The ‘bars’ of the grave shall not detain us.