1Acclaim the LORD, for He is good,
for His kindness is forever.
2Let the LORD’s redeemed ones say,
whom he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
3and gathered them from the lands,
from east and west, from north and south.
4They wandered in wilderness, wasteland,
found no road to a settled town,
5hungry, thirsty, too,
their life-breath failed within them.
6And they cried to the LORD from their straits,
from their distress He saved them.
7And He led them on a straight road
to go to a settled town.
8Let them acclaim to the LORD His kindness
and His wonders to humankind.
9For He sated the thirsting throat
and the hungry throat He filled with good—
10dwellers in dark and death’s shadow,
11For they rebelled against God’s sayings,
the Most High’s counsel they despised.
12And He brought their heart low in troubles.
They stumbled with none to help.
13And they cried to the LORD from their straits,
from their distress He rescued them.
14He brought them out from the dark and death’s shadow
and their bonds He sundered.
15Let them acclaim to the LORD His kindness
and His wonders to humankind.
16For He shattered the doors of bronze
and the iron bars He hacked off.
17Fools because of their sinful way,
because of their misdeeds they were afflicted.
18All food their throat rejected,
they came to the gates of death.
19And they cried to the LORD from their straits,
from their distress He rescued them.
20He sent forth His word and healed them,
and delivered them from their pit.
21Let them acclaim to the LORD His kindness,
and His wonders to humankind,
22and offer thanksgiving sacrifices
and recount His deeds in glad song.
23 Those who go down to the sea in ships,
who do tasks in the mighty waters,
24it is they who have seen the deeds of the LORD,
and His wonders in the deep.
25He speaks and raises the storm win
and it makes the waves loom high.
26They go up to the heavens, come down to the depths,
their life-breath in hardship grows faint.
27They reel and sway like a drunkard,
all their wisdom is swallowed up.
28And they cry to the LORD from their straits
from their distress He brings them out.
29He turns the storm into silence,
and its waves are stilled,
30and they rejoice that these have grown quiet,
and He leads them to their bourn.
31Let them acclaim to the LORD His kindness
and His wonders to humankind.
32Let them exalt Him in the people’s assembly
and in the session of elders praise Him.
33He turns rivers into wilderness
and springs of water into thirsty ground,
34fruitful land into salt flats,
because of the evil of those who dwell there.
35He turns wilderness to pools of water,
and parched land to springs of water,
36and settles there the hungry,
firmly founds a settled town.
37And they sow fields and they plant vineyards,
which produce a fruitful yield.
38And He blesses them and they multiply greatly,
and their beasts He does not let dwindle.
40He pours scorn upon the princes,
and makes them wander in trackless wastes.
39And they dwindle and are bowed down,
from harsh oppression and sorrow.
41And He raises the needy from affliction,
and increases his clans like flocks.
42Let the upright see and rejoice,
and all wickedness shut its mouth.
43He who is wise will watch these
and take to heart the LORD’s kindnesses.
PSALM 107 NOTES
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1. Acclaim. The first word of this psalm, which has no superscription, is hodu, “acclaim” or “give thanks,” announcing this as a thanksgiving psalm. In this instance, as the poem unfolds, it is clear that the thanksgiving is collective.
2. redeemed ones. The term is not theological but political: these are people who have been redeemed from captivity or from dangerous enemies, “from the hand of the foe.”
3. and gathered them from the lands. The language suggests some sort of return from exile, and this psalm could conceivably have been recited at a public ceremony of thanksgiving during the return to Zion in the sixth century B.C.E. Some scholars, however, date the text earlier.
south. The received text says umiyam, “and from the sea,” which would be a second occurrence of west as a direction here. It is preferable to read umiyamin (adding just one consonant), “and from the south.”
6. And they cried to the LORD from their straits. This is the first of two recurring refrains in the poem, a device appropriate for a liturgical text chanted in a public celebration.
8. Let them acclaim to the LORD His kindness. This is the second refrain, which is repeated verbatim further on and also picks up phrases from the first line of the psalm.
10. dwellers in dark and death’s shadow. The second verset of this line speaks of prisoners, so it is plausible, as several interpreters have suggested, that the concrete image is a dark, windowless, dungeon-like place of captivity.
tormenting iron. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “torment and iron,” but this translation assumes it is a hendiadys and thus renders the first of the two nouns as a participle.
14. He brought them out from the dark. This line is a phrase-by-phrase answer to the condition of distress represented in verse 10.
16. the doors of bronze /. . . the iron bars. These heavy bolted doors are what lock up the prisoners in their dark dungeon.
17. Fools because of their sinful way. The translation follows the wording of the received text, but the Hebrew looks problematic, with the word for “fools,” ʾewilim, especially doubtful.
18. All food their throat rejected. In their desperate plight, perhaps as prisoners, these miserable people lose all appetite and retch at the thought of food, so that they are on the verge of dying.
20. from their pit. The form of the Hebrew noun is plural and also odd. Some scholars emend the word as it stands, misheḥitotam, to mishaḥat ḥayatam, “from the Pit their life,” which reads more smoothly. In any case, the reference to near death is not in doubt.
22. offer thanksgiving sacrifices /. . . recount . . . in glad song. This verse provides an explicit reference to the Temple ritual that this psalm would have accompanied.
23. Those who go down to the sea in ships. These famous lines (Melville recalls them in Moby-Dick) about the dangers besetting mariners are only loosely connected with the imagery of captives in foreign lands that has been the center of the poem until this point. Perhaps the sailors belong here as a different but related category of people who have been at death’s door but are saved by God. It should be noted that in the Hebrew text, verses 21–26 are marked in the right margin with an inverted letter nun, a device that seems to have been used by the ancient scribes to indicate some questioning of the text or even a virtual erasure of it. Although the unit about sea travel continues through verse 30, this scribal indication makes one wonder whether the whole section might have been regarded as a different poem that was somehow inserted into our psalm.
27. They reel and sway like a drunkard, / all their wisdom is swallowed up. This line and some of the phrases before and after are put to remarkable use by the twelfth-century Hebrew poet Judah HaLevi in his brilliant sea poems, a kind of poetic chronicle of his voyage from Spain toward the Land of Israel. The biblical word for “wisdom” also means something close to “craft”; thus, the idea here is that all the technical expertise of the sailors is baffled or made futile by the fury of the storm.
30. their bourn. This rather antiquated English term reflects a high-poetic locution for “destination” in the Hebrew, which is literally “the realm of their desire.”
33. He turns rivers into wilderness. God’s fearsome powers of transformation work in both directions: He can turn desolation into lush fecundity (verses 35–37), and He can also turn fruitful places into arid desert.
40. He pours scorn upon the princes. This verse also shows an inverted nun at its right margin, and in this instance that device clearly indicates a glitch in the text. Verse 39 (“And they dwindle and are bowed down”) makes no sense immediately after verse 38, which is taken up with the blessings of those redeemed by God. The inverted nun is a recognition that this verse is out of place in the received text. If we place it before verse 39 rather than after it, the whole sequence here becomes perfectly coherent. It is worth noting that this whole clause also appears almost verbatim in Job 12:21a.
39. they dwindle. This indication is in pointed contrast to the condition of those favored by God, whose very cattle are not allowed to dwindle.
41. increases his clans like flocks. The image of the dwindling of the wicked is sandwiched on both sides with images of the increase of the righteous.