Give ye thanks unto Jehovah; for he is good; for his loving-kindness [endureth] for ever.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Let the redeemed of Jehovah say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the oppressor,
Psalm 107 opens the fifth and final book of the Psalms with a call: those God has rescued must not stay quiet. Who are these "redeemed," what held them, and what are they to say?
The previous book of Psalms ended with a prayer. This one opens with the answer, so thanks fills its first lines. The writers quoted here use an older translation. It says "Jehovah" where the ESV says "the LORD," and "from the hand of the enemy" where the ESV says "from trouble."
The fifth and concluding book of the Psalms has a great deal of praise in it. At the close of the fourth book there was a prayer to God to gather His people out from the nations (106:47). He must do it; they cannot in their own strength. The fifth book then opens with that prayer answered: "O give thanks to Jehovah, for He is good; for His mercy endures for ever…"
Verse 2 and verse 3 show one rescue in two moves. God breaks the enemy's grip, then gathers a scattered people.
The psalm celebrates the two parts of that deliverance in which the mercy has been shown. They are redeemed from the hand of the enemy; they are gathered back from east, west, north, and south. This is the double character of the restoration of Israel — deliverance in the land, and the gathering from among the nations on every side. But the proper theme of the psalm is the goodness of Jehovah.
The word is not a vague term for God's kindness in general. It describes a specific act of force applied to a specific captive.
Redemption is a matter of distinct application and delivering power to the persons or things concerned. It is never merely a testimony of grace, or a display of the character of God and His goodness, reaching out to the whole scene He has created. Redemption is the intervention of God (and ultimately for the body) that breaks the bond of the enemy, and delivers the one who was captive. It may be by blood for the soul, but finally by power for the body. So it is always treated in Scripture. That is why you find, "Let the redeemed of Jehovah say so, whom He has redeemed" (Ps. 107:2). Whom does the Spirit mean? All mankind? Not so, but Israel only.
Rescue by power still rests on sacrifice. And the return from exile was only a sample of what was still coming.
The same principle applies to its very frequent use in the Psalms and Prophets for the future deliverance of Israel for His kingdom on earth. See Ps. 103:4, Ps. 106:10, Ps. 107:2; Isa. 35:9, etc.… All of it, however, rests on His blood-shedding. The return from Babylon was an outward sample and pledge.
Not everyone can "say so." And redemption itself covers more than one moment: what believers have now, and what they still wait for.
"Redemption," like its partner word "Salvation," is a term the Holy Spirit uses with a wide but definite meaning. It has both its present and its final sense. In Christ believers have redemption now, the forgiveness of their sins (Eph. 1:7). In Christ also they look for it, in the day of their expected change (Rom. 8:23). "The redeemed of the Lord" are the only ones who utter His true praise, whether now or hereafter, on earth or in heaven (Ps. 107:2; Rev. 5:9).
Kelly said this psalm's "redeemed" are Israel. Still, it records something wider: people under all kinds of pressure call out, and God answers.
Psalm 107 shows us how, under stress of various kinds, men do cry out to God and how in mercy He delivers them. Of this the redeemed of the Lord are special witnesses, and if they are wise men they discern God's loving-kindness in His intervention.
- Asked — Book 4 ends by asking God to gather His scattered people. Book 5 opens with that prayer answered, so it opens with thanks.
- Freed — Redemption is not a general display of goodness. It is power that breaks the enemy's hold on a real captive.
- Gathered — The rescue has two halves. God opens the enemy's hand, then brings His people back from all four directions.
- Grounded — The deliverance rests on blood-shedding. The return from Babylon was only a sample and a pledge.
- Spoken — Only the redeemed can offer this praise, now or in heaven. The wise see God's loving-kindness in it and say so.
And gathered out of the countries, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the sea.
The fifth book of the Psalms opens with a call to thank the LORD. Verse 3 names the singers: people God has gathered home from every direction. Commentators read this as a homecoming still ahead. They ask two questions of it: who are "the redeemed", and how wide is this gathering?
The previous book of Psalms ends with a plea for God to gather His scattered people.
At the close of the fourth book was a prayer to God to gather His people out from the nations (106:47). He must do it; they cannot in their own strength. The fifth book then opens with that prayer answered.
The word "redeemed" here is not a vague word for blessing, and the psalm has particular captives in view.
Redemption applies to particular people or things, and brings delivering power to them. It is never just a witness to grace, or a display of God's character and goodness, reaching out to the whole scene He has created. Redemption is God stepping in (and in the end for the body) to break the bond of the enemy and free the one who was captive. It may be by blood for the soul, but at last by power for the body. Scripture always treats it this way. So you find, "Let the redeemed of Jehovah say so, whom He has redeemed…" (Ps. 107:2). Whom does the Spirit mean? All mankind? Not so, but Israel only.
The list of directions means everywhere. Some translations read the fourth direction as "the sea" rather than "the south", and one writer takes it that way.
They are gathered now from the east and west and north, and from the sea — the road to the many countries that lie beyond it, unknown in that day.
Israel did come home once before, from exile in Babylon.
What a grand spectacle for the Gentile nations was the return from the captivity: more than fifty thousand going back to their own land. And what is that next to the great regathering still to come, "from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south"? (Ps. 107:3.) The return from Babylon is only a little thing by comparison.
The song that opens book five repeats a refrain David first set the people singing when he brought the ark back.
Israel bore the name "Ichabod" — the glory has departed — when the ark was taken captive. But when David brought the ark back, he set the people singing, "His mercy endures for ever." That is to say, God's sovereign grace was above all the failure on man's part. And this marks the last book of the Psalms. In the first three verses of Psalm 107, mercy has risen up over judgment.
If the gathering belongs to Israel, does the psalm have anything for the rest of us? Commentators keep the distinction and still leave the door open.
Israel is at last delivered from the enemy and gathered out of the lands on every side — not just a few Jews from Babylon — to enjoy the kingdom. This is in no way the church, which is blessed with Christ in the heavenly places. Yet the church may well profit from it all, and enjoy the truth and the mercy described here.
The rest of the psalm shows what that profit looks like.
Psalm 107 shows us how under stress of various kinds men do cry out to God and how in mercy He delivers them. The redeemed of the Lord are the special witnesses of this, and if they are wise they see God's loving-kindness in His stepping in.
- Cry — Psalm 106 ends begging God to gather His scattered people; they cannot do it themselves. Psalm 107 opens with that prayer granted.
- Rescue — "Redeemed" is not a general word for kindness. It means God stepping in with power to break the enemy's hold on captives.
- Reach — East, west, north and the sea: the gathering covers every direction, and reaches lands no one then knew.
- Scale — The fifty thousand who came back from Babylon are a small thing beside the regathering this verse describes.
- Mercy — God's sovereign grace stands above all of man's failure. Anyone in trouble who cries out meets the same loving-kindness.
They wandered in the wilderness in a desert way, they found no city of habitation;
This verse opens the psalm's first picture of distress: a people on the move, with no road under them and no home ahead. Who are these wanderers, and how does anyone get out of a trackless place?
Verse 4 sits inside a song of rescued people looking back on their road. One writer reads the whole psalm as a record of God's mercy set against all His people went through:
It describes toils and trials. In them the people looked to the Lord, and He answered and stepped in for the tossed and tried soul. It calls men to acknowledge and praise Him. It carries this blessed truth at the front: His mercy endures for ever. Man fails; God's mercy to His people does not. They were strangers and pilgrims where there was no resting-place and no home. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainting in them, they cried to the Lord. He led them in a right way to where their foot and heart found rest.
Commentators differ on which journey the verse describes. Some read it as Israel's ancient desert march; others place it later, on the road home at the end of days.
The psalm itself speaks of the restoration. There was a similar deliverance from Egypt, but the psalm will not mention it at all. They will not say that the LORD lives who brought them up out of the land of Egypt. Because of the word "wandered," I take verse 4 to describe their return in the latter day.
Read that way, the wandering has run for centuries, and it ends only when they turn to God:
They have long been wanderers in a solitary way, with the mark of Cain on them, always seeking to possess the earth… Until, brought to seek from God alone, they cried to the LORD in their trouble and found deliverance from Him. A crooked way is a long one.
The wanderers are also alone. That loss touches something people were made for.
These verses show them as wanderers, solitary and depressed. They have no settled dwelling, and they lack the fellowship for which man was first designed (v. 4)… And He exchanged their solitary or desolate way for "the right way." We can read this for our own good, remembering that the Lord Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). If Christ is our Object, we are in the right way. This leads to a proper end in view — "a city for a dwelling place" (v. 7). The right way always leads to the right end.
Giving a home to the lonely is God's own settled purpose:
In general we can gladly take up the word, "God settles the solitary in a home" (Psalm 68:6). This was always His mind.
The picture is not only Israel's. It fits anyone hunting for satisfaction in a world that cannot supply it.
First, we see man as a wanderer, looking for rest in a wilderness world. All his efforts only end in soul thirst — "hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them." In the ways of the Lord He lets us prove that nothing in this world of unrest can satisfy the soul.
The desert has no marked path. That missing road says something about where people stand with God.
To be guided — that is the thing: "Some wandered in desert wastes." There is no way in this world. So how did the Israelites get any way at all? The cloud went before them. Having to find a way to walk in proves that we are all away from God… "When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them." Then I get a way, but it is a divine way, and I am following Christ in it.
Believers can fall into the same pattern, going over old ground instead of moving on.
Instead of moving forward in obedience to God, we have to go back and learn again what the Red Sea deliverance means… This is wandering instead of going steadily forward. Psalm 107:4 speaks of Israel wandering in the wilderness in a desolate way. Too many believers take almost their whole life to learn this lesson.
- Road — There is no way in this world. Having to search for one proves we are away from God, and a way appears only when Someone goes ahead.
- Wandering — A crooked way is a long one. Going back over old ground is wandering, not walking, and some spend most of a lifetime at it.
- Hunger — Every effort to find rest in a wilderness world ends in soul thirst. Nothing here satisfies.
- Cry — When they cried, mercy answered; man fails, but God's mercy to His people does not.
- City — God settles the solitary in a home. The right way trades a desolate road for a city to live in, and it always ends where it should.
Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them
Verse 5 is the low point of the psalm's first picture: people lost in open country, worn down by hunger and thirst until their strength gives out. It raises the question the rest of the psalm answers — what does God do with people at the end of themselves?
Psalm 107 belongs to the last book of Psalms. One writer traces its whole scene, from the failure of the people to the mercy that meets them.
Psalm 107. In the last book of psalms we find many songs of praise. We also find all the moral circumstances of Israel on their return to blessing... It carries this blessed truth at the front: His mercy endures for ever. His love and goodness never change, and they have been celebrated ever since Israel's failure was first fully proved. Man fails, God's mercy to His people does not... They were strangers and pilgrims where there was no resting-place and no home. They were hungry and thirsty, their soul fainting in them. They cried to the Lord, and He led them in a right way to where their foot and heart found rest.
The wandering is Israel's story, but the need it names belongs to everyone.
In these verses they appear as wanderers, alone and depressed. They have no settled home, and they lack the fellowship for which man was first designed (v. 4). They lack food and drink — that is, the spiritual nourishment everyone needs — and they are faint and ready to die (v. 5). At last, the depth of their distress moves them to cry out to the Lord.
Another writer marks the turn. Help came only when they were brought to seek from God alone.
They have long been wanderers in a solitary way... Hungry and thirsty, with more than physical need, their soul fainted in them. Until, brought to seek from God alone, they cried to the Lord in their difficulty, and found deliverance from Him. A very simple and a very common story, but which needs, for all that, constant repetition.
The wanderers are not idle. They are searching for rest, and the search itself ends in thirst.
(vv. 4-9) First, man is viewed as a wanderer, seeking to find rest in a wilderness world. All his efforts only end in soul thirst — "hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them." In the ways of the Lord we learn by experience that nothing in all this restless scene can satisfy the soul. In the depths of their need men cry to the Lord. Then they discover that He can lead them by "the right way," which brings them to the rest of God — "a city of habitation."
The fainting has a purpose. God is after something higher than relief.
Now God would turn the thoughts of men to the highest good. He desires that they should find in Him their wealth and joy. And we learn that it is often only in hours of distress that men will turn to Him. Multitudes have found this, and the Scriptures say it plainly.
The empty soul of verse 5 needs filling. One writer names the only One who can do it.
Turn from the chaff and the straw of a mock Christianity, with its endless round of entertainment. Christ alone can meet the deep and desperate need of your perishing soul. He not only saves, but, glory to His name, "He satisfies the longing soul."
Read as Israel's history, the wandering of verse 5 does not last. One writer looks ahead to the day it is over.
Those who are of God are no longer entering into rest; they have gone in. The day is come. Glory dwells in the land, and Israel is gathered there out of the lands — from the east and the west, from the north and the south. They had wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way, and they found no city to dwell in. This is all past — past for ever. God has led them out by the right way, and they have come to a city to live in, yes, to His city.
- Wandering. People with no settled home and no company, finding no city to live in. The search itself wears them out.
- Fainting. The hunger and thirst are "more than physical need." The soul starves for what only God supplies, and is faint and ready to die.
- Crying. The depth of the distress is what moves them to call on the Lord. Often only in hours of distress will people turn to Him.
- Filling. The answer to a fainting soul is not better circumstances but a Person. He saves, and more than that, He satisfies the longing soul.
- Homecoming. The right way leads to the right end — a city to live in. Mercy endures for ever, because God's goodness does not fail where people do.
Then they cried unto Jehovah in their trouble, [and] he delivered them out of their distresses,
Psalm 107 opens the last book of the Psalms, and follows people in deep trouble who call on the Lord. Verse 6 is the first turning point — lost, starving travellers stop coping, they cry, and God acts.
The verses just before this describe wanderers in a desert with no home and no food. One writer takes that as a picture of every human search for rest.
First, man is viewed as a wanderer, seeking to find rest in a wilderness world. All his efforts only end in soul thirst — "Hungry and thirsty; their soul fainted in them." In His ways the Lord lets us prove that nothing in all this restless world can satisfy the soul.
The trouble in this psalm is not an accident that fell on innocent people. One writer traces the psalm to its root, and to the welcome waiting at the end.
This is the lesson of the psalm that opens the fifth book. It is so simple that you can hardly call it a lesson. Yet it is the moral of all man's history: ruin that man brought on himself; the cry for the Father's house forced out of him only by the famine; and still the open arms that receive a wanderer home. Thank God, for a soul truly awake to its need, those arms can do a work nothing else can. The lost one, now found, is brought to life from the dead.
The verse sets no conditions. It does not call these people worthy, only desperate.
We learn from this, as from many other events in the Word, that the thoughts of God's people never turn to Him in vain. Whatever their circumstances, and whatever caused them, He is ready to answer even while they call. "They cry to the Lord in their trouble, and He brings them out of all their distresses." How great are the compassions of our God!
The turning word in the verse is "then." One writer marks the moment the cry comes, and names the one exception to God's answer.
When they reach their wits' end, and can do nothing for themselves, then they cry to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivers them out of their distresses. He never heard a cry of need from anyone without answering it; not perhaps in our way, but in His own. There was only one perfectly righteous and dependent Man on this earth who cried and was not heard, and that was Jesus on the cross. "O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer." That was the one exception to all God's known ways down here.
Their rescue is not just an escape. One writer follows it into the next verse, to see where God takes them.
Finally, the depth of their distress moves them to cry out to the Lord. Nor was this in vain: "He delivered them out of their distresses" (v. 6). And He exchanged their lonely, desolate way for "the right way." We can apply this to ourselves. The Lord Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). If Christ is our object, we are in the right way. This leads also to a proper end in view — "a city for a dwelling place" (v. 7). The right way always leads to the right end.
One writer sets the psalm in Israel's history: a people brought back and led through trouble. What holds it together is not their record but God's mercy.
In the last book of Psalms we find, besides many songs of praise, all the moral circumstances of Israel on their return to blessing… This psalm describes toils and trials. In them the tossed and tried soul looked to the Lord, and He answered and stepped in on its behalf. It calls on men to acknowledge and praise Him. It carries this blessed truth at the front: His mercy endures for ever. Man fails, God's mercy to His people does not. His redeemed and gathered ones are the people who have to bear witness to this.
The trouble takes many forms, so no reader can place himself outside its reach.
Whatever hard circumstances come on them, however different in kind, they cry to the Lord, and He delivers them out of their distresses… No circumstance mentioned here puts the redeemed beyond the reach of the Lord's deliverance.
- Cause — we ruin ourselves; the famine forces out the cry; nothing in this world can satisfy the soul.
- Cry — need is the only qualification; "the thoughts of God's people never turn to Him in vain."
- Christ — the Lord never heard a cry of need without answering it; one cry alone went unheard, Christ's on the cross.
- Course — deliverance is not just out of trouble but onto "the right way," and the right way leads to the right end: a city to live in.
- Chorus — the rescued are the witnesses. Man fails, God's mercy does not, and no trouble in this psalm is beyond His reach.
And he led them forth by a right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.
The psalm opens with people lost in a desert: hungry, thirsty, with no city to live in. Verse 7 is God's answer to their cry, and it raises two questions: what makes a way right, and what is the city at the end of it?
Verse 7 sits in a psalm about people God has redeemed and gathered back. One writer traces their story from homelessness to rest.
It carries this blessed truth at the front: His mercy endures forever. The psalm celebrates God's unchanging love and goodness, from the moment Israel's failure was fully proved onward. Man fails; God's mercy to His people does not. It is His redeemed and gathered ones who are the people that have to bear witness to this. They were strangers and pilgrims where there was no resting place and no home. They were hungry and thirsty, and their soul fainted in them. They cried to the Lord, and He led them in a right way to where their foot and heart found rest.
Verse 7 is an exchange. Older translations, which these writers quote, read "a right way" where the ESV has "a straight way." What these people had was a lonely track. What God gives is a road with a destination.
He exchanged their solitary or desolate way for "the right way." We can apply this to ourselves. The Lord Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). If Christ is our Object, we are in the right way. This leads also to a proper end in view — "a city for a dwelling place" (v. 7). The right way always leads to the right end.
The wandering before verse 7 is not wasted. It proves what this world cannot give.
First, man is viewed as a wanderer, seeking to find rest in a wilderness world. All his efforts only end in soul thirst — "Hungry and thirsty; their soul fainted in them." In the ways of the Lord, God lets us prove that nothing in all this restless world can satisfy the soul. In the depth of their need men cry to the Lord. Then they discover that He can lead them by "the right way," the way that brings them to the rest of God — "a city of habitation."
One writer ties this line to Israel's road out of Egypt, where God kept them off the direct route.
You belong to the Lord, but you are still in the world, and God would lead you out, as He led Israel out of Egypt. "He led them forth by the right way" (Ps. 107:7). "When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, 'Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.' But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea" (Ex. 13:17-18).
Commentators differ on why that longer road counted as right. Another looks at the ground itself. The upper road would have been far too hard for a large caravan loaded with baggage, so they took the easiest and most direct route (H Forbes Witherby).
If God picks the route, no part of the journey is accidental. One writer turns that into comfort for anyone still travelling.
The poor, weary pilgrim finds great comfort in this: God marks out every stage of his wilderness journey by His infinite love and unerring wisdom. He is leading His people by a right way, home to Himself. And He Himself carefully orders every circumstance in their lot and every ingredient in their cup, with their present profit and their everlasting happiness in view.
Is the city only a picture of the people themselves? One writer says no, and points to the city God has prepared.
The new Jerusalem is certainly what its earthly picture was — a "city of habitation." It is not just a figure for the saints themselves. The patriarchs of old were content to wait in patient faith for the end of their pilgrim journey. They "looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God." God will not disappoint what they expected — "he has prepared for them a city" (Heb. 11:10, 16).
- Cry. Wandering, hunger, and a fainting soul drive people to call on the Lord. Verse 7 is His answer, not their achievement.
- Way. God does more than rescue them from the desert. He trades their lonely track for the right way, and Christ Himself is that way.
- Route. Right does not mean short. He led Israel around by the wilderness rather than the near road, sparing them a war they were not ready for.
- Care. God measures out every stage of the journey in love and wisdom, so nothing in the pilgrim's cup is unplanned.
- City. The right way always ends at the right end. That end is a city to live in — the one the patriarchs waited for and God has prepared.
Let them give thanks unto Jehovah for his loving-kindness, and for his wondrous works to the children of men;
Psalm 107 tells of one rescue after another, each one God's answer to a cry of distress. Verse 8 is the first of the lines that follow those rescues, and it only wishes that people would give thanks.
The refrain is not a general call to be grateful. It belongs to a psalm about one thing: God's steadfast love in rescuing people who had ruined themselves. (Where the ESV has "steadfast love" and "the LORD," the older translation these writers quote reads "goodness" and "Jehovah.")
The psalm celebrates that God's mercy lasts for ever — that blessed statement of faith — the unchanging goodness of Jehovah in every age. It belongs above all to restored Israel to sing it. God redeems them from the hand of the enemy; He gathers them back from east, west, north, and south. But the proper theme of the psalm is the goodness of Jehovah. It goes through deliverances of every kind, each one an answer to the cry of distress from a man who has brought himself low by his own folly. And with them goes the desire that people would praise Jehovah for His goodness, and for His wonderful works for the children of men.
The same words return at verse 15, after the next rescue in the psalm — and they reach further than Israel.
Again, when they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, "He delivered them from their distress" (v. 13). He lifted them out of the darkness and away from the threat of death, and He broke the chains that held them. The words of verse 8 could well be repeated here in verse 15. For believers now it is also true that God has broken the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron in two. What we found impossible to do to release ourselves, God has done by His matchless grace in Christ Jesus, the Great Deliverer.
The verse wishes for thanks instead of reporting it. Why are people slow to thank God?
God would turn people's thoughts to the highest good. He wants them to find their wealth and joy in Him. And we learn something that multitudes have experienced, and that Scripture states clearly: it is often only in hours of distress that people turn to Him.
The next line narrows the wide phrase "children of man" to one person: God satisfies the longing soul. So the verse speaks to anyone who feels that ache and doubts it will ever be met.
Take courage, then. He Himself formed this desire in you for His company, and you are longing for it — just as surely, He intends to satisfy it. "He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things." Let nothing turn you aside from the search. Set His presence before you as a goal more to be desired than gold or crystal, than pearls or rubies.
The wish does get an answer.
Let them answer to it, then. Let souls whose longing has found satisfaction, whose hunger has been fed with good, give His wonderful works the acknowledgment they deserve.
Verse 8 speaks about God to other people. It does not speak to God Himself. That distinction matters.
Speaking of His praises, even when we are not addressing Him, is certainly connected with worship, and the heart refers them to Him. But it does not take the form that belongs to worship, though it may enter into worship in a smaller way. It is sweet to tell one another the excellencies of the One we love. Yet the redeemed delight to have God Himself in their thoughts. They delight to address themselves to Him, to speak to Him, to adore Him personally. In short: in the first case we speak to ourselves, or to one another, telling each other how worthy God is to be praised. In the second, we speak to God Himself.
- Goodness rescues. The psalm's theme is God's unchanging goodness. It answers the cry of people who brought themselves low by their own folly.
- Goodness repeats. Verse 8 returns after each rescue. Its words fit believers today, freed by Christ, the Great Deliverer, from chains they could never break.
- Goodness waits. God wants people to find their wealth and joy in Him. Yet distress is often what turns them to Him. That is why the verse stays a wish.
- Goodness satisfies. He formed the longing in you, and He intends to satisfy it. The wide phrase narrows to one hungry soul.
- Goodness draws thanks. Rescued people answer: they tell others how worthy God is, and they speak to God Himself.
For he hath satisfied the longing soul and filled the hungry soul with good.
Psalm 107 pictures people lost in a wilderness world, hungry and thirsty, crying to the Lord in their trouble. Verse 9 tells us why He answers such a cry, and it holds out a promise anyone still hungry can test.
One writer follows the wanderer's path from thirst to rest.
First, man appears as a wanderer, looking for rest in a wilderness world. All his efforts only end in soul thirst — "Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them." In His ways the Lord lets us prove that nothing in all this restless world can satisfy the soul. In the depths of their need men cry to the Lord. Then they find that He can lead them "by a straight way" to the rest of God — "a city to dwell in." So we discover the goodness of the Lord who "satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things."
Why does God let people reach that point? One writer answers from what God wants for them.
Now God would turn the thoughts of men to the highest good. He wants them to find their wealth and joy in Him. Multitudes have proved this, and the Scriptures say it plainly: it is often only in hours of distress that men will turn to Him.
The verse uses two words: satisfies and fills. They do not mean the same thing. A person can be full and still empty.
A man may hunger after the world and not be filled; the world is fading, not filling. A man may be filled and not satisfied. A sinner may take his fill of sin, but it is far from satisfaction... but he who hungers after righteousness shall be filled to satisfaction. "My people shall be satisfied with my goodness" (Jer. 31:14).
If you want God's company, that desire has a source — and its source decides how it ends.
Take courage, then. He Himself formed the desire for His company in you, and you are longing for it. Just as surely, He intends to satisfy it. "He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things." Let nothing turn you aside from the search. Set His presence before you as a goal to desire more than gold or crystal, more than pearls or rubies.
Another writer puts it from the other side. We do not do the filling.
Whatever food nourishes us, whatever growth we gain, we receive it out of the fullness of Christ. It is He who satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with His goodness. It is not we who satisfy or fill ourselves. He is the only one who does it all.
So where does a Christian find this satisfaction now? One writer points to the letters of the New Testament.
I look at the various Christian letters as having been written along the lines of Psalm 107:9. The Christian's Saviour and Lord satisfies every longing the new birth creates in him and the Spirit directs. And His goodness is beyond telling — the very goodness of God in Him. In blessing us, it puts anything like hunger for ever at a distance.
Being satisfied does not end the hunger. One writer explains why, from Paul's longing to know Christ.
It means that the knowledge of Christ cannot be exhausted. The more we know Him, the more we must know. All the heart has learned to know of Him in any small measure is only the foundation for a deepening longing to know Him better. Surely there comes a divine satisfying in every longing God creates, for "He satisfies the longing soul." Paul's longing was "that I may know him." Does not that carry a divine satisfaction with it? It does, but only to create capacity for a deeper longing, then a deeper satisfying. So the soul goes on growing while we are here, in these longings and their divine satisfyings, until at last we reach the fullness in His blessed presence for ever.
- Hunger comes first. Nothing in this restless world satisfies the soul. That emptiness is what drives it to cry out.
- Hunger is His gift. God Himself forms the desire, and that is why He will meet it. We never fill ourselves.
- Filling is not satisfying. The world can fill a person and still leave him empty. Only His goodness satisfies.
- Satisfaction has a name. Christ answers every longing the new birth creates. The New Testament letters unfold Him.
- Satisfied, and hungry again. Every filling makes room for a deeper longing. The growth goes on until we reach the fullness in His presence for ever.