Psalms 107:1-3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

O give thanks, &c. This whole verse occurs also Psalms 106:1; only there the address is made to the Israelites, here, it seems, to all mankind. For his mercy endureth for ever “Eternal mercy is the theme here proposed; and they who have tasted its sweets, are invited to join in setting forth its praises.” Let the redeemed say so All those whom God hath redeemed, as it is expressed in the next clause, or delivered from the calamities hereafter mentioned: whom he hath redeemed from the enemy From such as had taken them captive, either in battle, or in their travels, to which they were led, either by their own inclinations or by their necessary affairs. And gathered them out of the lands, &c. Bringing them into their own land, out of the several quarters of the world into which they had been carried. And from the south Hebrew, from the sea; which, in Scripture, commonly denotes the west, because the great Mediterranean sea was on the west of Canaan; but here, as appears from the opposition of this to the north, it signifies the south, so called from the Red sea, which was on the south, and which is sometimes called The Sea, simply, and without addition. “The members of the Christian Church,” says Dr. Horne, “are now, in the most proper and emphatical sense of the words, the redeemed of Jehovah, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered them, by the gospel, out of all lands, and from all the four quarters of the world, to form a church, and to supply the place of the apostate Jews, whose forefathers experienced, in type and shadow, the good things prepared for them and for us, in truth and substance.”