Psalm 107 Bible study: Let the redeemed say so

The psalm has no title. It begins, "Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his loving kindness endures forever" (107:1) (tap loving kindness). Psalm 118 and Psalm 136 begin with the same words in the WEB (Psalm 118:1, 136:1), and Psalm 106 has them after "Praise the LORD!" (Psalm 106:1). Then comes a call: "Let the redeemed by the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from the hand of the adversary, and gathered out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south" (107:2-3) (tap redeemed). The introduction divides the book into five parts at four places where a psalm closes by blessing the LORD, with an amen (Psalm 41:13, 72:18-19, 89:52, 106:48), and this psalm opens the fifth, which runs to the end of the book (Psalm 150:6). The psalm doesn't name the redeemed, the adversary or the lands, and these notes don't supply them.

Psalms 107:10→leads toLuke 1:79

Of prisoners who cried to the LORD, the psalm says, "Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death" (Psalm 107:10), and "He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke away their chains" (Psalm 107:14). When John was born, his father Zacharias "was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied" (Luke 1:67). He blessed God, who "has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David" (Luke 1:69), and he ended, "because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the dawn from on high will visit us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace" (Luke 1:78-79). Luke has already told that the son Mary will name Jesus (Luke 1:31) will be given "the throne of his father David" (Luke 1:32). Luke doesn't name the psalm, so setting the two side by side is a reading. It rests on what both speak of, people sitting in darkness and the shadow of death and God's mercy reaching them, not on one shared word, and no link between the Hebrew and the Greek is claimed. One reading hears Psalm 107 in Zacharias's words: those the psalm says the LORD brought out of darkness and the shadow of death are a picture of those on whom the dawn shines in Jesus. Another hears Isaiah instead: "The light has shined on those who lived in the land of the shadow of death" (Isaiah 9:2), a verse Matthew quotes of Jesus coming to Galilee (Matthew 4:13-16). Zacharias speaks of light shining, as Isaiah does, while the psalm speaks of being brought out; so this reading hears Zacharias's song without a link to this psalm. These notes don't choose between them, and they don't make the psalm a prophecy of Jesus.

חֶסֶדchesedsay KHE-sed

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "goodness, kindness", and of God, "kindness, lovingkindness in condescending to the needs of his creatures". "Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his loving kindness endures forever" (107:1). The word opens the psalm, comes in each of the four calls to praise (107:8, 107:15, 107:21, 107:31), and ends it, in the plural: "They will consider the loving kindnesses of the LORD" (107:43). The psalm has chesed six times in Hebrew. Psalm 100's notes show that his loving kindness endures forever is two Hebrew words, le'olam chasdo, with no separate word for endures (Psalm 100:5).