Psalm 107:22

And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

107:17-22 If we knew no sin, we should know no sickness. Sinners are fools. They hurt their bodily health by intemperance, and endanger their lives by indulging their appetites. This their way is their folly. The weakness of the body is the effect of sickness. It is by the power and mercy of God that we are recovered from sickness, and it is our duty to be thankful. All Christ's miraculous cures were emblems of his healing diseases of the soul. It is also to be applied to the spiritual cures which the Spirit of grace works. He sends his word, and heals souls; convinces, converts them, makes them holy, and all by the word. Even in common cases of recovery from sickness, God in his providence speaks, and it is done; by his word and Spirit the soul is restored to health and holiness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And let them sacrifice - As in the cases before Psalm 107:9, Psalm 107:16, this is connected with the preceding part of the psalm, or is a "continuation" of the thought which had been interrupted by the prayer, "Oh that men would praise the Lord." The particular idea here is, that they who have been sick, and who have been restored to health, should offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving; or, that they are the proper persons to praise the Lord. The word "sacrifice" here is used in a large sense to denote worship or adoration. Let them worship God with thanks or praises.

The sacrifices of thanksgiving - Hebrew, "praise." Let them offer praise.

And declare his works with rejoicing - Margin, as in Hebrew, "singing." Let them set forth his "doings" in songs. Compare Psalm 9:11.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20. sent his word—that is, put forth His power.

their destructions—that is, that which threatened them. To the chorus is added the mode of giving thanks, by a sacrifice and joyful singing (Ps 50:14).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Sacrifices of thanksgiving; either properly so called; or praises and thanksgivings to God, which in Scripture are called sacrifices, because they are no less acceptable to God than costly sacrifices.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving,.... Not legal sacrifices, but spiritual and evangelical ones, the sacrifices of praise and thankfulness which God has enjoined are well pleasing to him through Christ, glorify him, and are but our reasonable service; see Hebrews 13:15.

And declare his works with rejoicing: tell them to the children of men, what he has done for them, for soul and body; let them come to Zion with joy and everlasting joy on their heads; to the gates thereof, or to the public assemblies of the saints, and there declare what great things the Lord has done for them; and has had compassion upon them in healing their bodily diseases, and curing them of their soul maladies.

Geneva Study Bible

And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of {k} thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.

(k) Praise and confession of God's benefits are the true sacrifices of the godly.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving; compare the expression, "the calves of our lips" (Hosea 14:2), and see also Hebrews 13:15. And declare his works with rejoicing; i.e. joyfully pro claim the great things that God has done for them. Psalm 107:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Others were brought to the brink of the grave by severe sickness; but when they draw nigh in earnest prayer to Him who appointed that they should suffer thus on account of their sins, He became their Saviour. אויל (cf. e.g., Job 5:3), like נבל (vid., Psalm 14:1), is also an ethical notion, and not confined to the idea of defective intellect merely. It is one who insanely lives only for the passing hour, and ruins health, calling, family, and in short himself and everything belonging to him. Those who were thus minded, the poet begins by saying, were obliged to suffer by reason of (in consequence of) their wicked course of life. The cause of their days of pain and sorrow is placed first by way of emphasis; and because it has a meaning that is related to the past יתענּוּ thereby comes all the more easily to express that which took place simultaneously in the past. The Hithpa. in 1 Kings 2:26 signifies to suffer willingly or intentionally; here: to be obliged to submit to suffering against one's will. Hengstenberg, for example, construes it differently: "Fools because of their walk in transgression (more than 'because of their transgression'), and those who because of their iniquities were afflicted - all food," etc. But מן beside יתענּוּ has the assumption in its favour of being an affirmation of the cause of the affliction. In Psalm 107:18 the poet has the Book of Job (Job 33:20, Job 33:22) before his eye. And in connection with Psalm 107:20, ἀπέστειλεν τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ καὶ ἰάσατο αὐτοὺς (lxx), no passage of the Old Testament is more vividly recalled to one's mind than Psalm 105:19, even more than Psalm 147:18; because here, as in Psalm 105:19, it treats of the intervention of divine acts within the sphere of human history, and not of the intervention of divine operations within the sphere of the natural world. In the natural world and in history the word (דּבר) is God's messenger (Psalm 105:19, cf. Isaiah 55:10.), and appears here as a mediator of the divine healing. Here, as in Job 33:23., the fundamental fact of the New Testament is announced, which Theodoret on this passage expresses in words: Ὁ Θεὸς Λόγος ἐνανθρωπήσας καὶ ἀποσταλεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος τὰ παντοδαπὰ τῶν ψυχῶν ἰάσατο τραύματα καὶ τοὺς διαφθαρέντας ἀνέῤῥωσε λογισμούς. The lxx goes on to render it: καὶ ἐῤῥύσατο αὐτοὺς ἐκ τῶν διαφθορῶν αὐτῶν, inasmuch as the translators derive שׁחיתותם from שׁחיתה (Daniel 6:5), and this, as שׁחת elsewhere (vid., Psalm 16:10), from שׁחת, διαφθείρειν, which is approved by Hitzig. But Lamentations 4:20 is against this. From שׁחה is formed a noun שׁחוּת (שׁחוּת) in the signification a hollow place (Proverbs 28:10), the collateral form of which, שׁחית (שׁחית), is inflected like חנית, plur. חניתות with a retention of the substantival termination. The "pits" are the deep afflictions into which they were plunged, and out of which God caused them to escape. The suffix of וירפאם avails also for ימלּט, as in Genesis 27:5; Genesis 30:31; Psalm 139:1; Isaiah 46:5.