Psalms 107:12

Psa 107:12 Therefore he brought down their heart with labour; they fell down, and [there was] none to help.

Ver. 12. Therefore he brought down their heart] That proud piece of flesh, Quod erat elatum et verba Dei contempsit, saith Kimchi, which had stouted it out with God, and thought to have carried it away with a strong hand; as Manasseh, that sturdy rebel, till God had hampered him, and laid him in cold irons.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. (Psa 107:12) And he brought down, with trouble, their heart; they stumbled and there was no helper. The remedial design and effect of their punishment are beautifully set forth in the first clause. The word translated trouble means originally work or labour, then the pain attending it or flowing from it. Stumbled may here be put for fell, or have the milder sense of tottering or stumbling, as distinguished from a total fall. No helper, or none helping, except God, as intimated in the next verse; or against God, when he chose to punish them.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

107:12 Exhausted by their hard labor (Lam 5:13), the people fell. While this might be expected of the wicked (Pss 9:3; 27:2), it was unlike the Israelites’ flight from Egypt (105:37).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 12. He brought down their heart with labour] He delivered them into the hands of their enemies. and, as they would not be under subjection to GOD, he delivered them into slavery to wicked men: "So they fell down, and there was none to help ;" God had forsaken them because they had forsaken him.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(12) Brought down.—Literally, made them bend.

Fell down.—Better, stumbled.

The whole verse presents a picture of men staggering under the forced labour which was the usual fate of captives under the great Oriental monarchies.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. So that he subdued their heart with travail. Cp. Psa_106:42.

they fell down] Lit. they stumbled; figuratively as in Psa_105:37 (note); Isa_3:8 (A.V. is ruined).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He brought them out of darkness,.... In which they were by nature, into marvellous light; to see their interest in Christ, and his salvation; and to have the light of joy and comfort in him.

And the shadow of death; quickening them by his Spirit and grace; causing them to live by faith upon him; entitling them to eternal life, and securing them from eternal death.

And brake their bands in sunder; their cords and fetters of affliction; or their bands of sin, and the power of it; and loosed them whom Satan had bound and kept so for many years, and brought them into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Therefore he brought down their heart - Their pride; their self-sufficiency; their self-complacency. They thought that they could do without God; they relied on their own resources, and were self-satisfied; but God showed them that all this was vain, and humbled them, as he often does the proud, in the dust.

With labour - With trouble; with affliction; with disappointment; with reverses; with sorrow. The Hebrew word - עמל ‛âmâl - would include all this. Compare Gen 41:51; Deu 26:7; Job 3:10; Job 16:2.

They fell down - They, as it were, “stumbled” - for so the Hebrew word means. They were walking along with a haughty air, and a high look, and suddenly they stumbled and fell.

And there was none to help - No God to interpose; no nation to befriend them; no human arm to be stretched out for their deliverance. God gave them up, helpless, to the just consequences of their folly and wickedness.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Their heart; the pride, and rebellion, and obstinacy of their hearts.

With labour; or, with trouble or troubles. They fell into their enemy’s hands, and into hopeless and remediless miseries.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 12. Therefore he brought down their heart with labour. In eastern prisons men are frequently made to labour like beasts of the field. As they have no liberty, so they have no rest. This soon subdues the stoutest heart, and makes the proud boaster sing another tune. Trouble and hard toil are enough to tame a lion. God has methods of abating the loftiness of rebellious looks; the cell and the mill make even giants tremble.

They fell down, and there was none to help. Stumbling on in the dark beneath their weary task, they at last fell prone upon the ground, but no one came to pity them or to lift them up. Their fall might be fatal for aught that any man cared about them; their misery was unseen, or, if observed, no one could interfere between them and their tyrant masters. In such a wretched plight the rebellious Israelite became more lowly in mind, and thought more tenderly of his God and of his offences against him. When a soul finds all its efforts at self salvation prove abortive, and feels that it is now utterly without strength, then the Lord is at work hiding pride from man and preparing the afflicted one to receive his mercy. The spiritual case which is here figuratively described is desperate, and therefore affords the finer field for the divine interposition; some of us remember well how brightly mercy shone in our prison, and what music the fetters made when they fell off from our hands. Nothing but the Lord's love could have delivered us; without it we must have utterly perished.

Ver. 12. He brought down their heart. O believer, God may see you have many and strong lusts to be subdued, and that you need many and sore afflictions to bring them down. Your pride and obstinacy of heart may be strong, your distempers deeply rooted, and therefore the physic must be proportioned to them. John Willison.

Ver. 12. He brought down their heart with labour. Those towering passions by which they vainly vaunted themselves above the law and the worship of God, he weakened and curbed, so that they began to submit themselves to God. The root enk taken from the Arabic, describes a process of weakening by compressing the wings or shrinking the fingers, and is properly applied to birds, which when their wings are compressed are obliged to fall to the ground, or to men, who by the shrivelling up of their fingers lose the power of working; whence it is transferred to oppressions or depressions of any kind. Venema.

Ver. 12. They fell down, and there was none to help. Affliction is then come to the height and its complete measure, when the sinner is made sensible of his own weakness, and doth see there is no help for him, save in God alone. David Dickson.

Ver. 12. They fell down. They threw themselves prostrate at his feet for mercy; their heart and strength failed them, as the word signifies, and is used in Ps 31:10; terrified with a sense of divine wrath, they could not stand before the Lord, nor brave it out against him. And there was none to help. They could not help themselves, nor was there any creature that could. There is salvation in no other than in Christ; when he saw there was none to help him in that work, his own arm brought salvation to him; and when sinners see there is help in no other, they apply to him. John Gill.

Ver. 12-13.

1. The convicted soul's abject conditionhumbled, exhausted, prostrate, deserted.

2. His speedy deliverance. Cried, cried while in trouble, unto the Lord, he saved, out of their distresses.

Psalms 107:13*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Brought down their heart with labour—He bowed down their heart, as one bends low to a heavy, servile task. The bowing down the “heart,” shows that the seat of their greatest suffering and labour was inward. Sin is a hard service. See Isa_4:2; Rom_6:23.

They fell down— They fainted under their oppressive labour.

None to help—None but God, whom they had rejected, and whose service of freedom and delight they had despised.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Therefore he brought down their heart with labor; rather, with misery, or with sorrow. They fell down; i.e. collapsed sank to the earth. And there was none to help. They were like Job; no one gave them any help in their affliction.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heart - The pride and obstinacy of their hearts. Fell - They fell into hopeless miseries.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.