BibleTools.info

For he hath broken - This is the reason given for thanks to God for his deliverance of the captives. It was not a simple deliverance; it was done so as to manifest the irresistible power of God. He tore the prison in pieces, and cut the bars of iron asunder.

For he hath broken the gates of brass - The immediate “reason” here given for praising the Lord is that he had “broken the gates of brass,” continuing the thought from Psalm 107:10-14. In the previous part of the psalm, in giving a reason for praising the Lord, the fact that he feeds the hungry was selected Psalm 107:9 because in the preceding part the allusion was to the sufferings of hunger and thirst Psalm 107:4-5; here the fact that he had broken the gates of brass is selected, because the allusion in the immediately preceding verses Psalm 107:12-14 was to their imprisonment. In the construction of the psalm there is great regularity. The “gates of brass” refer probably to Babylon; and the idea is, that their deliverance had been as if the brass gates of that great city had been broken down to give them free egress from their captivity. Thus the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus is announced in similar language: “I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron,” Isaiah 45:2. See the notes at that passage.

This description of prisoners and captives intimates that they are desolate and sorrowful. In the eastern prisons the captives were and are treated with much severity. Afflicting providences must be improved as humbling providences; and we lose the benefit, if our hearts are unhumbled and unbroken under them. This is a shadow of the sinner's deliverance from a far worse confinement. The awakened sinner discovers his guilt and misery. Having struggled in vain for deliverance, he finds there is no help for him but in the mercy and grace of God. His sin is forgiven by a merciful God, and his pardon is accompanied by deliverance from the power of sin and Satan, and by the sanctifying and comforting influences of God the Holy Spirit.