Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” (Psalm 107:1)

Psalm 107 is unique in the Psalter. It opens with an imperative call to praise, familiar to the corporate hymnic praise psalms (note esp. the two preceding psalms), but it does not celebrate Israel’s corporate experience as a people or refer to any particular historical events or traditions. Rather, it rehearses the deliverances of various unspecified groups of individuals. In this respect, it shares similarities to the thanksgiving psalms, but these generally celebrate an individual’s recent deliverance. The repeated summons for these groups to give thanks (vv. 1, 8, 15, 21, 31) and the attendant call to sacrifice thank offerings, while telling “of his works with songs of joy” (v. 22) probably indicate that this psalm is a festival summons for the formal performance of thanksgiving, in both thanksgiving psalms and thanksgiving sacrifices. Whether these would occur individually or en masse, we cannot be sure.

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