Bible Strands
Psalms 107:39
When they are decreased and humbled by oppression, evil, and sorrow,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses the community, describing a group whose prior blessing and multiplication has reversed into reduction and humiliation. The moment marks a pivot from divine provision to measured judgment within the same literary unit.
The words — וַ/יִּמְעֲט֥וּ (va/i.yim.'a.Tu) literally means they became few or decreased, and וַ/יָּשֹׁ֑חוּ (va/i.ya.Sho.chu) means they were bowed down or humbled. These verbs directly state the physical and social diminishment of the people.
The thread — The pattern of reduction and oppression recurs in Exodus 2:23, where Israel groans under a master's burden, and 2 Kings 10:32, where the LORD actively reduces Israel's size. Judges 6:3 extends this thread by detailing how external forces systematically diminish the people's security.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge that prosperity can abruptly shift into enforced reduction and affliction. It establishes a structural contrast between divine multiplication and divine humiliation within the same covenantal framework.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Again, they are minished and brought low through oppression, affliction, and sorrow.
Cross-references
- Exodus 2:23 After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.
- 2 Kings 10:32 In those days the LORD began to reduce the size of Israel. Hazael defeated the Israelites throughout their territory
- Judges 6:3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east would come up and invade them,
- 2 Kings 14:26 For the LORD saw that the affliction of the Israelites, both slave and free, was very bitter. There was no one to help Israel,
- 2 Chronicles 15:5 In those days there was no safety for travelers, because the residents of the lands had many conflicts.
- Genesis 45:11 And there I will provide for you, because there will be five more years of famine. Otherwise, you and your household and everything you own will come to destitution.’
- Exodus 1:13 They worked the Israelites ruthlessly
- Ruth 1:20 “Do not call me Naomi,” she replied. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has dealt quite bitterly with me.
- 1 Samuel 2:5 The well-fed hire themselves out for food, but the starving hunger no more. The barren woman gives birth to seven, but she who has many sons pines away.
- 2 Kings 4:8 One day Elisha went to Shunem, and a prominent woman who lived there persuaded him to have a meal. So whenever he would pass by, he would stop there to eat.