Commentary on Selected Psalms

                                Psalm 107:10-21 (KJB)

These verses have been interpreted by the Church to mean that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will bring humans out of the darkness of sin into the light of salvation by grace, and this happens to be a valid interpretation on a spiritual level. But since many scriptures have a double meaning, these verses seem to have a second meaning.

This second interpretation hinges on the meaning of the phrase "the shadow of death." In the Old Testament, this phrase refers to the grave, and beyond the grave a region of total darkness. Job 3:1-6 (KJB). In the New Testament, one of the regions of Hell is called Death which happens to be a place of total darkness. Revelation 20:13 (KJB). This means that the phrase "the shadow of death" refers not only to a lost spiritual condition, but to an actual place. In Psalm 23:4, when king David used the phrase, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me...," he expressed his sublime faith that God had delivered him from spiritual death. But he also compares "the shadow of death" to a "valley" which can only be an actual place. God inspired David to write a second meaning of his faith which is that when he dies and goes to the grave, he has faith that God will resurrect his body back to life in the general resurrection. Daniel 12:2-3 (KJB).

Other Old Testament writers referred to the "shadow of death" as being an actual place. When Job expressed his wish that he had died in birth, he used the phrase "shadow of death" to mean a place of total darkness beyond the grave. Job 3:1-6; Job 12:22; Job 28:3 (KJB). In Job 28:17, God Himself referred to "the shadow of death" as being an actual place beyond the grave. Isaiah prophesied that the phrase "the shadow of death" meant not only spiritual darkness, but he compared this phrase to "land" which can only be an actual place. Isaiah 2:9 (KJB). Jeremiah compared the phrase "the shadow of death" to the wilderness through which the Israelites wandered, and to a "dark mountain," both of which are actual places. Jeremiah 2:6; Jeremiah 13:16 (KJB).

All of this put together must mean that Psalm 107:10-21 happens to be a prophecy that God will not only deliver His living humans from spiritual darkness and death through His salvation by His grace, but He will also visit the regions of death in the end of the world and cause all of His living humans confined there to repent and believe in Christ as the Lamb of God their Savior so that He can save them from eternal death and resurrect them and recreate them to a new life on His recreated earth. John 3:17-21; John 5:24; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; Psalm 68:18; I Corinthians 15:20-22 (KJB).