Psalms 107:13 Meaning and Explanation
“Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.”
King James Version (KJV)
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Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →One word does most of the work in this verse, and it is Then. It follows a description of people flat on the ground with no one to help. The psalm repeats this line four times with small variations, which means the writer wants it memorized. A sentence built to be remembered is usually a sentence someone expects us to need.
The turning point of the second scene. From the bottom of forced labour the prisoners call out to the LORD, and he rescues them, answering a cry that carried no bargaining power at all.
The Context of Psalms 107:13
The refrain of the cry appears at verses 6, 13, 19, and 28, once in each of the psalm's four scenes. Here it belongs to the prisoners of verses 10 through 16. Verse 12 has just left them fallen with no helper. Verse 13 records the cry and the salvation together in one line, and verse 14 spells out the rescue in detail, bringing them out of darkness and breaking their bands in sunder. Verse 15 follows with the refrain of praise, and verse 16 celebrates broken gates of brass and cut bars of iron.
What Does Psalms 107:13 Mean?
Cried is a plain word for a loud call of need, with no suggestion of eloquence or ceremony. In their trouble locates the cry inside the situation, which means they called while still bound. Unto the LORD names the direction, and the covenant name matters here, since these are people who had rebelled against his words. He saved them out of their distresses puts the verb in his hands, and the plural distresses covers the tangle rather than one difficulty. Note the compression. The cry and the saving occupy a single sentence with nothing between them. Whatever delay the prisoners experienced, the psalm reports the response as immediate.
The fourfold repetition of this refrain gives the psalm its argument. Wanderers, prisoners, the sick, and sailors have very different troubles, and each group reaches the same door. That structure teaches by accumulation, so a reader who has not yet been in irons has already met the pattern in the wilderness scene and will meet it again at sea. Verse 43 draws the conclusion, calling wise the person who observes these things and understands the lovingkindness of the LORD. The psalm builds a case that God's readiness to hear is a fixed feature of how he deals with people, tested across four kinds of distress.
Prison and broken chains appear again in Acts, where Peter is delivered while the church prays without ceasing, and where an earthquake opens the doors for Paul and Silas at midnight as they sing. Those accounts read like this psalm continued into a new setting. Jesus opened his ministry in Nazareth by reading from Isaiah about deliverance to the captives, which places the same concern at the center of his work. The cry recorded here has an established history of being answered, and the New Testament keeps adding to the record rather than replacing it.
Psalms 107:13 in the Original Language
zaaq (זָעַק), 'cried' -- a Hebrew verb for a loud outcry raised under pressure, used of people calling for help against oppression. The word carries urgency rather than polish, which suits prisoners calling from the floor of a workhouse with nothing prepared to say.
Bible Verses Related to Psalms 107:13
“He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.”
- Psalm 107:14
“Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.”
- Psalm 107:6
“And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”
- Psalm 50:15
“And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.”
- Acts 16:26
Where Psalms 107:13 Echoes in Scripture
Psalm 50:15 states as a promise what Psalm 107 reports as history, inviting the worshipper to call upon God in the day of trouble with the assurance of deliverance and the expectation of glory given back. Reading the two together shows the invitation and the record standing side by side in the same collection. One tells us what God says he will do, and the other shows four groups of people finding it so. The psalms often teach in exactly this way.
How to Apply Psalms 107:13 Today
The most useful thing this verse offers is permission. Prayer here requires no repair work first, no improved record, no composed language. People who had despised God's counsel called out and were heard. For us that might mean praying in the car in half sentences, or asking a friend to pray because we cannot. It might also mean writing down a deliverance we already received and keeping it where we will see it, since the psalm treats remembered rescues as fuel for the next hard season.
Reflection & Prayer
What have we been managing quietly that we have never actually cried out about? A prayer: LORD, I am calling from where I am, without a plan and without much to offer. Hear me. Bring me out of what I cannot break, and let me be one of the people who tells the story afterward so that someone else takes heart.