Psalms 107:31 Meaning and Explanation
“Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →The fourth time a line comes around, it carries everything the previous three collected. Wanderers, prisoners, the sick, and now sailors have all reached this same sentence. What began as a wish over one group has become a claim about how God treats humanity generally, and the next verse will push it into the public square.
The refrain returns for the last time, urging that God's wonderful works be met with praise. Placed after the storm, it asks the rescued to say aloud what they have just seen him do.
The Context of Psalms 107:31
This is the last of four identical refrains in Psalm 107, following verses 8, 15, and 21. It closes the sea scene, which ran from verse 23 through the storm, the crew's collapse, their cry, the calm, and their arrival in harbor. This refrain alone is followed by a further instruction, since verse 32 names where the praise should happen. After verse 32 the psalm changes shape entirely, moving into a survey of how God reverses the fortunes of lands and peoples, and closing with a call to observe these things wisely.
What Does Psalms 107:31 Mean?
The line asks for praise on two grounds and names both. 'His goodness' points to God's committed kindness, and 'his wonderful works' points to deeds that cause astonishment, the vocabulary Israel used for the plagues, the sea crossing, and other acts beyond ordinary explanation. Calling a sea rescue a wonderful work puts one crew's night on the same shelf as the exodus. The recipients are 'the children of men,' a phrase covering humanity at large rather than one nation only. And the whole sentence is a wish, marked in English by 'Oh that,' which leaves the response genuinely open.
Four scenes and one response make an argument by accumulation. The psalm has now covered trouble that came from bad circumstances, from rebellion, from personal folly, and from weather nobody chose, and it has closed each account with the same call. No group receives a smaller portion of praise material than another. This is why the psalm can open by summoning the redeemed of the LORD to say so, since by the end every reader has been offered a category to stand in. The refrain functions as the psalm's spine, holding four unrelated stories together into one testimony about God's character.
Israel's later worship kept this instinct alive. The Psalter repeatedly speaks of God making his wonderful works to be remembered, and remembrance in Israel meant recital, festivals, and songs learned by children. The concern behind the refrain is that mighty acts have a short shelf life in human memory unless somebody keeps telling them. That concern runs on into the New Testament, where the Lord's supper is given with the instruction to do this in remembrance of him, and where the apostles' preaching consists largely of reporting what God has done. Verse 31 is a small guard against forgetting.
Psalms 107:31 in the Original Language
niphla'ot (נִפְלָאוֹת), 'wonderful works' -- deeds that are extraordinary, beyond what people can produce or predict. Israel used this word for the acts that defined its history with God, so applying it to a quieted sea places one crew's rescue in that same company.
Bible Verses Related to Psalms 107:31
“Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!”
- Psalm 107:21
“Let them exalt him also in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders.”
- Psalm 107:32
“He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered: the LORD is gracious and full of compassion.”
- Psalm 111:4
“Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.”
- Psalm 40:5
Where Psalms 107:31 Echoes in Scripture
Psalms 111:4 says that God has made his wonderful works to be remembered, and adds that the LORD is gracious and full of compassion. The two halves match the two grounds of praise named in this refrain, wonderful works and goodness, and the added claim is that the works were designed to be recalled. Israel's calendar, its offerings, and its songs all served that purpose. Psalm 107's fourfold refrain is one more instrument built for the same job.
How to Apply Psalms 107:31 Today
Repetition is a spiritual discipline more than a literary flaw. Saying the same true thing about God after four different rescues is how a person becomes stable. We can build small versions of this: a weekly hour where the household names what God did, a line in a journal after each answered prayer, a habit of ending hard seasons with an explicit sentence of thanks. The refrain also gives us something to say when we have no fresh insight. Praise for God's goodness and his wonderful works fits every situation in this psalm, and it will fit ours.
Reflection & Prayer
If we listed four rescues from our own history, could we say the same sentence over all of them? A prayer: Lord, your kindness has been the constant in stories that look nothing alike. Give me a memory that holds your works and a mouth that reports them. Let my thanks be as steady as your goodness has been.