John Calvin Commentary Psalms 107:11

"Because they rebelled against the words of God, And contemned the counsel of the Most High:" — Psalms 107:11 (ASV)

Because they rebelled — in assigning the cause of their afflictions, he corrects the false impressions of those people who imagine that these afflictions happen by chance. If they were to reflect on the judgments of God, they would immediately perceive that there was nothing like chance or fortune in the government of the world.

Moreover, until people are persuaded that all their troubles come upon them by God's appointment, it will never occur to them to supplicate Him for deliverance.

Furthermore, when the prophet assigns the reason for their afflictions, he should not be understood as speaking of those people as if they were notoriously wicked. Instead, he is to be seen as calling upon the afflicted to examine carefully certain parts of their lives and, even if no one accuses them, to look into their own hearts, where they will always discover the true origin of all the miseries that overtake them.

Nor does he only charge them with having merely sinned, but with having rebelled against the word of God, thus intimating that the best and only regulation for our lives consists in yielding a prompt obedience to His commandments. When, therefore, sheer necessity compels those who are convicted in this way to cry to God, they must be senseless indeed if they do not acknowledge that the deliverance they receive, contrary to their expectation, comes directly from God.

For bronze gates and iron bars are spoken of to enhance the benefit, as if to say, the chains of perpetual slavery have been broken apart.