John Calvin Commentary Psalms 107:17

"Fools because of their transgression, And because of their iniquities, are afflicted." — Psalms 107:17 (ASV)

Fools are afflicted on account of the way of their transgression. He now comes to another kind of chastisement. For as he observed above that those who refused to obey God were given over to captivity, so now he teaches that others have been afflicted by God with disease, as the fruit of their transgressions. And when the transgressor realizes that it is God who is correcting him, this will pave the way for him to come to the knowledge of His grace.

He calls them fools who, thoughtlessly giving themselves up to sensuality, bring destruction upon themselves. The sin they commit is not only the result of ignorance and error, but of their carnal affections. These affections, depriving them of proper understanding, cause them to devise things detrimental to themselves. The maxim that the fear of God is wisdom must never be forgotten.

Hence it plainly follows that those who shake off God's yoke and surrender themselves to Satan and sin are the victims of their own folly and fury. And as a principal ingredient of this madness, the prophet uses the term deletion or transgression; and then he adds iniquities. This is because when a man once departs from God, from that moment he loses all self-control and falls from one sin into another.

But this passage does not refer to the common diseases that prevail in the world. Instead, it refers to those considered fatal, for which all hope of life is abandoned.

In such cases, God's grace becomes more conspicuous when deliverance from them is obtained.

When a man recovers from a slight illness, he does not discern God's power as plainly as when it is displayed in a wonderful and remarkable manner to bring some back from the gates of death and restore them to their usual health and vigor. He says, therefore, that they are preserved from many corruptions, which is equivalent to saying that they are delivered from just as many deaths.

To this effect are the following words of the prophet, in which he says, that they approach the gates of death, and that they loathe all food. We have already referred to their calling upon God.

Namely, when people are reduced to the greatest distress, by calling upon God for aid in this way, they acknowledge that they would be lost unless He wonderfully intervened for their deliverance.