Psalms 107:39

Again, they are minished - Sometimes by war, or pestilence, or famine. How minished and brought low was the country already spoken of, by the long and destructive war which began in 1775, and was not ended till 1783! And what desolations, minishings, and ruin have been brought on the fertile empires of Europe by the war which commenced in 1792, and did not end till 1814! And how many millions of lives have been sacrificed in it, and souls sent unprepared into the eternal world! When God makes inquisition for blood, on whose heads will he find the blood of these slaughtered millions? Alas! O, alas!

Again, they are minished ... - literally, "And they are made to decrease." That is - all is in the hand of God. He rules and directs all things. If there is prosperity, it comes from him; if there are reverses, they occur under his hand. People are not always prosperous. There are changes, misfortunes, disappointments, sorrows. God so deals with the race as in the bests manner to secure the recognition of himself: not always sending prosperity, lest people should regard it as a thing of course, and forget that it comes from him; and not making the course of life uniformly that of disappointment and sorrow, lest they should feel that there is no God presiding over human affairs. He visits now with prosperity, and now with adversity; now with success, and now with reverses, showing that his agency is constant, and that people are wholly dependent on him. In existing circumstances - since man is what he is - it is better that there should be alternations, reverses, and changes, than that there should be a uniform course.

Through oppression - Anything that "presses" or "straitens."

Affliction - Evil; here, in the sense of calamity.

And sorrow - Anguish, pain: of body or mind.

107:39 They — These men, who when they are exalted by God, grow insolent and secure.

Low — By God's just judgment.