Verse 16. - For he hath broken the gates of brass. God completely liberates the un happy ones who turn to him; removes every restraint that confines and galls them; breaks on their behalf, as it were, "gates of brass." And cut the bars of iron in sunder. Snaps fetters and prison bars.
107:10-16 This description of prisoners and captives intimates that they are desolate and sorrowful. In the eastern prisons the captives were and are treated with much severity. Afflicting providences must be improved as humbling providences; and we lose the benefit, if our hearts are unhumbled and unbroken under them. This is a shadow of the sinner's deliverance from a far worse confinement. The awakened sinner discovers his guilt and misery. Having struggled in vain for deliverance, he finds there is no help for him but in the mercy and grace of God. His sin is forgiven by a merciful God, and his pardon is accompanied by deliverance from the power of sin and Satan, and by the sanctifying and comforting influences of God the Holy Spirit.
For he hath broken the gates of brass,.... The prison doors made of brass, as sometimes of iron, for the security of the prisoners; see Acts 12:10. And cut the bars of iron in sunder; with which they were barred and secured. Hyperbolical phrases these, as Kimchi, expressing how exceeding strong the prison doors were, and the impossibility of an escape out of them, unless the Lord had delivered them; but when he works, none can let; all obstructions are easily removed by him; which is the sense of the words, see Isaiah 45:2. Vitringa, on Revelation 12:2, interprets this of the subjection of the Roman emperors to the faith and obedience of Christ.
Virgil's picture of the shrine of war ('n. vii. 607) has been compared to this.