What does Psalms 107:11 mean?

Psalm 107:11 comes in the middle of a section describing one of four groups of people whom God rescued from distress. This particular group is pictured as prisoners sitting in darkness and gloom, bound in affliction and iron chains (verses 10-16). Verse 11 explains why they ended up in that miserable condition: they rebelled against the words of God and despised, or condemned, the counsel of the Most High. In plain language, the verse is saying that their suffering was not random or meaningless — it was the direct result of their own defiance. They knew what God had said, and they rejected it; they knew what wise guidance He offered, and they scorned it. The consequence was bondage, darkness, and hardship, both physically and, by implication, spiritually.

Psalm 107 is widely attributed to the post-exilic community, likely composed as a hymn of thanksgiving after Israel's return from Babylonian captivity. The psalm calls on "the redeemed of the LORD" to give thanks because He has gathered them "out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south" (verse 3). The psalm then illustrates God's redeeming mercy through four vivid pictures: wanderers lost in the desert, prisoners in darkness, the sick near death, and sailors caught in a storm. The prisoners section (verses 10-16) almost certainly echoes Israel's own experience of exile — a nation that had been warned repeatedly by the prophets to obey God's covenant, ignored that counsel, and as a result found itself in captivity under foreign powers