Let the redeemed tell four rescue stories: Sailors delivered from storm

The fourth rescue is work that meets a sea God stirs

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.

These are not pilgrims who lost a road. They are workers on the sea. The poem lets the hearer feel the deck: up to heaven, down to the depths, reel to and fro, at their wits' end. The LORD both raises the wind and stills it. The stanza will not flatten into a proverb that every storm is punishment.

A calm is not the end; the haven and the assembly are

Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

The refrain now thickens: exalt him also in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders. Private relief is to become public thanks among the old and the gathered. The poem is not a chart of meteorology, and it is not a promise that every voyage ends in the desired harbor.