This song starts and ends with God’s goodness, His love and his works. They are worthy of singing about! What could be greater than being called “the redeemed of the Lord” who have been delivered from distress. God Saves people from trouble (hand of the foe). Why? Because of His steadfast love. Six times in this psalm it God has a “steadfast love” This is not the same thing as our emotive love. This is a specific type of love that God perfectly reflects. It is a covenant love. God making a promise to love His people, more than a promise it is a “binding” to His people. They are His! This is a song sung by those who have been “redeemed by the Lord” and brought back from distant exile. In this case the song was about the nation of Israel being brought back from exile in Babylon. Unfaithful to God they were scattered by a foreign enemy, but now they are no longer in “trouble” or the hand of the foe, they have been gathered. Apart from God we are all people in exile, separated from where we desire and where we belong and God purchases a people and brings them together from scattered individuals to gathering of His people. God Saves and we celebrate! But saved from what? The song breaks out into four distinct verses/stories showing there is a diversity of distress, and different groups in need of deliverance or salvation. We will see there are no perceivable limits to how and who God is able to save, but there is only one solution. They cry out to the Lord in distress and God answers. Despite sin, God saves. Because of sin, God saves.