They afflicted his feet in the fetters It is not without cause that the Psalmist prosecutes the winding course of Jacob's early history, which might so confuse the minds of men as to prevent them from directing their attention to the counsel of God. What seemed less likely than to believe that God, by so directly opposite and circuitous a path, meant to accomplish what he had purposed? But his providence, by surmounting so many obstacles, is brought out more conspicuously, than if he had despatched the whole matter by a short and easy road. Had Joseph, as soon as he arrived in Egypt, been presented to the king, and made its governor, the way to what followed would have been easy. But when he was carried away to prison, and lay there separated from the society of men, living as one half-dead; and when his becoming known to the king was a long time subsequent to this, and beyond all expectation, such a sudden change renders the miracle much more evident. This circuitous course then, which the prophet recounts, serves not a little to illustrate the subject in hand. Joseph was many times dead before he was sold. Hence it follows, that God as often showed his care of his Church by delivering him who might be termed her father. When after, having been brought into Egypt, Joseph was conveyed from hand to hand till he descended into another grave, is it not the more clearly manifest from this that God, while he seems to be asleep in heaven, is all the while keeping the strictest watch over his servants, and that he is carrying forward his purpose more effectually by these various windings, than if he had gone straight forward, yea, than if he had run with rapid pace? For this reason the prophet affirms that his feet were afflicted in the fetters; a fact which, although not stated in the narrative of Moses, he speaks of as well known. And no doubt, many things were delivered by tradition to the Jews of which no mention is made in the Scriptures. [1] It is also probable enough, that, instead of being put at first under mild restraint, as was afterwards the case, he was rigorously confined. Whether we read, his soul entered into the iron, or the iron entered into his soul, [2] the meaning, which, in either case, is exactly the same, amounts to this, that the holy man was so galled with fetters, that it seemed as if his life had been given over to the sword. Whence it follows, that the safety of his life was as hopeless as the restoration of life to a dead body.

Footnotes

1 - The memory of this circumstance might, therefore, have been preserved by tradition; or it may be simply a conclusion drawn from Joseph's being incarcerated, and from the crime of which he was accused. When it is considered that prisoners were ordinarily secured by chains, and when the magnitude of the crime charged upon him, that of making an attempt upon the chastity of his mistress, is farther taken into account, it is a very probable inference, that when cast into prison, he was put in chains.

2 - The first of these readings is the most probable. The Hebrew is vrzl v'h nphsv. "The verb being here in the feminine gender shows that the subject is nphsv, and that vrzl is accusative. In this manner the phrase is rendered by the LXX. Sideron diolthen he psuche autou, his soul passed through iron;' and so the Syriac, his soul went into iron;' but the Chaldee, disregarding the gender, has taken it the other way, the chain of iron went into his soul.'" -- (Phillips' Psalms in Hebrew, with a Critical, Exegetical, and Philological Commentary.)

Whose feet they hurt with fetters - In Genesis 40:3; it is said of Joseph that he was "bound" in prison. It is not improbable that his "feet" were bound, as this is the usual way of confining prisoners.
He was laid in iron - In the prison. The margin is, "his soul came into iron." The version in the Prayer-Book of the Episcopal Church is, the iron entered into his soul. This is a more striking and beautiful rendering, though it may be doubted whether the Hebrew will permit it. DeWette renders it, "In iron lay his body."

Whose feet they hurt with fetters,.... For it seems Joseph was not only cast into prison, upon the calumny of his mistress; but had fetters put upon him, and his feet were made fast with them; and these were so close and heavy, as to pinch and gall and hurt him; which, though not mentioned in his history, was undoubtedly true; see Genesis 39:20.
He was laid in iron: or "the iron" (or, as the Targum, "the iron chain") "went into his Soul" (f); his body; it ate into him, and gave him great pain: or rather, as it is in the king's Bible, "his soul went into the iron chain"; there being, as Aben Ezra observes, an ellipsis of the particle and which is supplied by Symmachus, and so in the Targum; that is, his body was enclosed in iron bands, so Buxtorf (g). In all this he was a type of Christ, whose soul was made exceeding sorrowful unto death: he was seized by the Jews, led bound to the high priest, fastened to the cursed tree, pierced with nails, and more so with the sins of his people he bore; and was laid in the prison of the grave; from whence and from judgment he was brought, Isaiah 53:8.
(f) So Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus. (g) Lexic. "in voce"

hurt with fetters-- (Genesis 40:3).
was laid in iron--literally, "his soul" (see on Psalm 16:10), or, "he came into iron," or, he was bound to his grief (compare Psalm 3:2; Psalm 11:1). The "soul" is put for the whole person, because the soul of the captive suffers still more than the body. Joseph is referred to as being an appropriate type of those "bound in affliction and iron" (Psalm 107:10).