(A Song, a Psalm for the sons of Korah. To the chief Musician. Upon Mahalath Leannoth. An instruction. Of Heman the Ezrahite.) Jehovah, God of my salvation, I have cried by day [and] in the night before thee.
Psalm 88 opens by naming God as the God of salvation. After that first line no light comes, and the psalm ends with no relief. Everything hangs on that opening cry: a man calling on the only One who can save, while he feels nothing but wrath.
The name in the first line is not decoration. One writer says it governs everything that follows, because the psalm's exercises drive the sufferer to this one point.
God is known and looked to under His revealed name as the only Saviour. The exercises spoken of in the psalm bring the soul to exactly this point. The pressure of everything around him throws him back on this: salvation comes from God's hand, and, more than that, from God's judgment. So it is a pure and sovereign salvation from Him. "Jehovah, God of my salvation" governs the psalm.
Older translations print the covenant name "Jehovah" where the ESV has "LORD."
That was not theory for him. A biographer records what he once told a friend about seven years of his own life he rarely spoke of.
For seven years he had once practically lived in the 88th Psalm, his only ray of light being in the opening words, "O LORD GOD of my salvation."
The crying runs on through day and night. One commentator links this unbroken prayer to what the man is learning about sin.
The godly man realizes that salvation is found with God alone. So he addresses Jehovah as the God of his salvation. Yet the soul is in deep distress that leads it to cry to God day and night. In prayer he owns before God that his soul is full of troubles. He is made to feel what sin does: it separates the soul from God, it brings into death, and it leaves man without strength.
The pain has a deeper source than enemies. One writer points to the remnant — the faithful few left in Israel — feeling the weight of a law they have broken.
Psalm 88 puts the remnant under the deep and dreadful sense of a broken law. It puts them under the sense of God's fierce wrath too, which in justice comes upon those who have broken it. Now it is not outward sorrows or the oppression of enemies, but something far, far deeper between the soul and God.
The heading above verse 1 names a tune, a type of psalm, and a man. Each carries meaning.
Mahalath Leannoth means "sickness for humiliation": a very suitable and suggestive title, surely. We need such humbling, and so God permits suffering like this psalm shows, so that there may be truth in the inward parts before Him. Then it is a Maskil, or "instruction"… And Heman was one of the special wise men of Israel, compared with Solomon. His name means "faithful," and by its derivation it may well point us to both wisdom and faithfulness agreeing to put their "amen" to the sayings of God. Ezrahite means what is native to the soil. The experience that follows is indeed home-born, and natural enough to such as we are — what belongs to the whole race outside paradise. Yet, thank God, to face it is to find deliverance from it.
Who is crying here? One writer answers with Israel, and with Christ's Spirit sharing the grief.
Where can we find such a strain of deep sorrow and sense of wrath, with no glimmer of light beyond the opening words? Israel, to be blessed, must pass through this, and have Christ's Spirit and sympathy with them in it. What could law do for those under it but press its terrors to death? His Spirit felt it in grace.
Commentators differ here. Another writer will not read it as the Lord's own words, because of how the psalm ends.
The distress and suffering of this psalm has led some to think it must be the language of the Lord Jesus. But unlike Messianic psalms such as 22, 40, 69 and 102, this psalm closes with no relief. The psalms of a suffering Messiah all end with great blessing as the result of the sufferings.
The psalm brings no rescue, yet it has comforted readers. One writer told why:
There is no deliverance in Psalm 88. Yet at one time it was the only passage in the whole Bible that gave me comfort. It showed me one like myself, pretty much in despair — and yet it was a saint who wrote it. So perhaps after all I might be a saint.
Yet this is not a cry into empty air.
Not that God is not looked to; for it is to Him that everything is poured out… The one who cries, cries to One in whose hands he knows himself to be, and in no one else's. God is the God of his salvation: nowhere else is salvation to be found.
- Address — "God of my salvation" is the one light in the psalm, and it governs everything that follows.
- Cause — the weight is not enemies. It is deeper: wrath against a broken law, between the soul and God.
- Purpose — the title means "sickness for humiliation." God permits such suffering so that there may be truth deep within.
- Direction — the sufferer pours everything out to God. He knows himself to be in no other hands.
- Comfort — the psalm ends without relief, yet it has proved that a saint can be in despair and still be a saint.
Let my prayer come before thee; incline thine ear unto my cry.
Psalm 88 opens with a plea and ends still in the dark. This second line is the plea itself: a call for God to bend down and listen. Everything hangs on whether the God named at the start is within reach.
The cry is not thrown into empty space. The psalm opens by naming God as the sufferer's own — the God of his salvation. Yet a person can know that name truly and still have an untouched conscience.
"O Jehovah, God of my salvation!" is how this psalm addresses God. ... He is still a God they are in relationship with. ... This is worth noticing, and worth noticing for ourselves too. A person may know a God of salvation in a general way, and know Him truly, and yet his conscience is never searched out. God's wrath is never known in the conscience, and never removed from it.
Asking God to incline His ear is not decoration. It is the language of a man who has already cried and wonders if God hears.
These are not the words of a hardened unbeliever. They are the words of a man who knows he needs One greater than himself — One whom this poor sufferer has stirred to anger by his own wandering. He knows that only the Lord is the God of his salvation, and so he cries to Him day and night. It may seem God does not hear, so he urges, "Incline Your ear to my cry" (v. 2).
What is this cry about? Not enemies, and not hard circumstances.
This psalm is the deep expression of a distress of soul that never lifts. That distress does not come from enemies who oppose him, or from trying circumstances. It comes not from the difficulties around him on his path, but from what his soul is going through inside.
Commentators differ over who is speaking. Some hear the Messiah here, made one with His people, crying to God day and night.
Psalm 88 again shows the Messiah's spirit made one with chosen Israel. In grace He feels all the power of darkness and death, as is right, yet He keeps crying to Jehovah day and night.
Others hear a believer learning his own helplessness. They point to the way the psalm ends.
The distress and suffering in this psalm has led some to think it must be the words of the Lord Jesus. But it stands in sharp contrast to Messianic psalms like 22, 40, 69 and 102. This psalm closes with no relief, while the psalms of a suffering Messiah all end with great blessing that comes out of the sufferings.
Why keep a prayer this dark? Finding your own darkness already put into words steadies you, even before any answer comes.
What a support it is to find your own feelings put into words in Scripture! ... Someone who takes up Psalm 88, which expresses total darkness under the curse of the law, may say: if one believer has been in that state, another may be too, so I may be a believer after all. He gets comfort that way, because the word of God backs it. There is no peace in this, but it props up and steadies the soul.
The plea can be a long one. One account records a man who spent years inside this psalm, and names exactly which words kept him.
Once, while talking with his friend Mr. William Kelly about deep spiritual experiences, he said that for seven years he had all but lived in the 88th Psalm. His only ray of light was in the opening words, "O LORD, God of my salvation." Only a few of God's servants are given such severe exercise of soul. But the depth and reality of that first experience surely gave tone and steadiness to his witness for the rest of his life.
- Address. The prayer goes to "the God of my salvation." The sufferer already belongs to Him. Yet a person can know that name truly and still have an untouched conscience.
- Ask. The call for God to bend down and listen comes from a man who has cried day and night and wonders if God hears.
- Ache. The pain driving the prayer is not enemies or circumstances but what is going on inside the soul.
- Advocate. Some hear the Messiah crying to God here. Others hear a believer learning his helplessness, since this psalm, unlike the Messianic ones, ends without relief.
- Anchor. When darkness lasts, this psalm proves a believer can be in such a state. Its opening name for God can be the one ray of light that holds a person for years.
For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh to Sheol.
Psalm 88 opens with a cry to the "God of my salvation." This verse gives the reason for that cry. The writer's soul is packed with trouble, and his life is drawing near to the grave. It is one of the darkest prayers in the Bible, and commentators still ask whose voice it is.
This verse sums up what sin does. The verses that follow spell it out step by step.
What a terrible picture of the effect of sin! The soul filled with trouble (v. 3). The life forfeited, drawing near to the grave (v. 3). No strength against sin (v. 4). Brought into death (v. 5). Forsaken by God (v. 5). Left in darkness (v. 6). And under judgment (v. 7).
Some translations read "the grave" where the ESV reads "Sheol." One writer explains what the sufferer feels himself joining, and hears the same cry in Romans 7.
He feels his "soul is full of troubles," and that death is near. So he is counted with those who go down to Sheol — that condition of the soul and spirit as separated from the body. This experience reminds us of Romans 7. There the corruption of the flesh is seen as deserving only death, and the victim cries out, "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom. 7:24).
The trouble is not random misfortune. It is a conscience waking up to what God's wrath against sin means. One writer makes that lesson the way into the full enjoyment of God's love.
The psalm depicts the deep distress of a godly soul. He is learning in his conscience the reality and horror of God's wrath against sin, and of a broken law... So the soul knows there is loving-kindness with God, and looks to Him with confidence. Still, to enjoy that loving-kindness fully, it must learn the horror of God's wrath against sin.
One writer names what pressed hardest on this sufferer, and what turned his heart to God.
The great point that pressed on the spirit was death — death bearing the witness of God's wrath upon it. The knowledge that the revealed God of promise was the only Saviour turns the heart to this; his life drew near to the grave. God's wrath lay hard upon Him... God is brought in, and faith in Him, far enough to own that all depended on Him. So His wrath was felt in it all. And this is true. This is death seen in its truth.
Commentators differ on the speaker. Some hear the Lord Jesus, placing the words in the hours between His arrest and the cross.
We hear in this Psalm one of the cries of Him who cried to Him that was able to save Him from death (Heb. 5:7). It was uttered, it may be, at some moment between His being seized in the garden and His cross. For then all had forsaken Him, and He Himself could not go out (v. 8, 17, 18). The sentence of death was then especially in Him, though all through life He had been a dying one (v. 15).
Others weigh the psalm's ending against the psalms that speak of the Messiah. They read it instead as a man discovering what he is by nature.
The distress and suffering of this psalm has led some to think it must be the language of the Lord Jesus. But this psalm closes with no relief. That is a great contrast to Messianic psalms such as 22, 40, 69 and 102, for the psalms of a suffering Messiah all end with great blessing as a result of the sufferings. So Psalm 88 seems to be the language of one who recognizes there is hope only in God. Yet he is going through the agony of learning by experience how hopeless man's condition is by nature.
Words this bleak stay in Scripture for a reason. They steady a reader who fears his own darkness proves he is not God's.
What a support it is to find one's own feelings expressed in Scripture!... Take a person reading Psalm 88, which expresses complete darkness under the curse of the law. He may say: if one saint has been in that state, another may be. So I may be a saint after all. He gets comfort that way, on the authority of the word. There is no peace in this, but it is a prop and support to the soul.
- Full — trouble fills the soul and the life is forfeited. This verse opens a list that runs on: no strength, death, being forsaken, darkness, judgment.
- Forfeited — he is counted with those going down to Sheol, where soul and spirit are parted from the body. His cry is the cry of Romans 7.
- From God — what presses hardest is death carrying the witness of God's wrath. That is death seen in its truth. Knowing God as the only Saviour turns the heart.
- For learning — the conscience must learn the horror of God's wrath against sin. Only then does the soul fully enjoy His loving-kindness.
- For comfort — commentators differ on the voice: Christ between the garden and the cross, or a man learning his own hopelessness. Either way, the psalm props up anyone walking in darkness.
I am reckoned with them that go down into the pit; I am as a man that hath no strength
Psalm 88 is a prayer with no relief in it. In verse 4 the singer stops describing his trouble and speaks of himself as one already dead — so is that feeling true, whose voice is heard here, and where can a man with no strength look?
The word behind "pit" is an everyday word. A dictionary of Bible words gives its range:
bor, beer, "pit or well dug for water," but it could also serve as a dungeon. Gen. 37:20-29; Ps. 88:4, 6; Zech. 9:11; etc.
The man praying pours out everything to God. One writer traces how far down that goes — down to Sheol, the place of the dead:
He cries aloud for Him to hear. He lays bare before Him all the misery that fills his soul and bows it down even to Sheol. He is already counted among those going down to it — flat on the ground, drained of nerve and of strength. More than that, he is like one for whom the business of life is over, discharged from it, "free among the dead," like one cut off from God's remembrance and His help. Not that he will say this is so, but that so it seems.
The weakness here is not only physical. One writer reads the psalm as a picture of what sin does, with each verse marking a further stage:
What a terrible picture of the effect of sin! The soul filled with trouble (v. 3); the life forfeited, drawing near to the grave (v. 3); no strength against sin (v. 4); brought into death (v. 5); forsaken by God (v. 5); left in darkness (v. 6); and under judgment (v. 7).
What presses on this man is not his circumstances but God's hand behind them. One writer points to the name the psalm opens with as the one way out:
God is known and looked to by His revealed name as the only Saviour. The inner exercises spoken of in the psalm bring the soul to just this point. The pressure of everything around him drives him to find that it comes from God's hand, and, more than that, from God's judgment. So it becomes for him a pure and sovereign salvation from Him. "Jehovah, God of my salvation" governs the psalm… The great point that pressed on the spirit was death, and death carrying the witness of God's wrath on it… And this is true. This is death seen in its truth.
(Older Bibles print "Jehovah" where the ESV has "LORD.")
Commentators differ over how much of this language to take at face value. One reads the psalmist's later words as feelings running ahead of the facts:
In such a condition he certainly has no strength (v. 4). He feels "adrift among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave." But his feelings are so worked up that he goes beyond the truth when he says, "whom You remember no more, and who are cut off from Your hand" (v. 5). How good it is that our feelings decide nothing as to what is true!
Writers also hear another voice in these words. One traces the line from a race swallowed up by death to the One who went into it and came out:
Death had yielded nothing but sorrow, swallowing up the human race and keeping its prey. Then One came according to the mind of God in absolute perfection. He entered into death and came out a triumphant victor from the jaws of the eater!… Psalm 88 shows a new order of man. He came to earth in infinite grace and perfect truth as the true revelation of God the Father. He was accounted with those who went down into the pit. (Ps. 88:4). Lover and friend were put far from Him. (v. 18).
The psalm itself ends without comfort. Yet one writer explains why God's wrath does not have the last word for those under the law:
Not that the wrath would remain on them. So there is faith, and hope, though no comfort, in the psalm… The wrath will not remain upon them, because Christ has drunk the true cup of it. But they must come to understand it, as under law, for they had been under law.
- Counted. The word is one of reckoning. The sufferer is already on the list of those going down, discharged from life while still alive.
- No strength. This is not just a failing body. It means no strength against sin — one stage in a chain that runs from trouble to the grave to darkness to judgment.
- Truth or feeling. Commentators differ. One says this is death seen as it truly is, with God's hand behind it. Another says the sufferer's feelings run past the facts, and feelings settle nothing.
- Counted with Him. Christ speaks the same words. He was counted with those who go down to the pit, with friend and lover put far from Him. He came out of death as victor.
- Wrath spent. The psalm closes in distress, yet the wrath does not stay. Christ drank the true cup of it. The one door in the psalm is the name it opens with: God of my salvation.
Prostrate among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave; whom thou rememberest no more, and who are cut off from thy hand.
The speaker counts himself with the dying. He has no strength left, and he lies among the dead like a man God has forgotten. Two hard questions follow. What does it mean to be "set loose among the dead" — older translations read "free among the dead"? And is it true that anyone is cut off from God's hand?
The darkness of this psalm is not a turning away from God. One writer notes that the sufferer has no second address to turn to:
It is not that he fails to look to God; he pours out everything to Him. Only when we begin to live can we start to understand what death means. The man who cries out cries to the One in whose hands he knows he is, and in no one else's. God is the God of his salvation; there is no salvation anywhere else.
Freedom is a strange word here. The same writer explains it as the release of a man whose life's work is finished:
He is like a man whose life's work is over, discharged from it, "free among the dead," like one cut off from God's remembrance and His help. He does not say that this is so, only that this is how it seems. And God Himself has done it. God has laid him in the lowest pit, in the terrible darkness of His prison — in the depths.
"Whom you remember no more" and "cut off from your hand" describe how things seem, not how they are. One commentator marks the gap, and notes why God allows it:
In such a condition he has no strength (v. 4). He feels "adrift among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave." But his feelings run so high that he goes beyond the truth when he says, "whom You remember no more, and who are cut off from Your hand" (v. 5). How good it is that our feelings decide nothing about what is true! Yet God lets people speak their feelings out, so that when the end finally comes they see how foolish it was to let such feelings sway them.
The pressure here is not enemies or bad circumstances. It is death carrying the weight of God's anger — and the psalm never lifts out of it.
Psalm 88 puts the remnant under the deep and dreadful sense of a broken law, and of God's fierce wrath, which justly comes on those who have broken it. It is no longer outward sorrows or the oppression of enemies, but something far, far deeper between the soul and God… And for the present there is no comfort, and no prospect of rescue, as there is when the trouble comes from human oppression, however dark that looks to faith. The psalm closes in distress. Its dealings are wholly with God; and so God must be known, until grace is known.
The grave in this line is the burial place of the body, not a word for the soul's condition. One writer traces the Hebrew word qeber through Scripture:
Scripture uses qeber of the body going into it… "The slain that lie in the grave" (Psalm 88:5)… Scripture never uses Sheol of the body. The reason is obvious. Sheol has no relation to the body. It has to do only with the soul.
Commentators differ. Some hear the voice of Jesus in this verse, placed in the hours before the cross:
In this Psalm we hear one of the cries of Him who cried to the One who was able to save Him from death. (Heb. 5:7) Perhaps He spoke it at some moment between His arrest in the garden and His cross. For by then everyone had abandoned Him… But it was during this time above all that He was "free among the dead."
Others hold back from that reading, on the grounds of how the psalm ends:
The distress and suffering of this psalm have led some to think it must be the language of the Lord Jesus. But it stands in great contrast to Messianic psalms like 22, 40, 69 and 102. This psalm closes with no relief, while the psalms of a suffering Messiah all end with great blessing as a result of the sufferings.
- Discharged. "Set loose among the dead" is the freedom of a man whose life's work is over. He is released from everything — even, so it seems, from God's remembrance and help.
- Seems. He does not say it is so, only that it so seems — and feelings settle nothing about what is true.
- God. The whole weight is poured out to the only One who can lift it: "God is the God of his salvation: nowhere else is salvation to be found."
- Wrath. What presses here is not enemies but a broken law and God's anger. The psalm ends without relief. God must be known before grace is known.
- Christ. Commentators differ on whether this is His voice; those who hear it place the cry between the garden and the cross, when everyone had abandoned Him.
Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the deeps.
The word behind "pit" comes from ordinary life before it becomes a picture of death.
bor, beer, "pit or well dug for water," but which could be used for a dungeon. Gen. 37:20-29; Ps. 28:1; Ps. 40:2; Ps. 88:4, 6; Ezek. 26:20; Zech. 9:11; etc.
Older translations word the verse "the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps" — the wording the writers below use.
The turning point is one word: "You." What crushes this man is not his circumstances. It is the Person he finds behind them.
God is known and looked to according to His revealed name as the only Saviour. The struggles of soul spoken of in the psalm bring him to just this point. The pressure of everything around him drives him to find that it comes from God's hand, and, more than that, from God's judgment... The great point that pressed on the spirit was death and death bearing the witness of God's wrath upon it.
What fills this darkness is anger. One writer shows why no single picture can measure it.
Ah, it is all His anger: that is the utter misery from which there is no escape and no relief. Heat of anger, and the overwhelming waves that break on him wave after wave: the psalm uses every picture it has. Yet all pictures fail to convey the dread reality, when it is God whose wrath is upon us. For "if God is for us, who can be against us?" And then, on the other hand, if He is against us, where can anyone find help or hope?
Many writers hear these words as the Lord's own at the cross. Read that way, the verse settles who was in control while men did their worst.
Men may think they can crucify the Lord, or release Him, just as they please. But the Lord can say to Pilate, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above" (John 19:11). No eye could pierce the darkness of that great scene when the fire and the knife fell upon Christ. But all that took place then was taken from God's hand, for Christ could say, "You have laid Me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Your wrath lies hard upon Me, and You have afflicted Me with all Your waves."
And read that way, the words rule out any softening of what He endured.
This is no escape from a state of distance from God, and no way out of it. He is afflicted with all God's waves: He is in the lowest pit. His soul is cast off. God's fierce wrath went over Him. His terrors cut Him off.
Commentators differ on how far these words fit the man who first sang them. One writer marks the limit sharply.
"You have laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the depths" (v. 6). Actually, this is not true, for the lowest pit is for those who reject God and His grace altogether. However, he feels God's wrath lying heavily on him. Even so, it is not true that God has afflicted him with all His waves (v. 7). Only One could truly say, "All Your waves and billows have gone over Me." This refers to God's judgment of Christ at Calvary for our sins.
For anyone down in the depths, that ground is not unexplored.
It will give comfort, when down in the depths, to know that One has gone down into the depths for him; the soul will find Christ has traced all the way for him... There is no place, from the dust of death to the highest place in glory, that He has not been in for us. He has gone under it all, sins included.
- Pit — the word means a dug well that doubled as a dungeon. A real hole in the ground becomes the picture of death closing over a life.
- Hand — the sufferer traces his whole pressure past people and circumstances back to God's hand, and further still, to God's judgment.
- Wrath — anger fills the darkness. The piled-up images of pit, deeps and waves all fail to measure it. If God is against a man, no help remains anywhere.
- Voice — many hear Christ here, in a pit He never escaped and never got Himself out of. Others hold that the lowest pit was never the believer's real place, only his feeling. Only Christ could say all God's waves went over Him.
- Comfort — the depths are no longer unexplored. One has gone down there first. No place, from the dust of death to the height of glory, is untrodden for us.
Thy fury lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted [me] with all thy waves. Selah.
Psalm 88 is the darkest song in the book. Verse 7 sits at its centre: the sufferer traces his trouble past every human cause and lays it at God's own door. Two questions press on any reader. Whose voice is this? And can the God he calls the God of his salvation be the same God whose anger presses down here?
The trouble here has one source, and it is not enemies.
Psalm 88 puts the faithful remnant of Israel under the deep and dreadful sense of a broken law, and of God's fierce wrath, which justly falls on those who have broken it. The trouble is not outward sorrows now, or enemies pressing hard. It is something far, far deeper, between the soul and God… Death and wrath are the true burden of the psalm — God's terrors on the soul. For now there is no comfort, and no prospect of rescue such as there is from human oppression, however dark that looks to faith. The psalm closes in distress; its dealings are wholly with God.
The verse uses two pictures at once — weight pressing down, and water breaking over. One writer explains why even two are not enough:
Ah, it is all His anger: that is the utter misery from which there is no escape and no relief. Heat of anger, and overwhelming waves breaking over him one after another: the psalm uses every picture, and every picture fails to convey the dreadful reality, when it is God whose wrath is on us. For "if God is for us, who can be against us?" — and then the reverse: if He is against us, where can help or hope be found?
Some object to using the word wrath for what Christ bore. One writer answered that objection straight from this psalm:
There never was a time when the true, real, atoning sufferings needed insisting on more than now. He really did bear our sins, make propitiation, drink the cup, and become a curse for us, with all that the wrath lying on us involved… In the plain sense of simple Christians convinced of sin, they know that He took on Him what lay on them; and Psalm 88 authorises the word wrath itself.
Commentators differ here. Many hear the Lord Jesus in these words. One writer sets this verse beside Joseph's empty pit and Abraham's raised knife:
Joseph takes up the story of the cross again, as his brothers throw him into the pit. But for him "the pit was empty; there was no water in it." How different the cross of Christ is. At this same God's bidding "Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son." Now that same God can say, "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me." Twelve legions of angels await His commands, yet He tells not one of them to hold back the sword of judgment. It is no empty pit into which He must go.
Others read it as what a godly sufferer truly feels, not a true account of his case. The words fit Christ alone in their full force:
Though he feels God's wrath lying heavily upon him, again it is not true that God has afflicted him with all His waves. For only One could rightly say, "all your breakers and your waves have gone over me." This refers to God's judgment of Christ at Calvary for our sins.
Who is this sufferer speaking to? The same God whose wrath he feels.
"O LORD, God of my salvation" governs the psalm… The great point pressing on the spirit was death, and death carrying the witness of God's wrath on it. Knowing that the God who had revealed Himself in promise was the only Saviour turns the heart to this… Once God is brought in, and faith in Him, far enough to own that everything depended on Him, the soul feels His wrath in it all. And this is true. This is death seen in its truth.
The same writer explains why such a soul is not left there:
The wrath will not stay on them, because Christ has drunk the true cup of it. But they must come to understand it.
- Source. This verse traces the weight to God's own hand, not to enemies or circumstances. The dealing is wholly between the soul and God.
- Depth. The verse stacks two images, pressing weight and breaking waves. No single picture can carry what it means for God to be against us.
- Word. This verse backs the plain word "wrath" for what Christ bore — a word the writers refused to drop.
- Substitute. For Him the pit was not empty, and God held back no sword. Commentators differ on whether the psalmist speaks Christ's own words or only feels what Christ alone endured.
- Outcome. The sufferer feels wrath here, but it will not stay, because Christ drank the true cup — and still he prays to the God of his salvation.
Thou hast put my familiar friends far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.
The man in this psalm does not blame his friends for leaving. He traces their absence to God. Then he finds himself shut in, with no way out. It is the darkest verse of a dark psalm. Two questions follow: whose voice speaks here, and what comfort can such words hold?
The loss is not accidental. Every clause of the verse names God as the one who did it, and one writer notes that the sufferer turns straight back to that same hand. He also catches the picture behind "made me a horror to them": a man shut away from everyone, like a leper. (Older translations read "an abomination unto them.")
But he turns to the Hand that afflicts him — the Hand that has shut him up in isolation from all others, as a leper, an abomination to his acquaintance. He pleads his misery to the Heart that he still knows must be behind the Hand.
One writer reads the verse as the experience of a soul awake to its own sin. Sin has a double effect here: it cuts a person off from God, and it makes him loathsome to people. Yet the same writer sees hope inside that misery.
There is also the awareness that sin does not only separate a person from God. Sin makes him an object of loathing to his friends. It shuts the soul up in a terrible loneliness that he cannot come out of. Still, in its misery, the soul is not left to despair: so it stretches out its hands to God.
Losing friends is real pain. But one writer calls it only the outer layer of this psalm.
This was the state: affliction was present, nature could find no comfort in it, and his friends were put far from him. But this was only the outward part. Nature found no relief here, as it can more or less in nature's own sorrows. The great thing that pressed on the spirit was death, and death carrying the witness of God's wrath on it. Knowing that the revealed God of promise is the only Saviour is what turns the heart to Him.
One writer hears the voice of Jesus in this verse. He finds its closing words the most moving line in the psalm — a loneliness made sharper by Christ's love for the people who were not there.
Nothing expresses the fulness of His blameless sorrow more completely or more movingly than the last clause of verse 8: "I am shut in so that I cannot escape." The pressure that bore on the soul of Jesus went far beyond our thought. He knew His own whole love for those He was suffering for, and He saw their faces hidden from Him in the hour of His deepest distress. His heart was perfectly able to receive love as well as give it, yet He had to be alone. The hand of God divided Him from every kindness of man… The desertion of His friends was part of the cup prepared for Him.
The absence of any bright ending is not a flaw in the psalm — it is the point. One commentator links that unbroken darkness to what the law can do for a person who stands under it and nothing else.
Where can we find such deep sorrow and such a sense of wrath, with no glimmer of light beyond the opening words? Israel must pass through this to be blessed, and have Christ's Spirit and sympathy with them in it. What could the law do for those under it but press its terrors to death? His Spirit felt it in grace.
One writer found this psalm his only comfort in a time of despair. The comfort was not a happy ending, since the psalm has none.
There is no deliverance in Psalm 88, although at one time it was the only passage in the whole Bible that gave me comfort. It showed me one like myself, pretty well in despair, and yet a saint wrote it — so perhaps I might be a saint after all.
- Hand — The verse blames no friend; the shunning, the horror, the locked door are all traced to God's hand.
- Leper — The picture is of a man put outside the camp: separated from God above, loathsome to people around, unable to come out.
- Shut — "I am shut in so that I cannot escape" is the fullest word for it, and commentators find it deepest in Christ, whose friends' desertion was part of His cup.
- Deeper — The lost companionship is only the outward layer; what really presses is death carrying the witness of God's wrath.
- Light — The psalm gives no light of its own, yet has comforted people in despair, because a saint wrote it and still stretched out his hands to God.
Mine eye consumeth by reason of affliction. Upon thee, Jehovah, have I called every day; I have stretched out my hands unto thee.
This man has wept until his sight fails. Still he calls on God every day, with his hands stretched out. Commentators differ on who is speaking. Some hear God's chosen people crying under long trouble, with Christ entering into their sorrow by His Spirit. Others hear the Lord Jesus Himself.
The first half of the verse shows what long grief does to a person. One writer notes where the sufferer turns — not away from the hand pressing on him, but toward it:
But he turns to the Hand that afflicts him. That is the Hand that has shut him up in isolation from all others, like a leper, loathsome to his acquaintances. And he pleads his misery to the Heart that he still knows must be behind the Hand: how the eye wastes with its sorrow as it looks and sees nothing.
The verse just before this one leaves the man cut off from every human contact. That loneliness is what makes the outstretched hands remarkable:
There is also the awareness that sin does more than separate a person from God. Sin makes him an object of loathing to his acquaintances. It shuts the soul up in an awful loneliness that he cannot come out of. Still, in its misery, the soul is not allowed to sink into despair: so it stretches out its hands to God.
Another commentator reads the failing eye as a loss of clear sight in a wider sense. He follows where the thought runs next:
His eye (his discernment) becomes practically blinded by his affliction (v. 9). His calling daily upon the Lord seems to have no effect. He feels swallowed up by death, and wonders whether God will do wonders for the dead.
Why keep calling day after day when nothing lifts? One writer points to the name at the head of the psalm:
God is known and looked to according to His revealed name as the only Saviour. The exercises spoken of in this psalm bring the soul to exactly that point... "Jehovah, God of my salvation," governs the psalm. The situation was this. Affliction was present. Nature could find nothing for itself there. His acquaintances were put far from him. But this was only the negative and outward part. The great point that pressed on the spirit was death — death bearing the witness of God's wrath upon it.
Jesus describes God's chosen ones as people who pray like this: every day, with no answer, refusing to stop. One writer links the two:
Christ seems to have entered into the spirit of this Psalm — or rather to have drawn it out. He does so when He describes the elect, God's elect, as those who cry day and night to God, Luke 18... His Spirit in the Psalm enters into the circumstances in full sympathy, because in full affection... The more we know what He is, the more terrible to find nothing but darkness — still the cry is maintained, yes, day and night.
Another writer reads the psalm as the experience of Jesus. He takes the outstretched hands of this verse as the turning point:
But He had stretched out His hands to One who both heard and was able to deliver. In verse 10 His hope breaks faintly through the dark and almost impenetrable cloud of sorrow and distress.
- Hand. A hand is pressing hard on this man, and his eye wastes away under it. He turns toward that hand, not away, and pleads his misery to the heart he knows is behind it.
- Shut in. The loneliness is total; he is loathsome to his own acquaintances and cannot get out. Yet the soul is not left to despair — the hands go up.
- Daily. He calls every day and nothing seems to change. The affliction blinds his sight, and his thoughts run on to the grave.
- Name. What keeps the praying going is the name at the head of the psalm — God known as the only Saviour. That name governs everything that follows.
- Echo. Jesus took up this same cry when He spoke of God's chosen who call on Him day and night. He stretched out His own hands to One who both heard and was able to deliver.
Wilt thou do wonders to the dead? shall the shades arise and praise thee? Selah.
Here the psalm sinks to its lowest point. The sufferer, who already counts himself among the dead, asks whether God's power and God's praise reach past the grave.
The sufferer does not argue with God from a distance. He appeals to the very hand that has shut him away, and the wording of his plea — wonders, the dead, the shades that go down to the grave — belongs to that appeal.
But he turns to the Hand that afflicts him. It is the Hand that has shut him away from everyone, like a leper, disgusting to those who know him. And he pleads his misery to the Heart that he still knows must be behind the Hand. His eye wastes away with sorrow as it looks and sees nothing. God dwells among the praises of His people, in the music of happy hearts tuned in harmony with His own. So he asks: will He do wonders among the dead? "Shall the shades arise? Shall they praise You?"
One writer hears the voice of Jesus in this plea, asking for life on the ground of what God is.
Jesus here pleads (see also Ps. 6:5, Ps. 30:9, Ps. 115:17) to be delivered from death, on the ground that the dead could not praise God, nor the grave declare Him. For God is not the God of the dead but of the living. "The living, the living, he shall praise you," says Hezekiah, taught by the Spirit to open his lips as a man who knew himself to be in resurrection. And so Jesus cries for deliverance on this most blessed plea: God is known not in death but in life.
Why ask such a question at all? One writer points to where the speaker stands.
Clearly this is a Jew. He lives under the shadows of a law whose penalty was death, and he is cut off from the hopes God gave the nation on earth. For him death was a puzzle, a "land of darkness," and the light of life had not yet come down into it. Job, outside Israel, cries the same cry. But the promises of blessing on earth were so bright that they only made death darker — like good news out of reach, mocking the hopes it raised and then scattered.
Commentators differ on who is speaking. Some hear the Lord Jesus, and read this verse as the first thin break in the cloud.
But He had stretched out His hands to One who both heard and was able to deliver. In verse 10 His hope breaks faintly through the dark, almost impenetrable cloud of sorrow and distress — "Shall the dead arise and praise you?" Such questions have their sure reply in the very nature of Him who is the God, not of the dead, but of the living. And His self-devoted Son calls Him the God of His salvation (Hebrews 5:7).
Others hold back from that reading, and point to how the psalm ends.
The distress and suffering of this psalm has led some to think it must be the language of the Lord Jesus. But this psalm closes with no relief. The contrast is great with psalms about the Messiah such as 22, 40, 69 and 102, for the psalms of a suffering Messiah all end with great blessing as a result of the sufferings.
Psalm 88 never answers the question. One writer puts that silence beside the fear of death that gripped everyone before the resurrection.
Yes, from the fall in Eden until the risen Christ began to build His church, who among men was free from the bondage of the fear of death? (See Ps. 6:5, Ps. 88:10-12, Ps. 115:17.) Think how deep the grief of the disciples was, how great their discouragement, almost despair, while the Lord lay in the grave!
The same writer who notes that silence also sees God's purpose in the depths.
How little he realises God's wisdom. God brings us down to the lowest depth of misery so that He can lift us out of the mud and set our feet on a rock. For it is true that God's wonders are to be known in the dark and His righteousness in the land of forgetfulness.
- Dark — Shut in and cut off, he still pours it all out to the hand that strikes him. He trusts the heart behind that hand.
- Plea — Praise belongs to the living. God is the God of the living, so the grave cannot declare Him.
- Ground — He stands under a law whose penalty was death. The bright promises of life on earth only deepened the shadow.
- Debate — Some hear the voice of Christ here, with hope breaking through the cloud. Others note that this psalm ends with no relief, unlike the psalms of a suffering Messiah.
- Answer — The psalm itself gives no answer. The risen Christ does, and God's wonders are known even in the dark.
Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave? thy faithfulness in Destruction?
From the edge of the grave, the sufferer throws a question at God: once death has taken him, who is left to speak of God's steadfast love and faithfulness? He is not denying that love — he is asking whether it still has an audience.
The question comes from a man who has traced his affliction back to God's own hand and found wrath in it.
The great point that pressed on the spirit was death, and death carrying the witness of God's wrath upon it. Knowing that the revealed God of promise was the only Saviour turns the heart to Him. The sufferer's life drew near to the grave. God's wrath lay hard upon Him. Still he appealed to God. It was nature without its supports, nature with death pressed upon it — that is, its destruction and its end.
The second half of the verse names a place: Abaddon. Older translations call it "destruction." The name links this verse to a small group of texts about the realm of the dead.
Revelation 9:11 shows this name to be the same as Apollyon, "the destroyer," and calls him "the angel of the bottomless pit." It is perhaps not so much one of the names of Satan, as his character personified. It occurs six times in the Old Testament. Three of those link it with hell (sheol): Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11; Proverbs 27:20. One links it with death, in Job 28:22, and one with the grave, here in Psalm 88:11. In all these places, and in Job 31:12, it is translated "destruction."
So the verse pairs two of God's dearest attributes with two names for the end of everything. Love and faithfulness on one side; grave and destruction on the other.
The question is really a plea. Commentators differ on who speaks it — some hear a faithful Jew, others hear Jesus Himself — but the reasoning is the same either way.
Jesus here pleads for deliverance from death, because the dead could not praise God, and the grave could not declare Him (see also Psalm 6:5, Psalm 30:9, Psalm 115:17). For God is not the God of the dead but of the living. "The living, the living, he shall praise you," says Hezekiah, taught by the Spirit to speak as a man who knows he is in resurrection. And so Jesus cries for deliverance on this most blessed plea, that God is known not in death but in life.
Nothing in the psalm answers the question. That silence has a reason. The speaker lives in a time the light of life had not yet reached.
This is clearly a Jew living in the shadows of a law whose penalty was death, cut off from the earthly hopes of the nation. For him death was a puzzle, a "land of darkness," which the light of life had not yet reached. Job, outside Israel, cries the same way. But the earthly promises were so bright that they only made his darkness deeper — a gospel out of reach, a mockery of hopes which it raised and then scattered. Like another Sufferer, though from a different standpoint, he asks "why?" — but the answer is not here. The One who answers it goes into the outer darkness to drive it away for others, and shows that darkness to be what God's holiness required in the face of sin.
What the psalm leaves hanging, history settled. One went down into the very place the verse names, and came back out of it.
Death had yielded nothing but sorrow, swallowing up the human race and keeping its prey. Then One came according to the mind of God in absolute perfection. He entered death and came out of its jaws a triumphant victor!
Read as a plain "no," verse 11 sounds like despair. But God works in the very place the sufferer thinks He cannot.
Despite his utter desolation, he recognises that God is a God of loving-kindness and faithfulness. Yet he almost despairs that this loving-kindness reaches him in his desolation (v. 11). How little he realises what God is doing! In His wisdom God brings us down to the lowest extreme of misery, so that He can lift us out of the miry clay and set our feet on a rock. For it is true that God's wonders are to be known in the dark and His righteousness in the land of forgetfulness (v. 12).
- Wrath — The question comes from a man who feels God's hand in his suffering. His death carries the witness of God's wrath, not just misfortune.
- Abaddon — The "destruction" of the second line names the realm of the dead. Other passages set it beside the grave and death itself.
- Plea — The verse argues; it does not just despair. God is the God of the living, so the speaker asks to stay alive and declare Him.
- Darkness — No answer comes here. The speaker lives under a law whose penalty was death, and the light of life had not yet reached that land.
- Reversal — One entered death and came out victor. God's wonders are known in the dark after all, and the question's "no" becomes His "yes."
Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But as for me, Jehovah, I cry unto thee, and in the morning my prayer cometh before thee.
Psalm 88 is the darkest song in the book of Psalms: deep distress with almost no ray of light. Verse 13 is the sufferer's turn back to prayer anyway, and it asks the hardest question of the psalm: what do you do when you keep praying and heaven stays silent?
Older English versions ended this verse with the words "shall my prayer prevent thee." That wording misleads readers today; the ESV has "my prayer comes before you." One writer lists "prevent" among words whose sense has shifted:
To change Old English words whose meaning was formerly different from what it now is. The old word now misleads. For instance, "leasing" (Ps. 4:2; Ps. 5:6) is not gleaning, but "lying"; "discomfit" (Ps. 18:14) for "discomfort." So "prevent" (Ps. 21:3; Ps. 59:10; Ps. 79:8; Ps. 88:13; Ps. 119:147-148) is equivalent to our modern word "anticipate."
So the sufferer is not blocking God. He is getting there first: his prayer goes up ahead of the daylight.
Even in the dark, the man's complaint has one address:
It is not that he fails to look to God; it is to Him that everything is poured out. Only when we begin to live can we understand what death means. The one who cries, cries to the One in whose hands he knows he is, and in no one else's. God is the God of his salvation: there is salvation nowhere else.
Where does this morning prayer go? One writer follows it to the sanctuary:
So he turns to his sanctuary, only to find the veil not torn, and the One Face that has brightness for him hidden. Like Another Sufferer, but from a different standpoint, he asks "why?" but the answer is not here.
Another writer takes verses 13 and 14 together, and separates what the man feels from what is true:
The poor sufferer feels his need of a place of refuge, but finds none. He knows that the Lord is his only hope of safety. But his cries to God seem to be in vain, even in the morning, when an answer would seem most likely (v. 13). In desperation he pleads and asks why God would cast him off, hiding His face from him (v. 14). Of course, God had not cast him off, though he felt that way.
Commentators differ here, and the difference matters. One argues from how the psalm ends that this cannot be the Messiah speaking:
The distress and suffering of this psalm has led some to think it must be the language of the Lord Jesus. But it stands in great contrast to Messianic psalms such as 22, 40, 69 and 102. This psalm closes with no relief, while the psalms of a suffering Messiah all end with great blessing as a result of the sufferings.
Others hear Christ in it precisely because of the wrath language:
It is a Psalm of deepest distress, picturing the darkest experience with no ray of light or word of comfort. That it describes the real experience of a saint no one would doubt. But in it we can hear again the sorrow of Him who was the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief… Such was His experience on the cross.
A third writer ties this sorrow to life under the law:
Where can we find such a strain of profound sorrow and sense of wrath with no glimmer of light beyond the opening words? Israel to be blessed must pass through this, and have Christ's Spirit and sympathy with them in it. What could law do for those under it but press its terrors to death? His Spirit felt it in grace.
The psalm's heading points to God's purpose in such seasons:
Mahalath Leannoth means "sickness for humiliation" — a very fitting and telling title. We need such humbling, and so God permits the kind of suffering this psalm shows, that there may be truth in the inward parts before Him.
For anyone praying an unanswered morning prayer, the very existence of this psalm is help:
What a support it is to find your own feelings put into words in Scripture!… Someone taking up Psalm 88, which expresses complete darkness under the curse of the law, may say: if one saint has been in that state, another may be too. So I may be a saint after all, and get comfort that way, because Scripture itself endorses it. There is no peace in this, but it does prop up and steady the soul.
- Word — "Prevent" in older versions means anticipate. The prayer arrives ahead of the daylight; it does not get in God's way.
- Direction — The misery is real, but it is all poured out to God; He is still called the God of this man's salvation.
- Veil — He turns toward the sanctuary and finds the veil not torn and the face hidden. He asks "why?" and this psalm gives no answer.
- Feeling — What he feels is not the fact. God had not cast him off, however much it felt that way.
- Purpose — The title means "sickness for humiliation." God permits such darkness so there may be truth in the inward parts. The psalm itself then becomes a support to anyone praying it.
Why, O Jehovah, castest thou off my soul? [why] hidest thou thy face from me?
A man who prays every morning asks God why He has rejected him and why His face is hidden. It is the low point of the darkest psalm in the Bible, and commentators set his cry beside the cry of Christ from the cross.
He turns to the sanctuary, the place where God met His people. One writer describes what he finds there, and where the answer comes from:
So he turns to his sanctuary. He finds only the veil still not torn, and the one Face that has brightness for him hidden. Like another Sufferer, but from a different standpoint, he asks "why?" The answer is not here. It comes from the One who goes into the darkness outside to drive it away for others. He shows that darkness to be what divine holiness must do about sin.
Notice who he complains to. He holds on to God, and he traces what he feels back to his own sin:
Yet the soul in its distress clings to Jehovah, even though it feels that God has cast it off and hidden His face because of its sin.
One commentator weighs what the sufferer feels against what was really the case:
He knows that the Lord is his only hope of safety. But his cries to God seem to be in vain — even in the morning, when an answer would seem most likely (v. 13). In desperation he pleads, asking why God would cast him off and hide His face from him (v. 14). Of course God had not cast him off, though he felt that way.
Another writer reads the psalm as the experience of the faithful remnant of Israel, living under a law they had broken. The psalm's opening address shows the relationship still stands. That is what makes the hidden face so terrible:
Psalm 88 puts the remnant under the deep and dreadful sense of a broken law, and of God's fierce wrath. In justice that wrath comes on those who have broken the law. This is not outward sorrow or pressure from enemies. It is something far, far deeper between the soul and God. Death and wrath are the true burden of the psalm — God's terrors on the soul. … The psalm closes in distress. Its dealings are wholly with God. And so God must be known, until grace is known. … But note this too: it is still a God with whom they are in relationship. "O Jehovah, God of my salvation!" is the address of this psalm. They know Him well enough for the loss of His favour, and the sense of His wrath, to be dreadful beyond everything else.
The same writer adds why this darkness is not the end of the story:
The wrath will not stay on them, because Christ has drunk the true cup of it. But they must come to understand it, as those under law, for they had been under law.
Commentators differ here. One writer puts this verse next to the cry from the cross and asks what the difference is:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" gives us another view of the cross. Could He have used that cry, except as standing in our place? Yet how does it differ from Psalm 88:14, "O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?"
Others read the verse as a man's feeling rather than his true state: God had not cast him off. Either way, the answer comes from outside the psalm — from the One who went into the darkness for others.
- Cry. He keeps praying while he feels rejected. The man who says God has cast him off is still talking to the God of his salvation.
- Darkness. He turns to the sanctuary. The way in is still shut, and God hides the one face that could brighten his life.
- Why. He asks "why?" and gets no reply. The psalm ends in distress: he must know God before he can know grace.
- Correction. What he felt was not what was true. His prayers seemed wasted even in the morning, yet God had not cast him off.
- Answer. The answer stands outside this psalm. Christ drank the cup and went into the darkness for others, so the wrath felt here does not stay.
I am afflicted and expiring from my youth up; I suffer thy terrors, [and] I am distracted.
Psalm 88 begins in the dark and ends there. In this verse the sufferer sums up his whole life: affliction as far back as he can remember, the terrors of God pressing on him now, and a mind that cannot hold up under it. Who is speaking? Why God's terrors, and not an enemy's attack? Where does relief come from? The commentators work through all three.
The words "from my youth up" are read as covering a whole history, not one bad season. Writers connect the speaker's lifelong sorrow with Israel's own story — a people once set aside, now brought back and feeling for the first time what their position before God really is.
Sorrow had visited them before. They had been afflicted and ready to die from their youth, for that had been their portion while they were cast off. But now they are restored, and so far brought into connection with Jehovah, the God of their salvation. So they must feel the depths of their moral position between Himself and them alone — the wrath of Jehovah that was due to them.
What makes this psalm so heavy is the source of the pain. The psalm names God's kindness and faithfulness, yet the sufferer tastes none of it. Only the other side of God's dealings reaches him.
So, under the sense that God has hidden His face, the soul is afflicted and ready to die. Instead of enjoying God's wonders, His loving-kindness and His faithfulness, it knows only God's terrors, God's wrath, and God's forsaking.
Nothing here suggests a man far from God. He is a saint, and the darkness comes from what fills his view. He does two things at once: he tells God everything he feels, and he takes it all from God's hand.
If our circumstances are before us, how dark things may look! If God's revealed thoughts fill our minds, how different everything appears! In Psalm 88 the saint — for he is one — freely tells God all that he is feeling (3-5), but takes it all from the hand of his God (6-18). Here we have one walking in darkness and having no light, yet fearing the Lord (Isaiah 50:10).
The last phrase describes a man whose mind has given way under the pressure. But what he feels and what is true of him are not the same, and that gap decides whose voice the psalm is.
The trial has oppressed him for a long time. He thinks he is suffering God's terrors, and he is completely confused — as he well might be, if he believes he is suffering the wrath of God. For this reason some have thought the psalm is the language of Christ. He alone suffered the wrath of God in His great sacrifice. But the psalmist did not, however strongly he felt about his sufferings. God's terrors had not really cut him off (v. 16).
The psalmist's terrors had not always been on him. Commentators point past him to One who was given no relief at all, and to what that secured for others.
Notice that, even for the direct subject of the psalm, the terrors had not always been on him. He had been afflicted and ready to die; such had been his life. But now he felt his soul cast off, and even lover and friend, whom he once had, put far from him by the hand of God. So it was with Christ too… except that He was not spared and then not delivered. He drank the cup that will make the remnant escape the death they fear.
This psalm never brightens. That is why it has helped readers who could find nothing else that matched their own state. Such darkness can fall on a real believer.
There is no deliverance in Psalm 88. Yet at one time it was the only passage in the whole Bible that gave me comfort. It showed me someone like myself, pretty well in despair — and yet a saint wrote it. So perhaps after all I might be a saint.
- Cause. This lifelong affliction is settled between the soul and God alone. What presses on him is God's own wrath, not enemies or circumstances.
- Weight. The psalm names God's wonders, loving-kindness and faithfulness. The sufferer feels only terrors, wrath and a hidden face.
- Speaker. He is a real saint. He walks in darkness with no light, still fearing the Lord and taking everything from God's hand.
- Limit. He believes the terrors have cut him off. They had not. His feeling ran ahead of the fact, so the words stay his own, not Christ's.
- Answer. One Man was not spared and not delivered. He drank the cup so that those who dread this death escape it. Until then, this dark psalm itself has comforted believers in despair.
Thy fierce anger hath gone over me; thy terrors have brought me to nought
Psalm 88 ends where few prayers dare to go: no rescue, no dawn, only the sense that God Himself is the one pressing down. Verse 16 raises two hard questions. Can a believer be under God's wrath? And whose voice is speaking here?
One writer marks what has changed. The trouble here is not enemies but God Himself.
Psalm 88 puts the remnant of Israel under the deep and dreadful sense of a broken law, and of God's fierce wrath, which in justice falls on those who have broken it. It is not now outward sorrows or oppression of enemies, but that which is far, far deeper between the soul and God... death and wrath are the true burden of the psalm — God's terrors on the soul. The psalm closes in distress; its dealings are wholly with God; and so God must be known, till grace is known.
The same writer says why this wrath cuts so deep.
Israel under law must come under a sense of divine wrath for a broken law. It is right that it should. But notice: it is still a God with whom they are in relationship... A God of salvation may be truly known in a general way. Yet the conscience may never be searched out. Divine wrath may never be known in the conscience, and removed from it. "O Jehovah, God of my salvation!" is how this psalm addresses Him. That gives the psalm its weight and true character, and makes it much more terrible.
Older translations read "your terrors have cut me off." Some have pressed that phrase to mean extinction or final judgment. The Hebrew word behind it says otherwise.
The word tzamath is used in Psalm 119:139, "my zeal consumes me," and here in Psalm 88:16, "your terrors have cut me off." It would be impossible to show that it means final judgment at all.
So the word means worn down and brought to nothing, not wiped out forever. The ESV renders the same line "your dreadful assaults destroy me."
One writer hears in these words the voice of the Man of Sorrows.
That it describes the real experience of a saint no one would doubt. But in it we can hear again the voice of sorrow of Him who was the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief... "Your fierce wrath goes over me, Your terrors cut me off." Such was His experience when on the cross. Christ in humiliation and suffering is mentioned so often to remind His people what deliverance and glory cost.
Commentators differ here. Another writer holds that the psalmist only thought he was under wrath. The end of verse 16 is his evidence.
In fact, he thinks he is suffering God's terrors, and he is in complete confusion. He may well be, if he believes he is suffering the wrath of God. For this reason some have thought the psalm is the language of Christ. He alone suffered the wrath of God in His great sacrifice. The psalmist did not, however strongly he felt about his sufferings. God's terrors had not actually cut him off (v. 16).
A third view holds both together. The sufferer is a saint under law. Christ entered that condition in sympathy before He entered it at the cross.
He was never truly in it until the Cross. Yet in sympathy He entered fully into what it was for man to be under the power of darkness and exposed to death. He entered into what it was to be a saint under law, with Jehovah's fury lying on him, overwhelmed by His anger and brought to nothing by His terrors.
The psalm refuses to end well, and that is the point.
The psalm ends without relief. The experience here is but a monotony of distress. From his youth up there has been nothing else — a living death, a distraction of terrors. Wrath gone over him; terrors around him, the undoing of every social bond even. Such is the hopeless misery of man as regards self-help, and apart from a Mediator.
The wrath in this psalm does not last. One writer says why.
The wrath will not remain on them, because Christ has drunk the true cup of it. But they must come to understand it, as under law, for they had been under law.
- Wrath, not weather. The pressure here comes from God Himself, not from enemies. That is what makes this the psalm's deepest sorrow.
- Cut off, not wiped out. The Hebrew word for "cut me off" means consumed or brought to nothing. It does not mean final judgment.
- Whose voice. Commentators differ. Some hear Christ on the cross. Some hear a believer who only felt what he never bore. Others hear Christ sharing that place in sympathy first, and in fact at the cross.
- No relief by self-help. The psalm ends with no comfort. That shows the hopeless misery of man apart from a Mediator.
- The cup drunk elsewhere. The wrath does not remain, because Christ drank the cup. But the soul must feel its weight before grace means anything.
They have surrounded me all the day like water; they have compassed me about together.
Psalm 88 closes with a man hemmed in on every side, under pressure that never lets up. Who is speaking? What is closing in on him? And why does the psalm end without one ray of light?
You can read the verse two ways: God's terrors surround the sufferer, or his enemies do. One writer says the choice changes nothing for the man himself.
In verse 17, he may mean the terrors of God surrounding him all day, or enemies who, as he saw it, stood in effect for the terrors of God. Either way it comes to the same thing. Others were no help to him at all; they only made his hopeless condition worse.
Enemies are in the verse. But Darby weighs verses 17 and 18 against the rest of the psalm and points to a heavier cause.
Verses 17 and 18 do, I am sure, speak of His enemies and of His friends being taken away — but that is only a minor part of this psalm. Here the trouble comes from the hand of God. In Psalm 38, seen from another angle, His friends stand at a distance. There it is the misery; here it is the wrath.
He traces that hand further back, to a broken law. He also notes who this God still is to the sufferer.
Psalm 88 puts the faithful remnant of Israel under the deep and dreadful sense of a broken law, and of God's fierce wrath, which justly comes on those who have broken it. This is not outward sorrow now, or the oppression of enemies. It is something far, far deeper, between the soul and God... death and wrath are the true burden of the psalm — God's terrors on the soul. And yet it is still a God with whom they are in relationship. They know Him as the God of their salvation, and this is what makes the loss of His favour and the sense of His wrath so dreadful.
Commentators differ over whether these words belong to Christ. Some point to the ending as the reason for hesitating.
The distress and suffering of this psalm has led some to think it must be the words of the Lord Jesus. But unlike the psalms that speak of the Messiah — 22, 40, 69 and 102 — this psalm closes with no relief. The psalms of a suffering Messiah all end with great blessing that comes out of the sufferings. So Psalm 88 seems rather to be the words of one who knows that hope is in God alone, while he goes through the agony of learning by experience how hopeless man's condition is by nature.
Others hear Jesus in these words, and point to what made the pressure worse. He loved the very people who left Him alone.
The real pressure on the soul of Jesus went far beyond anything we can think. He knew His own whole-hearted love for the very people He was suffering for, and He saw their faces turned away from Him in His hour of deepest distress. His heart could receive love as fully as it could give it, and yet He had to be alone... His enemies were around Him like a flood, and He was left without a single comforter.
The psalm offers no way out. One writer reads that silence as a picture of man left to help himself.
The psalm ends without relief. The experience here is nothing but unbroken distress. Since his youth there has been nothing else — a living death, a mind torn apart by terrors. Wrath has gone over him; terrors surround him; even every human tie is undone. Such is the hopeless misery of man when he is left to help himself, apart from a Mediator.
So where does relief come from? One writer points past the end of the psalm.
The psalm closes in distress. The godly man is surrounded by terrors, abandoned by his friends, and left in darkness. Relief comes only from the mercies and faithfulness of God, which are the theme of the next psalm.
One writer found this comfortless psalm strangely comforting.
There is no deliverance in Psalm 88. Even so, at one time it was the only passage in the whole Bible that gave me comfort. It showed me someone like myself, pretty well in despair — and yet the writer was a saint. So perhaps I might be a saint after all.
- Surrounded. God's terrors or hostile men — either way, the people around him gave no help. They only deepened his hopelessness.
- Sourced. Enemies and lost friends are the smaller part here. The weight falls from God's hand: death and wrath, not human pressure.
- Silenced. The psalm ends with no relief. Distress is unbroken and every human tie is undone — man's misery when he is left to help himself, apart from a Mediator.
- Spoken. Commentators differ on whose voice this is. Some note the missing relief that sets it apart from the psalms of a suffering Messiah. Others hear Christ, surrounded like a flood and without one comforter.
- Supplied. The psalm holds no exit, so the answer lies beyond it: the mercies and faithfulness of the next psalm. Even this darkness has comforted believers, showing that despair and real faith can live in the same person.
Lover and associate hast thou put far from me my familiar friends are darkness.
Psalm 88 closes where no other psalm does — the last human face gone, and the dark itself named as the only company left. Two questions press: whose voice is this, and why would God allow a prayer to end without a single ray of light?
Notice who removes the friends. The sufferer does not say they drifted away or proved false. He traces their absence to God's own hand — and what fills the empty place is darkness. One writer sets these last two verses beside a similar scene in Psalm 38:
Verses 17 and 18 refer, I have no doubt, to His enemies and the removal of His friends — which is however a minor part here. But here it is from the hand of God. In Psalm 38, looked at from another point of view, they stand aloof. There it is the misery — here it is the wrath.
Loneliness cuts deepest in a heart made to love. One commentator hears the voice of Jesus here:
His heart was supremely able to receive love as well as to give it. Yet He had to be alone. God's hand separated Him from every kindness of man: "You have caused my companions to shun me" (verse 8); "You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me" (verse 18). While His enemies surrounded Him like a flood, He was without a single comforter. The desertion of His friends was part of the cup prepared for Him.
At the cross, the emptying of human company was not the worst of it. Another writer names the greater absence that fell at the same hour:
It was not God dealing with sinful man. It was God dealing with His own Son, God dealing with Christ, because of man's sin which He had taken upon Him. In that terrible hour darkness covered the land. But there was another far greater eclipse — a complete eclipse between God and the One who hung there, His own beloved Son, bearing sin. God hid His face from Him then. All had forsaken Him, as He says: "You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me." At that very time God forsook Him too!
Prophecy said two things about that day. The burial shows God was not out of options when every friend had gone:
The prophetic writings had said, "You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me" (Psalm 88:18). But they had also said, "they made His grave … with a rich man in His death" (Isaiah 53:9). If verse 49 gives us the fulfilment of the one, verses 50-53 give us the fulfilment of the other. In every emergency God has an instrument in reserve to carry out His purpose and fulfil His word. John tells us that up to this point Joseph had been a secret disciple, for fear of the Jews. Now he acts boldly when all the others were cowed, and the new, unused tomb is available for the sacred body of the Lord.
Commentators differ here. Some hear Christ entering, by His Spirit, into what the law could do to those under it:
Where can we find such deep sorrow and such a sense of wrath, with no glimmer of light beyond the opening words? Israel, to be blessed, must pass through this, and have Christ's Spirit and sympathy with them in it. What could the law do for those under it but press its terrors to death? His Spirit felt it in grace.
Others argue from the very ending that it cannot be Messiah's own experience:
Thus the psalm ends with no suggestion of any easing of the sufferer's misery. It is the very picture of the hopelessness of a fallen creature apart from the intervention of God. … So it seems very clear that this is not a psalm of the Messiah and His sufferings. His sufferings always end in the unspeakable joy of redemption accomplished.
A psalm can end in the dark and still be Scripture — and still be a saint's. One writer recalled what this ending once did for him:
There is no deliverance in Psalm 88. Yet at one time it was the only passage in the whole Bible that gave me comfort. It showed me one like myself, pretty well in despair, and yet it was a saint who wrote it — so perhaps after all I might be a saint.
- Hand — God's own hand removed the friends; Psalm 88 shows wrath where Psalm 38 shows misery.
- Heart — the loss falls on One supremely able to love and to receive love; the empty room was part of His cup.
- Hiding — the friends left, and God hid His face in the same hour; the darkness over the land matched a greater eclipse.
- Reserve — with every friend gone, God still had Joseph ready; He keeps an instrument in reserve to fulfil His word.
- Hope — a psalm that ends in the dark is still Scripture, and the saint who feels "pretty well in despair" is in company here.