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.