Introduction
Psalm 88 is another lamentation in which the psalmist calls on the Lord for help because of what he’s suffering. However, it is unique because the other psalms of lamentation normally end with hope or with praise. Normally the psalmist prays to the Lord for help. And before the psalm is finished, he begins to praise God because the Lord has heard and answered him. The Lord has given him relief. Or the Lord has delivered him from his enemies. Or the Lord has given him some reason to rejoice. That’s what the other lamentations are like. But Psalm 88 is different, because it does not end in praise for deliverance. It ends as bleakly as it begins.
Different commentators divide the psalm in different ways. I’m inclined to divide it into three parts with the headings: darkness; darkness; and more darkness. I say that because the first part — verses 1 to 6 — ends with darkness:
You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.
And the second part — verses 7 to 12 — ends with darkness:
Are your wonders known in the place of darkness…?
And the third part — verses 13 to 18 — also ends with darkness:
You have taken my companions and loved ones from me;
the darkness is my closest friend.
In fact, in the Hebrew text, the very last word of the psalm is the word darkness. This is a dark, dark psalm with ends in darkness.
The title tells us that it’s a psalm of the sons of Korah. And then it goes on to mention Heman the Ezrahite. We don’t know much about him, but his name appears in several places in the Old Testament, where he is listed among the Levites and musicians. He’s described in one place as someone who prophesied with musical instruments. And in another verse he’s described as the king’s seer. There are other references to Heman, but it’s not clear whether the same person is always meant or whether there were two or more Hemans in the Bible. However, his identity doesn’t really throw any light on the interpretation of this dark psalm.
Verses 1 to 6
He begins the psalm by calling on the Lord who is the God of his salvation. You’ll see that he’s using God’s covenant name, which appears as LORD in capital letters in our English Bibles. And that means this dark psalm begins with faith: the God to whom he prays is the God of the covenant, the God who has bound himself with a promise to love and care for his people always. And this God is also the God of his salvation; he is the God who saves. So, if anyone is going to deliver him from his trouble, it’s the Lord, the God of his salvation.
The psalmist may be suffering terribly, but he’s trusting in the Lord for help. In fact, the whole psalm demonstrates his faith, because the reason he’s bringing his complaint to the Lord is because he believes the Lord is the only one who can help him.
So, he addresses his prayer to the Lord, the God of his salvation. And he goes on to say that he cries out to God day and night. Day and night means he’s persistent: he will not stop. It also speaks to us of his desperation. Because he’s desperate for help, then he will not stop calling on the Lord. Just as a baby will cry and cry and cry until someone comes and picks him up, so the psalmist cries and cries and cries to the Lord and he will not stop until he gets the relief he so desperately needs.
And in verse 2 he says that he wants his prayer to come before the Lord and he wants the Lord to turn his ear to his cry. In other words, he wants the Lord to hear and answer him. And the reason he wants the Lord to hear him is because his soul is full of trouble. The word ‘full’ normally means ‘satisfied’ and it’s normally associated with good things. So, people eat and are satisfied. Or God fills my soul with good things. Normally it means someone is full of good things. But here it’s the opposite: the psalmist is full of trouble and affliction. In fact, his life draws near the grave. He feels that his life is slipping away and it won’t be long before he is dead and buried. In fact, he is counted as those who go down to the pit of death. So, he’s not the only one who thinks he’s dying. Other people think the same as well: they think he’s done for, because they regard him as a man with no strength. He hasn’t the strength to go on living.
According to verse 5 he sees himself as someone who has been set apart with the dead and who belongs with all those who have been slain and who now lie in the grave. He says that such people are forgotten by God. The next line helps us to understand what that means, because it’s not that God forgets them, but that they are cut off from his care. That is to say, he no longer remembers to care for them, because there’s no point caring for them when they’re dead. There’s no point providing the dead with health and strength and daily food. There’s no point, because they’re dead and it won’t help them.
And this part of the psalm ends with the psalmist saying that God has put him in the lowest pit and in the darkest depths. So, God has put him there. He realises that his times are in God’s hands and that whatever happens to him in life happens because of the Lord. And so, the Lord is the one who has afflicted him. The Lord has caused him to suffer like this. The Lord has filled his life with darkness.
Verses 7 to 12
This theme continues in the second part of the psalm from verse 7 to verse 12. He says to the Lord: your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves; you have taken from me my closest friends; you have made me repulsive to them. So God has done these things to him. God has afflicted him. God’s wrath or fury is pressing down on him and he feels that he’s drowning in his troubles. They are overwhelming him. And his friends can’t stand being around him any longer. Perhaps for a while they kept visiting him to encourage him. But now they find him repulsive. They can’t bear to be around him. And this has happened because of what God has done to him. He feels confined. Trapped. There’s no escape from his trouble. And his eyes are dim with grief. The light in his eyes has gone out.
In verse 9 he says again that he has called out to the Lord and he has spread his hands out to God in prayer. In fact, he has called out to the Lord every day. So, every day he’s asked the Lord for relief. But it hasn’t come. And then he asks a series of questions: Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do the dead rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave? Is your faithfulness declared in the place of destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness? Are your righteous deeds known in the land of oblivion? By asking these questions, he’s really saying to the Lord that it’s the living who praise God. The living are the ones who benefit from God’s love and faithfulness and mighty deeds. And since they have benefitted from the Lord’s goodness, they are the ones who praise the Lord. But the dead don’t praise God. Those living in the graves don’t praise him. The dead can’t give thanks to the Lord. And so, I want to live so that I can praise you. I want to stay alive so that I might join the rest of your people to give thanks to you. What good is it to you if I die, because when I die I can’t praise you or declare to others what you have done. So, let me live and not die.
We, of course, would want to remind the psalmist that believers who die do praise the Lord, because the souls of believers who die immediately return to the Lord who made us so that we can praise him with the angels in heaven, while we wait for the resurrection of our bodies. But his point still stands: in terms of what happens in this world, only the living praise God. And so, he’s saying to the Lord that he wants the Lord to preserve his life so that he can continue to praise God in this world. Those who have gone down to the darkness of the grave cannot praise you. So, let me live.
Verses 13 to 18
According to verse 13, he continues to cry to the Lord for help. In the morning, he says, his prayer comes before God. So, as soon as a new day begins, he begins to pray. Every day he prays to God and asks for relief. But it seems to him, according to verse 14, that the Lord has rejected him and has hidden his face from him. It seems to the psalmist that God is not listening to him.
And then we learn from verse 15 that his suffering is not new. This is not a new experience which has just begun. No, he’s been afflicted from his youth up. Perhaps he’s suffered a life-long illness and he’s struggled with sickness throughout his life. And he adds at the end of verse 15 that he has suffered ‘your terrors’. He’s once again acknowledging that it has come from God. God has afflicted him. So, God’s wrath has swept over him. God’s terrors have destroyed him. All day long God’s terrors surround him like a flood. Again, he feels overwhelmed and he thinks his suffering is going to sweep him away like a flood. God’s terrors have engulfed him completely. Think of Jonah when he was thrown over the side of the ship and he sank down and down and down towards the grave and seaweed clung to him and wrapped around his neck. He felt he was done-for. And the psalmist feels the same way. However, whereas the Lord sent a big fish to rescue Jonah, the Lord has left the psalmist on his own. God has taken away his companions and loved ones. He is altogether lonely. He been left alone in the darkness of his despair.
Explanation
And that’s how the psalm ends. There’s no resolution. There’s no injection of hope. There’s no praise. There’s only darkness. The psalmist has suffered all his life; he’s called on the Lord day and night again and again and again; but things have not improved. And it seems to him that the Lord is not listening. And yet he keeps praying, because his only hope is in the Lord.
Those who have never suffered like this can give thanks to the Lord for his kindness to them, because this suffering is what we all deserve for a lifetime of sin and rebellion. We were sinners from the time of our conception and we have sinned against the Lord every day. And therefore what we deserve from him for a lifetime of sin and rebellion is his wrath and curse and to suffer every kind of affliction in this life and in the next. But the Lord is gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love and he does not treat us as our sins deserve nor does he repay us according to our iniquity. Instead he fills our lives with good things to enjoy. And we can given thanks to God our Father and to Jesus Christ our King for all the ways they relieve our suffering in this world. And when we’re sick, God has provided us with medical professionals with the knowledge and expertise and with medicines and painkillers and with the inclination to help us. And so, we should give thanks to the Lord for his kindness to us.
And those who do suffer like this can take some comfort in the fact that you’re not on your own. When we’re suffering, we sometimes think we’re all alone in the world and no-one has suffered as we have suffered. But then we read this psalm and we discover that we’re not on our own, because the psalmist has suffered as we have suffered and he’s put our suffering into words. And therefore he’s given us the words we need so that we can turn to God in prayer to seek his help. And the psalmist has given us an example to follow when we’re in despair, because he’s shown us that we can bring our troubles to the Lord.
But we also need to remember and believe that our God is the LORD, our covenant God, and he has bound himself to us with a promise to be our God and to love and care for us always. And so, when he afflicts us, it’s not because he hates us. It’s not that he has it in for us and wants to hurt us out of spite or hatred. He doesn’t hate us; he loves us. And we know he loves us because didn’t he give up his Only-Begotten Son for our salvation? Didn’t he send his Son into the world to take the blame for all that we have done wrong? He doesn’t hate us; he loves us. He loves us with an everlasting love. And so, while we may not know much, and while we may not know why he has afflicted us, we know that he loves us and that he’s able to use our suffering for our good and for his glory. And the moment he has accomplished his purpose for us, he has the power and the authority to say the word and to bring our suffering to an end just as he did in the life of Job. And the Lord was able to bless the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.
And the final thing to say is that the suffering of the psalmist foreshadows the suffering of our Saviour, who, for us and for our salvation, became a man of sorrows who was familiar with suffering. And though he prayed for the cup of suffering to be taken from him, it was his Father’s will for him to suffer, because there was no other way to save us from eternal suffering and pain. And then all his friends deserted him when he was arrested. And he was taken away to be nailed to the cross and to suffer the agony of crucifixion as well as the wrath of God for our sins.
But after his suffering, there came the resurrection. And from his throne in heaven, he is interceding for his suffering people here on earth. And he sends us the help we need to relieve our present suffering. And he works all things together for our good. And he promises his people perfect peace and rest in the life to come. And our present sufferings, though sometimes unbearable, are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us when Christ comes again to renew and restore all things and to give us everlasting happiness in the presence of the Lord our God.
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