Psalm 88
to the depths
One of the things I have been working quietly away at (and please don't expect anything any time soon) is some extended writing on the psalms, as an aid to using them in prayer. Today I want to reflect on psalm 88, probably the saddest of the psalms. Psalm 88 actually forms a pair with psalm 89 - where 88 is an individual lament with no deliverance, 89 is a communal lament reflecting upon God's promises and the total failure of the Davidic kingdom and the nation of Israel - is there any hope for Israel? Will he keep his promises to David? Where is his hesed love?
A song. A psalm of the Sons of Korah. For the director of music. According to mahalath leannoth. A maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.
1 Lord, you are the God who saves me;
day and night I cry out to you.
2 May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.
3 I am overwhelmed with troubles
and my life draws near to death.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am like one without strength.
5 I am set apart with the dead,
like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
who are cut off from your care.
6 You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.
7 Your wrath lies heavily on me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.
8 You have taken from me my closest friends
and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
9 my eyes are dim with grief. (NIV)
Anguish
1-9: The psalm opens with a cry to God, O Lord, God of my salvation. This is actually incredibly important because it establishes for us that the psalmist cries out from a place of faith - they know God and they consider God to be their salvation, and they are trusting in him. And yet, even being a believer, they are undergoing the anguish of the psalm. They are constantly and regularly in prayer, and seeing their prayers go unanswered. And yet they persist. They pray day and night (v1), every day (v9), and before you - intimate, God-facing prayer. And yet, As Kidner puts it, the psalm provides a "witness to the possibility of unrelieved suffering as a believer’s earthly lot"1. Or Spurgeon: “Are good men ever permitted to suffer thus? Indeed they are; and some of them are even all their life time subject to bondage.”2
In 2-9 we have their anguish described. Their prayers unanswered, their life in danger, they feel like God has abandoned them and remembers them no more. In verse 7, it seems that God himself is against them. They have suffered the loss of friendship and fellowship, and in v9 the mention of eyes growing dim is likely a reference to their vitality, their very life force, seeming to ebb away. Truly they have sunk to the depths.
I call to you, Lord, every day;
I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you show your wonders to the dead?
Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
11 Is your love declared in the grave,
your faithfulness in Destruction?
12 Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion? (NIV)
10-12 shifts tone, as the psalmist questions God, with sarcasm and bite. These echo some of Job's questions - the dead don't praise God, do they? So why are you letting me die?
13 But I cry to you for help, Lord;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 Why, Lord, do you reject me
and hide your face from me?
15 From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
your terrors have destroyed me.
17 All day long they surround me like a flood;
they have completely engulfed me.
18 You have taken from me friend and neighbour—
my only friend is darkness. (NIV, modified)
13-18 Makes the questioning more direct. Despite their constant prayer, it seems that God has turned from them (v14), and in v15 the psalmist voices that it seems like God has always been against them. The longitudinal nature of their suffering overwhelms their vision. The final verse ends in seeming despair - "my only friend... darkness".
Thirdly, this author, like Job, does not give up. He completes his prayer, still in the dark and totally unrewarded. The taunt, ‘Does Job fear God for naught?’, is answered yet again. 3
Psalm 88 is a psalm that makes us uncomfortable. It ought to. It discomforts us. Like many psalms, the circumstances of the psalmist are obscure, just generic enough to allow us to enter into the distress with our own distresses, but profound enough to encompass our darkest moments. It’s a psalm uttered in faith not unbelief, in the tension between God’s ability to save, his promises to deliver, and the ongoing, long-term silence of God. More than that, the psalmist accuses God directly of being the sovereign source of their distress. In doing so, it teaches us to talk to God in a confronting, even accusatory way, which is prayer language that most of us would not dare to use of our own accord.
On the lips of Christ
Of all psalms, we should look to see their fulfilment in Christ, but sometimes we should not be so hasty to get to Christ. The lack of a turning point, of any glimmer of hope, situates this psalm in the long, dark night. It is a psalm that speaks of Christ on the cross, not risen from the grave; of the disciples on Holy Saturday, not truly knowing that Sunday is coming.
All lament psalms are arguably applicable to Jesus especially as the suffering servant and the man of sorrows. Jesus knew better than anyone the depths of suffering, of undergoing trial, the abandonment of his friends in the hour of his need, betrayal by one of his closest companions, the prayer for deliverance unanswered (If it be possible, let this cup pass from me), and the imminence of death. In all this, he remains both faithful to the God of his salvation, and constant in prayer, even when there is no deliverance. Jesus in his experience of divine punishment on the cross is the one who finds that God is against him, and finds that all is darkness, to the bitter end. Only in his experience of Psalm 88 do we find the glimmer of hope that is the first rays of dawn’s light. In Jesus' suffering the rhetorical questions of this psalm find their answer - the one who goes down to the dead yet praises because he lives again. And we may too, though perhaps also not yet.
In the church, then, we sing and pray this psalm by way of uniting our sufferings to Christ, and his sufferings to us. Because he has suffered for us, we can have a confidence that reaches beyond the words of this psalm in its original setting, that beyond the sufferings of this life, there is a sure and certain hope of resurrection and joy, because Christ did it for us.
How to use this psalm:
This psalm can be availed in two ways. Firstly, it is very apt to be used by a believer in the midst of deep sorrows, especially when those sufferings are prolonged, and God seems far off and unheeding. It gives voice to the heart-cries of the abandoned and desolate, and puts into inspired words the groanings that perhaps we would fear to express. Laments like this help us to wrestle out our profoundest sufferings in the presence of God.
Secondly, the psalm is to be used when we are not in the midst of deep sorrows, as an expression of solidarity with those who suffer in the world. There are many in the church worldwide, whose lot is suffering, whose hope is dim, whose prospects of earthly deliverance are little to none. This psalm invites us in as the corporate body of Christ to sing with them, joining in their lament and recalling that this present order is not all it is meant to be, this world has many wrongs yet to be put right.
p.s. here’s what a congregational song based on Psalm 88 sounds like.
Derek Kidner, Psalms 73–150: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 16 of Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1975), 350.
Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Ps 88.3.
Kidner, Psalms 73–150, 350.