Psalm 88
New Catholic Bible
Psalm 88[a]
Prayer in Affliction
1 A song. A psalm of the sons of Korah.[b] For the director. According to Mahalath. For singing. A maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.
2 [c]O Lord, the God of my salvation,
day and night I cry out to you.
3 Let my prayer come before you;
give ear to my cry for help.
4 [d]For my soul[e] is filled with misery,
and my life draws near to the netherworld.
5 I am numbered among those who go down to the pit;[f]
all strength has failed me.
6 I have been abandoned among the dead,
like the slain who lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no longer
and whom your hand has abandoned.[g]
7 [h]You have lowered me into the depths of the pit,
into the darkest regions of the abyss.
8 Your wrath lies heavy upon me;
all your waves engulf me. Selah
9 You have caused my closest friends to shun me
and made me hateful in their sight.
I am shut in with no means of escape,[i]
10 and my eyes grow dim[j] with my suffering.
[k]Every day I call out to you, O Lord,
and spread out my hands to you.
11 Do you perform wonders[l] for the dead?
Do the shades rise up and give you praise? Selah
12 Is your kindness[m] celebrated in the grave,
or your faithfulness in the tomb?
13 Are your wonders known in the region of darkness,
or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?[n]
14 [o]But for my part, I cry out to you, O Lord;
in the morning my prayer rises before you.
15 Why do you cast me away, O Lord?[p]
Why do you hide your face from me?
16 Since infancy I have been wretched and close to death;
I have borne your terrors
and have now reached the point of exhaustion.
17 Your wrath has weighed down upon me;
your terrors have destroyed me.
18 All day long they surround me like a flood;
they encircle me completely.
19 You have caused my friends and neighbors to shun me;
my sole companion now is darkness.[q]
Footnotes
- Psalm 88:1 The anguish of death has rarely found expression in such touching images as those of the present psalm: prison, shipwreck, solitude, and darkness. The suppliant has experienced the depths of misfortune. Has God abandoned him? Despite the depths of his distress, the believer refuses to admit such a thing; he puts down all thought of rebellion within himself. For although no expressions of hopeful expectation (as in most psalms) are present and the last word speaks of darkness as “my closest friend,” the psalmist firmly believes that the Lord is “the God of [his] salvation.”
This psalm illustrates the hazy ideas that the ancients harbored about life after death before they arrived at faith in the resurrection: in the netherworld (“Sheol”), in the subterranean pit, the dead have no more communication with God; they are no more than dull shadows of themselves in the land of no recall. It is a prayer of a man who experiences the depths of human misery, a prayer of Israel at the edge of collapse, but also a prayer of everyone on the brink of hopelessness.
This psalm furnishes Christians with a prayer during times of spiritual dryness as well as human calamities of all kinds. We can then express to the heavenly Father our sufferings and distresses in the face of hostility, the weight of our spiritual and human solitude, and our fear in the light of his persistent silence. It will enable us to accept our cup without recrimination and to renew our trust in our God. - Psalm 88:1 Sons of Korah: see note on Ps 42:1. For the director: these words are thought to be a musical or liturgical notation. According to Mahalath: possibly a tune. Maskil: see note on Ps 32:1a. Heman the Ezrahite: he is thought to be the son of Zerah (hence, Ezrahite) and member of the tribe of Judah (see 1 Chr 2:6) as well as leader of the Korahite guild (see 1 Chr 6:33, 37).
- Psalm 88:2 The psalmist, despite his wretched state, has not lost hope; he believes that the Lord is the God who saves and so he cries out to him for help.
- Psalm 88:4 His soul is full of troubles; indeed, he is accounted as one already in the grave and cut off from God (see Ps 143:7; Job 10:15; 17:1).
- Psalm 88:4 Soul: see note on Ps 6:4. Netherworld: see note on Ps 6:6.
- Psalm 88:5 The psalmist is alive but dead (see Pss 6:6; 107:18) as to his contemporaries (see Pss 22:30; 28:1; 143:7; Prov 1:12). Pit: see note on Ps 30:2.
- Psalm 88:6 As far as the psalmist is concerned, he is already in the pit (see note on Ps 6:6), where he cannot call upon God to remember him and come to his aid (see Pss 25:7; 74:2; 106:4).
- Psalm 88:7 For some reason God has let a flood of troubles overwhelm the suppliant so that he remains deprived of all human consolation (see Ps 142:7; Lam 3:7).
- Psalm 88:9 Friends interpret the suffering of the suppliant as a punishment from God and remain aloof from him lest they also be struck with it.
- Psalm 88:10 Eyes grow dim: see note on Ps 6:8.
- Psalm 88:10 The psalmist prays to be saved in order to continue to praise the Lord for his wondrous deeds, for those in the grave can no longer do so (see notes on Pss 6:6; 9:2).
- Psalm 88:11 Wonders: see note on Ps 9:2. Rise up: i.e., a simple act of rising to give praise in the kingdom of the dead (see Isa 14:9)—not a bona fide resurrection from the dead.
- Psalm 88:12 The psalmist would be unable to render praise to God if he were to go to the grave, also known as the “pit.” Kindness . . . faithfulness: see notes on Pss 6:5; 36:6f. The tomb: literally, “destruction,” another name for the grave or the pit; in Hebrew it is Abaddon (see Job 26:6; 28:22; Prov 15:11; Rev 9:11).
- Psalm 88:13 The psalmist speaks of death as a place of total darkness, also known as the land of oblivion, in contrast with the “land of the living” (Pss 27:13; 52:7; 116:9; 142:6), because those who die are quickly forgotten by the living (see Pss 6:6; 31:13; Eccl 9:5).
- Psalm 88:14 Even when human consolation is lacking, suffering can still be bearable if God gives his perceptible consolation; however, the psalmist also feels himself abandoned by God.
- Psalm 88:15 Why . . . ?: see note on Ps 6:4. Hide your face: see note on Ps 13:2.
- Psalm 88:19 The lamentation ends on a cry of sadness, like Ps 39. However, it is not a cry of despair, for God cannot remain deaf to the prayers of his faithful ones (see Ps 79:9-11; Job 16:18-20).
