Psalm 88 New King James Version
A Prayer for Help in Despondency
A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. To the Chief Musician. Set to “Mahalath Leannoth.” A [a]Contemplation of Heman the Ezrahite.
88 O Lord, God of my salvation,
I have cried out day and night before You.
2 Let my prayer come before You;
[b]Incline Your ear to my cry.
3 For my soul is full of troubles,
And my life draws near to the grave.
4 I am counted with those who go[c] down to the pit;
I am like a man who has no strength,
5 [d]Adrift among the dead,
Like the slain who lie in the grave,
Whom You remember no more,
And who are cut off from Your hand.
6 You have laid me in the lowest pit,
In darkness, in the depths.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
And You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah
8 You have [e]put away my acquaintances far from me;
You have made me an abomination to them;
I am shut up, and I cannot get out;
9 My eye wastes away because of affliction.
Lord, I have called daily upon You;
I have stretched out my hands to You.
10 Will You work wonders for the dead?
Shall [f]the dead arise and praise You? Selah
11 Shall Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave?
Or Your faithfulness in the place of destruction?
12 Shall Your wonders be known in the dark?
And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But to You I have cried out, O Lord,
And in the morning my prayer comes before You.
14 Lord, why do You cast off my soul?
Why do You hide Your face from me?
15 I have been afflicted and ready to die from my youth;
I suffer Your terrors;
I am distraught.
16 Your fierce wrath has gone over me;
Your terrors have [g]cut me off.
17 They came around me all day long like water;
They engulfed me altogether.
18 Loved one and friend You have put far from me,
And my acquaintances into darkness.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Who Knows This Measure of Agony?
We come now to psalm 88, the lowest point of lament and despair in the entire psalter, it is the only psalm which does not have any ‘yet’ or a ‘nevertheless’ to redeem its pain, but, considered as a psalm in itself, ends in the same agony and loneliness with which it began:
“My lovers and friends hast thou put away from me: and hid mine acquaintance out of my sight.” Verse 18 AKJV
That is the end of the psalm, but not the end of the psalter, the book of praises.
In fact, as Paula Gooder points out in the Introduction to David’s Crown, it is, in terms of the number of verses in total, the exact mid-point of the psalter, it is the middle, and not the end of the story.
This is vital for us to remember: both that we can freely tell God our worst fears and feelings, as the psalmist does here, and also that we can know that those fears and doubts are not the end of our story, any more than they are the close of the psalter, for the psalter re-ascends from this darkness, closes with praise.
It is this, which enables us, in this devotional response to psalm 88 to trust God with the uppermost uncensored bleakness of our own personal experienced of spiritual darkness and depression-maybe even give insight into Jesus’ Calvary.
Hello Darkness my old friend, again I come to talk …
We may be more used to the idea of darkness as a friend from that Simon and Garfunkel classic the sound of silence with its opening line “hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again”… than the closing line of a psalm, but that is exactly how psalm 88 finishes ..with the psalmist saying darkness…it is the darkness which is my closest confidant, my dearest most trusted friend.
It is the ‘saddest and darkest psalm in the whole psalter.
IT is one wail of sorrow from beginning to end.
You could say that from go to woe… well it’s just all woe.
Another commentator says… its uniqueness is in its bleakness.
“Psalm 88 is unmatched in its tone of darkness and despair”.
The only glimmer of light is the first line, “Lord, you are the God who saves me”, kind of like the last comforting rays of the sunset before the long dark night envelops the psalmist as he waits and waits and waits for God to help.
One of the amazing things about the psalms is that within them the whole of human experience is raised up before God.
AS such it is “proper that it should contain the record of an hour so dark that no relief comes” (EM Blaiklock).
From the introduction to this psalm we see it was put to a tune, it was a song that was designed for corporate worship, so it was meant not only as a personal expression of suffering and waiting for God to act but as a corporate one as well, drawing together people, acknowledge a shared pain and longing and disquiet.
I could imagine the exiles by the rivers of Babylon singing this sort of psalm as they wept, as they remembered Zion (Psalm 137).
It reverberates with the loudest cries of people who have suffered oppression down through the ages.
It echoes the cries of people of faith who have wrestled with unanswered prayer.
In fact the psalm comes from a place where there seems to be no simple answer, it’s part of the wisdom literature in the Hebrew Scriptures that wrestles with the deep question of good versus evil, why bad things happen to good people.
It has many similarities with the book of Job, the Psalmist is sick and facing death and disaster, he feels like Job, God is unjustly turned away from him and he finds no comfort in friends or neighbors, they simply add to his suffering.
While there are good theological answers to the question of suffering and evil in the end, it is the greatest testimony to the strength of faith in God, the people of God resort to poetry, to song to bring out the depth of that suffering. (Psalm 23)
Praying, Finding Hope in the Darkest Psalm
Psalm 88:1-2 New Living Translation
Psalm 88
For the choir director: A psalm of the descendants of Korah. A song to be sung to the tune “The Suffering of Affliction.” A psalm[a] of Heman the Ezrahite.
1 O Lord, God of my salvation,
I cry out to you by day.
I come to you at night.
2 Now hear my prayer;
listen to my cry.
One of the most difficult seasons we can endure is when we feel God is silent, especially if we’re already going through challenging situations.
When it seems everything is going wrong and your Help seems to be nowhere in sight, sadly too leaves a person feeling forgotten, in disparity, simply rejected.
Our major frustrations from these harsh times and seasons come not from simply being in this pit but thinking that God’s silence means His absence.
If this is you, you’re not alone.
The author of Psalm 88 has not only been through this type of heartbreaking situation, he wrote about.
As I said, Psalm 88 appears to be one of the saddest and most dismal chapters in the Bible. Dare yourself, just feel free to check it out and I’m sure you will agree.
The writer expresses feelings of being overwhelmed, cut off, forgotten, grieved, rejected, terrified, and despaired.
Worst of all, he is crying out to God wondering where God is in all his suffering.
The Psalm ends saying, “darkness is my closest friend” (Psalm 88:18 NIV).
However, the hope this Psalm offers is not in its ending, but in its beginning.
“LORD, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you.” (Psalm 88:1 NIV)
Before his laundry list of everything that’s going wrong, the Psalmist acknowledges that there is hope for salvation in the Lord, even when God appears silent.
We learn that just because God is silent does not mean He is absent, and it certainly does not mean He is not working behind the scenes on our behalf.
Do not be deceived by the darkness in your life, it is never greater than where your help comes from. (John 1:1-5)
Even when you feel you are in an inescapable pit, as the writer of Psalm 88 describes, God is there with you.
One of the things this psalm does is allow us to know we are not alone in wrestling with God, we are not alone in facing seemingly insurmountable difficulties, we are not alone in feeling alone and unloved.
We are not alone in still having redeeming faith and trusting in God even in the face of what may seem like God’s absence.
Four times in this Psalm the writer calls out to God.
His plea echoes through time, reminds me of Jesus suffering horribly on the cross crying out in his darkest moment to the Father.
About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? – Matthew 27:46 NIV
I want to ask, do you think God stopped loving Jesus because He was dying a horrible death on the cross? Was Jesus’ suffering a sign God dismissed His Son?
Absolutely not!
If God didn’t stop loving Jesus on the cross then no matter what dark season you are in He has not, and will not stop loving you.
And if He’s promised to never leave you for forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6) please trust He’s right in the darkness with you friend.
He walks through the valley of the show of death with us (Psalm 23:4).
We may not always feel or hear God but we can always believe His promise is greater than our darkness.
This darkest season only served to push the writer of Psalm 88 closer to God.
He was not calling out to another person or thing for help.
He called out to the ONLY One he knew could save.
This Psalm reminds us that our dark seasons don’t serve to show us that God is absent but actually, emphatically, just how desperately we need His presence.
The Psalmist felt his life was near death so he cries out to the very One who raises the dead.
He does not look for salvation from people or things.
When you’re near death you cry out to the One who overcame death.
There is purpose in our pain and hope in our dark season to push us to the light.
I encourage each of you readers to pray to God just as the writer of Psalm 88.
John 14:1-4 New Living Translation
Jesus, the Way to the Father
14 “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. 2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.[a] If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?[b] 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.”
In my own experience, I’ve learned that sometimes God empties us so He can fill us back up. Sometimes He’s silent so we can learn to listen. Sometimes He allows the deepest darkness so we can see that He is the true light of our life.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 27 New American Standard Bible 1995
A Psalm of Fearless Trust in God.
A Psalm of David.
27 The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the [a]defense of my life;
Whom shall I dread?
2 When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh,
My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.
3 Though a host encamp against me,
My heart will not fear;
Though war arise against me,
In spite of this I [b]shall be confident.
4 One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the [c]beauty of the Lord
And to [d]meditate in His temple.
5 For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His [e]tabernacle;
In the secret place of His tent He will hide me;
He will lift me up on a rock.
6 And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me,
And I will offer in His tent sacrifices [f]with shouts of joy;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.
7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice,
And be gracious to me and answer me.
8 When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You,
“Your face, O Lord, I shall seek.”
9 Do not hide Your face from me,
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not abandon me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation!
10 [g]For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
But the Lord will take me up.
11 Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a level path
Because of [h]my foes.
12 Do not deliver me over to the [i]desire of my adversaries,
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.
13 [j]I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.
14 Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 