Psalms 88:1

PSALM 88

NATIONAL LAMENT DURING THE EXTREME DISTRESS OF THE EXILE;

THE SORROWFUL PRAYER OF A DYING LEPER;

THE SADDEST PSALM IN THE PSALTER

We have given three headings of this psalm because of our uncertainty concerning which is correct. Briggs advocated the first of these;[1] Kittel suggested the second;[2] and Kirkpatrick gave us the third.[3]

Certainly, the near hopeless tone of the psalm would apply equally well to the emotions of one fatally with leprosy, or to the almost total despair of the children of Israel during the times of their sojourn as captives in Babylon.

Having once visited a leper colony in the Far East, this writer prefers the second of these chapter headings, at the same time admitting the inability to prove that this choice is correct. Certain passages in the psalm itself seem to be best explained by the tragic situation of the leper.

THE SUPERSCRIPTION

A Song, a Psalm of the sons of Korah; for the Chief Musician; set to Mahalath Leannoth. Maschil of Heman the Ezrahite.

An alternative reading on "Leannoth" here is "for singing." The unusual interest in this superscription is that the authorship has a double assignment: "of the sons of Korah," and "of Heman." This was satisfactorily explained by Leupold who pointed out that, "Heman was the author; and he belonged to the guild of singers called the `Sons of Korah.'"[4] Heman is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 6:13; 15:17; 25:4-6).

The paragraphing we follow here is that of Maclaren.[5]

Psalms 88:1-9a

THE PSALMIST'S CRY TO GOD

"Oh Jehovah, the God of my salvation,

I have cried day and night before thee.

Let my prayer enter into thy presence;

Incline thine ear unto my cry.

For my soul is full of troubles,

And my life draweth nigh unto Sheol.

I am reckoned with them that go down into the pit;

I am as a man that hath no help,

Cast off among the dead,

Like the slain that lie in the grave,

Whom thou rememberest no more,

And they are cut off from thy hand.

Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit,

In dark places in the deeps.

Thy wrath lieth hard upon me,

And thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves.

(Selah)

Thou hast put mine acquaintance far from me;

Thou hast made me an abomination unto them:

I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.

Mine eye wasteth away by reason of affliction."

We have never read a passage describing the approach of death any more impressive than this one. "Sheol" (Psalms 88:3); "the pit" (Psalms 88:4); "among the dead" (Psalms 88:5); "the grave" (Psalms 88:5); "the lowest pit" (Psalms 88:6); "dark places" (Psalms 88:7); and "the deeps" (Psalms 88:7) are seven synonyms for the realm of the dead, or Hades; and the mind of the psalmist seems utterly overcome with the gloom of approaching death.

"O God of my salvation" (Psalms 88:1). Surely this is an exclamation of faith in God, and the very fact of the psalmist's turning to God in prayer is an indelible mark of trust and devotion.

"I am reckoned with them that go down into the pit" (Psalms 88:4). The psalmist here says that people have already written him off as a dead man. In the sixty-four years of the ministry of this writer, he has often called upon terminally persons who had indeed been "accounted as already dead" by members of their family and the community. This psalmist was in such a tragic condition.

"Whom thou rememberest no more ... cut off from thy hand" (Psalms 88:5). The attitude here is that even God will remember him no more when death comes, and that God Himself will not do anything for him in the grave. The vast difference between the near-hopelessness of the Old Testament saint and the New Testament believer in Christ is dramatically emphasized by such statements as these.

"Thy wrath lieth hard upon me" (Psalms 88:7). Although the psalmist ascribes his condition to the wrath of God, he makes no mention of sins and does not ask forgiveness.

"Thou hast put mine acquaintance far from me ... made me an abomination unto them" (Psalms 88:8). This is one of the lines in the psalm that seems to picture the repulsiveness of lepers. When this writer visited a leper compound near Pusan, Korea, in 1953, it exhibited the most repulsive and pitiful spectacle of human misery and wretchedness that the mind can imagine. One looked in horror upon wretched human bodies with lips, eyelids, nose, ears, fingers, etc. missing because of disease, the horrible odor of the "compound," the terribly inadequate tent-shacks built by the lepers themselves from cardboard, tin, brush, scrap lumber, anything, and the "water supply" nothing but a polluted ditch nearby. The food supply was from an occasional garbage truck that dumped all kinds of waste near the camp. The soul-chilling memory of that experience still remains with this writer almost forty years afterward!

Did any of the inmates of that "compound" have loved ones who visited them? My host chaplain assured me that they were already accounted as dead by both family and the community. The verses of this psalm bring vividly to memory what was seen in that dreadful "compound."

"I am shut up, and cannot come forth" (Psalms 88:8). "These words have been interpreted to mean that the psalmist was a leper, and therefore cut off from society and the public worship of God (Leviticus 13:1-8,45-46)."[6]

"Mine eye wasteth away by reason of affliction" (Psalms 88:9a). This also describes what happens in the disease of leprosy. The loss of eyelids exposes the eye, not only to all kinds of atmospheric debris, but also to harsh sunlight with the eventual loss or drastic reduction of eyesight.