Psalm 88, The Dark Dead Grave

A song. A psalm of the Sons of Korah. 

For the director of music. According to mahalath leannoth. 

A maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.

In I Kings 4: 30-31 Heman, the author of Psalm 88 and Ethan, the author of Psalm 89, are both mentioned as wise men. And there it is said that Solomon was wiser still! Both Heman and Ethan are mentioned in 1 Chronicles 2:6 as sons of Zerah, who was one of the twins born to Judah by Tamar. (Robert Alter suggests that Ezrahite is merely a name for a descendant of Zerah._

Psalm 88:1-3, Near the grave

O LORD, the God who saves me, 

day and night I cry out before you.

 May my prayer come before you; 

turn your ear to my cry.

 For my soul is full of trouble 

and my life draws near the grave.

The singer is anxious, indeed fearful of drawing near death. He begins his plea by identifying YHWH as the God who saves him, but the rest of the psalm is plaintive pleading.

Psalm 88:4-5, Pit, dead, grave, cutoff

 I am counted among those who go down to the pit; 

I am like a man without strength.

 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.

The psalmist will keep returning to the concept of death. Already he has mentioned, in order, the grave, the pit, the dead, the grave, and "cut off".... The writer views the grave as a place where one is forgotten, even by God, and where one can no longer speak about God or praise him.

Psalm 88:6-7, Overwhelmed by waves

You have put me in the lowest pit, 

in the darkest depths.

 Your wrath lies heavily upon me;

 you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.

God's actions, whatever they are, have brought this individual into the lowest depths of life, overwhelmed and drowning. Since the ANE culture viewed Sheol as existing in the depths of the sea, the writer is again alluding to the possibilities of death.

Psalm 88:8-9, Repulsive to my friends

You have taken from me my closest friends

 and have made me repulsive to them. 

I am confined and cannot escape;

 my eyes are dim with grief. 

I call to you, O LORD, everyday;

 I spread out my hands to you.

In the oppression fhe faces, the author's illness and distress repulse his friends. He cannot see because of his repeated weeping. One is reminded of Job's distress and there are similarities with this psalm and passages in the book of Job such as Job 26.

Psalm 88:10-12, Do the dead praise You?

 Do you show your wonders to the dead? 

Do those who are dead rise up and praise you?

Selah.

 Is your love declared in the grave, 

your faithfulness in Destruction?

 Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,

 or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

The psalmist argues that God loses if he, Heman, dies; Heman would like to praise God and declare His love but the grave would interrupt that. David makes a similar claim in Psalm 6:5.

Psalm 88:13-15, Still my morning prayer

 But I cry to you for help, O LORD; 

in the morning my prayer comes before you.

 Why, O LORD, do you reject me

 and hide your face from me?

 From my youth I have been afflicted and close to death;

I have suffered your terrors and am in despair.

The psalmist continues his plea, reminding God that that he has faithfully prayed and yet is rejected.

Psalm 88:16-18, Darkness is a friend

 Your wrath has swept over me; 

your terrors have destroyed me.

 All day long they surround me like a flood;

 they have completely engulfed me.

 You have taken my companions and loved ones from me;

 the darkness is my closest friend.

The psalmist continues his despair and anxiety, terrified by darkness and the grave.  The last line above agrees with the first line of Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence (audio here), "Hello darkness, my old friend...."  

This song ends with one more stanza of despair. There is no uplifting end statement, the psalm is just a melancholy song on the fear of death, a song one might write after reading through much of the book of Job. If there is any consolation to the despair of this psalm, it is in the first line. Like the psalmist in Psalm 79, walking among the bodies of the burned temple, like Job throughout his distress, the author is on his knees, weeping, saying, "I am still here God, still calling, still trusting, even in the silence."