This is the saddest Psalm in the whole Psalter. It is a pathetic cry of hopeless despair in the midst of unrelieved suffering. In other Psalms the light breaks through the clouds at last: here the gloom is deepest at the close. It is characteristic that the last word is _darkness_. Is the Psalmist... [ Continue Reading ]
_O Lord God_&c. Jehovah, the God of my salvation. Cp. Psalms 27:9. _I have cried day and night before thee_ Parallels such as Psalms 22:2 suggest that this is the meaning intended, but it is difficult to extract it from the Heb. text, even if we assume that "the broken language corresponds to the w... [ Continue Reading ]
The Psalmist appeals for a hearing, supporting his appeal by a pathetic description of the chastisements by which God has brought him to the very edge of the grave.... [ Continue Reading ]
_come before thee_ Enter into thy presence (R.V. from P.B.V.). Cp. Psalms 18:6; Psalms 79:11. _my prayer … my cry_ Cp. Psalms 17:1; Psalms 61:1. The word for -cry" denotes a shrill piercing cry, frequently of joy, but sometimes, as here, of supplication, "expressive of emotional excitement such as... [ Continue Reading ]
_For_&c. He pleads the urgency of his need as the ground for a hearing. _draweth nigh_&c. Hath drawn nigh unto Sheol, the gloomy nether world which is the abode of the departed. Cp. Psalms 6:5; Psalms 107:18.... [ Continue Reading ]
He is regarded as a dying man. _The pit_is the grave or Sheol. Cp. Psalms 28:1; Psalms 143:7; Psalms 22:29; Proverbs 1:12. that hath _no strength_ Like the feeble shadows of the dead. Or as R.V., that hath no help: cp. the cognate word in Psalms 22:19, rendered in R.V., _O thou my succour_.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Free among the dead_ There can hardly be any allusion to Job 3:19, where the word is used of a welcome release from servitude, for it is a far-fetched interpretation to suppose that a new turn is given to the phrase and that it here means -dismissed against his will from the service of God." Render... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou hast laid me_ God is treating him as though he were actually dead. The same word is used in the same connexion in Psalms 49:14. _in the lowest pit_ The nether world in the depths of the earth. Cp. Psalms 86:13; Psalms 63:9; Lamentations 3:55. The Targum explains it allegorically of the Exile.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thy wrath_&c. Cp. Psalms 32:4; Psalms 38:2. _thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves_ Cp. Psalms 42:7 for the metaphor.... [ Continue Reading ]
Like Job he is deserted even by his familiar friends (not merely _acquaintance_, as A.V.), and this is due to the act of God, Who has smitten him with a sickness which makes them loathe even the sight of him. Cp. Psalms 31:11; Job 19:13 ff., Job 19:19. He seems to describe himself as a leper like Jo... [ Continue Reading ]
Again (cp. Psalms 88:1) he pleads the constancy of his prayers. His strength is failing. He will soon be dead; and in the grave he will be beyond the reach of God's love and faithfulness. Cp. Job 10:20 ff; Job 17:11 ff.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Mine eye mourneth_ R.V. wasteth away. The sunken, lacklustre eye is the sure sign of suffering. Cp. Psalms 6:7; Psalms 31:9; Job 17:7. _stretched out_ R.V. spread forth, in the attitude of prayer. Cp. (though the word is different) Psalms 44:20; Psalms 143:6; Isaiah 1:15.... [ Continue Reading ]
This and the two following verses can hardly be, as some commentators suppose, the prayer to which he refers in Psalms 88:9. The connexion of thought seems to be this. He has prayed that God will shew him His marvellous lovingkindness, but he will soon be beyond the reach of it, for of course from h... [ Continue Reading ]
To proclaim God's lovingkindness and faithfulness is the delight of His people (Psalms 40:10; Psalms 92:2), but in the grave they will neither have cause nor power to do it. These two attributes, so often coupled together, are the keynote of Psalms 89. -Destruction," Heb. _Abaddon_, is almost a prop... [ Continue Reading ]
Nay, God's wonders will not even be known in Darkness, nor His righteousness, His faithfulness to His covenant (Psalms 71:2, and often), in the land of Oblivion: where men neither remember God (Psalms 6:5) nor are remembered by Him (Psalms 88:5); where thought feeling and action are at an end. See E... [ Continue Reading ]
But as for me, unto thee, Jehovah, have I cried for help, And in the morning shall my prayer come before thee. He contrasts himself with the dead, whose covenant relation with God is at an end. He at least can still pray, and in spite of all discouragement will not cease to pray. _Prevent_= -go t... [ Continue Reading ]
Death brings no hope. Will not God then listen to his prayer and grant him some relief in his extremity of suffering and solitude?... [ Continue Reading ]
Questions of surprise and expostulation. Cp. Psalms 74:1; Psalms 77:7. For the second line cp. Job 13:24; Psalms 13:1. God "shuts out his prayer," Lamentations 3:8.... [ Continue Reading ]
Will God have no pity upon one whose whole life has been spent at the point of death? Could this be said of Israel as a nation? -From youth" is of course frequently used of the nation (Psalms 129:1-2; Jeremiah 32:30; &c.), but Israel's existence had not been continuously wretched and precarious. wh... [ Continue Reading ]
The fiery streams of thy wrath have gone over me. Cp. Psalms 42:7; but for _waves_he substitutes _fiery wraths._ Thine alarms, a word found only in Job 6:4, have made an end of me (Lamentations 3:53).... [ Continue Reading ]
They have surrounded me like water all the day long; They have encompassed me about together. The figure of Psalms 88:16 is continued. The flood of calamity threatens to engulf him, and there is none (Psalms 88:18) to stretch out a helping hand to the drowning man.... [ Continue Reading ]
Cp. Psalms 88:8; Psalms 38:11; Job 19:13. and _mine acquaintance_into _darkness_ A difficult phrase. Another possible rendering is, my familiar friends are darkness: darkness takes the place of friends: cp. Job 17:14. We take leave of this sad singer with his riddle unsolved, with no ray of light... [ Continue Reading ]