Psalms 88:18

And mine acquaintance into darkness— My acquaintance are not to be seen. Literally, My acquaintance a place of darkness; Lost in darkness; vanished out of sight.

REFLECTIONS.—1. The prayer of the Psalmist is fervent and importunate. O Lord God of my salvation, from whom alone I can expect relief, I have cried day and night before thee, long and often, and still continue to look up, though my troubles are unabated. Let my prayer come before thee, and incline thine ear unto my cry; thus in the days of his flesh the Redeemer poured out his prayers, with strong crying and tears, unto him who was able to save him from death, Hebrews 5:7 and, in all our trials, must we continually fly to a throne of grace, and never faint, or be weary of praying or waiting upon God, till he is pleased to visit us with his salvation, and say to our tempestuous souls, Peace, be still.

2. His sorrows are enlarged. For my soul is full of troubles, and the troubles of the soul are the severest of all; and my life draweth nigh unto the grave, unable to support the burden; so dreadful were his apprehensions, now that the light of God's countenance was withdrawn. The Son of God repeated these deep complaints, and with a bitterness which never any soul but his tasted, Matthew 26:38; Matthew 27:46.

3. He is reduced to the brink of despair. I am counted with them that go down into the pit, as a dead man; or among malefactors, whose dead bodies were cast into the pit together. I am as a man that hath no strength, helpless and hopeless: free among the dead, of that ghastly family, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more, no longer the objects of his providential care, and they are cut off from thy hand, no more stretched out to feed them, or by thy hand, and that is of all deaths the most miserable, which is sent as a judgment from God. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, sunk under the most deplorable distress, in darkness, both with regard to the concerns of body and soul; and in the deeps, lower he can hardly be, but in the belly of hell. Among those who go down to the lowest pit, yea, among the vilest malefactors was the Son of God reckoned; and, though the mighty God, as if unable to help himself, he yielded up his body to be nailed to the tree: with the slain he lay down, and visited the mansions of the dead, cut off by the hand of justice, under the sins of a world, 1 John 2:2.

4. A sense of divine wrath was the bitterest part of his sufferings. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, such were then his gloomy fears: and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves, one dark providence and distressing fear succeeding another, as if God was about to overwhelm him in the abyss of misery. What he feared, really fell on Jesus, our substitute, who bore our sins, and the wrath due to them, in his own body on the tree; and over him every wave of justice broke terrible, till in death he paid the dreadful debt.

5. His friends deserted him in his troubles; but he saw God's hand in the affliction. Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; to find a kind and compassionate friend is an alleviation to our sorrows, but he had none; or by divine Providence they were removed from him, or incapacitated for serving him; thou hast made me an abomination unto them; perhaps, like Job's friends, they misinterpreted his sufferings, as if they proved him a wicked man, and shunned him as such, which made it the more grievous; thus was Jesus also betrayed by one disciple, denied by another, and forsaken of all. Let no follower of his therefore wonder, if dearest friends forsake, slight, or abhor him; he is then but as his Lord.

6. His case appeared remediless. I am shut up, confined with bodily affliction, or in a prison of spiritual darkness, and I cannot come forth, see no door open, have no power to help myself, and can only vent my disconsolate sorrows. The agonizing prayers of Jesus spoke his deep apprehensions of the Divine wrath, from which the Humanity shrunk, and wished the cup to pass from him.