Psalms 88 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Temple period, from the era of the guild singers established under David and continuing through the monarchy
Location
Israel, spoken from a sickbed or a place of long confinement, with the imagery of the pit and the grave throughout
Audience
Israelite worshipers, including those suffering illness or long affliction with no relief in sight
Situation
The bleakest prayer in the collection, credited to Heman the Ezrahite, in which a man who has been near death since youth tells God that his friends have abandoned him and his prayers go unanswered. Unlike almost every other lament, it never turns toward hope, and its last word is darkness.
Key Background
Nearly every psalm of complaint ends with a vow of praise or a statement of confidence, so this one's refusal to do so is deliberate rather than an accident of preservation, and it gives worshipers permission to pray without a resolution. The Hebrew word Sheol, translated grave or pit, meant the shadowy realm of the dead where, in older Israelite thinking, the dead could no longer praise God, which is the argument the speaker uses to press his case. Heman is named in Chronicles as a leader of temple music under David, and the heading also assigns the psalm a tune, showing that even this text was sung publicly rather than kept private.
God who me, I out day and night, standing right in front of you.
Let my reach you; turn your ear toward my
Because my is saturated with suffering, and I am standing at the edge of the
I am already counted among those going down to the pit. I have become like someone with no —
among the dead, like the slain lying in their graves, the ones you no longer remember, cut from forever.
You have put me in the pit, in the most
Your presses down on me; you crash after over me. Selah
You have driven my far away from me. You have made me to them. I am trapped, and there is no way out.
My eyes are out from grief. Yahweh, I call out to you every single day; I my toward you.
Do you work for the dead? Do the rise to praise you? Selah
Is your declared in the grave? Your in the of
Are your wonders known in the darkness? Your in the where is
But I — I keep crying out to you, Yahweh. Every my prayer you
Yahweh, why do you me? Why do you from me?
I have been and close to death since I was young. I have carried your and I it
Your has swept over me; your have destroyed me.
They surround me like all day long; they in on me from every
You have driven away who me and who knew me. Darkness is my only now.