Psalm 88 - A Psalm of Despair

Dennis Edwards

The Book of Psalms is one of my most favourite reading passages in the Bible. I often read five Psalms a day. Today was the 28^th of the month and therefore I read Psalm 28, 58, 88, 118, and 148. I added thirty each time I read a psalm, until I had read five different psalms. The Book of Psalms has 150 psalms. The word psalms means songs. Many of the psalms were written by David who was a shepherd boy, a soldier, and later a King of Israel. Since each month has around 30 days, by reading five psalms a day, I can read the Book of Psalms each month.

I like reading the Book of Psalms because the psalms are prayers. Originally, they were sung, though we no longer have the music score. Many of the prayer psalms are prophetic and speak of the Messiah, the ultimate judgment of the wicked, and the reward for the righteous. Often the psalmist may start his psalm discouraged, or in distress. However, usually, by the time the psalm is finished, the psalmist is victorious and praising God for His goodness toward the children of men.

One of today’s psalms was Psalm 88. As I read it, I noticed the psalmist did not take the normal turn towards praise and thanksgiving at the latter part of the psalm. Instead, the psalm remained sober, grim, despairing. The psalmist had started the psalm crying out in desperate prayer. Psalm 88:1-3.

                        O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee:

Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry.                                          For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draws nigh unto the grave.

The psalmist is greatly afflicted and seems to be at the point of death or in great anxiety with no hope in sight. Psalm 88:4-7

I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that has no strength: Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom you remember no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. Thou has laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lies hard upon me, and thou has afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah

The first seven verses of Psalm 88 seem prophetic of the agony Jesus suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, so says William de Burgh in his A Commentary on the Book of Psalms, first published in 1860. During the 1800s, Psalm 88 was one of the Bible passages read on Good Friday in the Church of England. In Luke 22:44 we see Jesus’ intense emotional struggle.  “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” In Matthew 27:37-38 we find, “And he began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then he said unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.” The waves of doubt and the sensation that God was abandoning him were drowning Jesus in agony of soul, in heaviness of spirit, in extreme sorrow and despair.

 Psalm 88:8

Thou has put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou has made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.

 

On the cross Jesus followers were far from him. Only his mother, his aunt, Mary Magdalena, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Apostle John were present. (John 19:25)An abomination is something that causes great hatred or disgust, loathing. (yourdictionary.com) When a person was crucified, he lost all his civil rights. The people could throw garbage at him or dung or stones. Even the Jewish Scriptures admonished that, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” (Deuteronomy 21:23) Jesus’ feet and hands or wrists were pierced through with nails so that he could not come down from the cross, he “could not come forth.” Apostle Paul tells us, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13)

Psalm 88:9

Mine eye mourns by reason of affliction: Lord I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.

 

Again, the passage seems to be referring back to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane where he was crying out to God in agonizing prayer. Jesus had walked in constant communication with the Father. He had risen up early to get alone with God. (Mark 1:35, Psalm 5:3) But now heaven was silent. The close communication with His Father had ended. Jesus was alone without His Father’s help. In Psalm 22, David writes prophetically, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46 records the same words from Jesus on  the cross.

Psalm 88:10-16

Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer come unto thee. Lord, why do you cast off my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer my terrors I am in despair. Thy fierce wrath goes over me; thy terrors have cut me off.

 

In Isaiah 53:3-5 we see that the Messiah would be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He would be bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. He would wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. In Matthew 27:50 we read, “Jesus, when he had cried with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.” In Luke 23:46 we find, “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” The passage, “Into thy hands I commit my spirit,” is found in Psalm 31:5, another prophetic outburst. The psalms are full of prophetic words and images which Jesus Himself would reveal to his disciples after His resurrection. Luke 24:25-26; 44-45.

 

Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets haven spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself…And he said unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.

 

Psalm 88:17-18

They (thy terrors or fierce wrath) came round about me daily like waters; they compassed me about together. Lover and friend have thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.

 

Again, we see the drowning waters and the separation from loved ones like how the psalm had started. The psalm ends without victory and in seeming defeat, just how Christ’s death on the cross seemed to indicate. But the story did not end there. On the third day, He arose again. He had told them so. “The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after he is killed, he shall rise the third day. But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him.” Mark 9:31-32.

The author of Hebrews shows how the sacrifices offered under the Old Testament Law were merely illustrations that looked forward to the time God Himself would come into humanity. The God-man or Messiah would offer Himself as the sinless sacrifice for the sins of mankind. His perfect life and death would reopen the door to eternal life and close intimate relationship with God. In Hebrews 9:14 we read, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Verse 28 in the same chapter concludes, “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto to them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Jesus has reopened the door to eternal life. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12)

Apostle Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For he (God) has made him (Jesus) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Through faith in Jesus we have put on the wedding garment of righteousness needed to enter the heavenly wedding feast. (Matthew 22:12, Revelation 3:3-4, 16:15, 19:7-9, Isaiah 61:10, 1 Corinthians 1:30, Romans 13:14, Philippines 3:8-9). God has reconciled us to himself through Jesus, and has given us the ministry of reconciling others. God was through Jesus reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their sins unto those that believe. (2 Corinthians 5:19)

In Romans 5:8-9, Paul says, “But God has commended his love toward us, in that, while we were sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” Similarly, in 1 Peter 2:24, Peter writes, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes we are healed.”

Jesus knew what he had come into the world to do. On the Mount of Transfiguration, we see that Moses and Elias “appeared in glory, and spoke of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:31). Perhaps they gave him the details of exactly what would transpire. Luke informs us, “And it came to pass, when his time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51)

After arriving triumphally on a young ass into Jerusalem, Jesus knew the hour was come that he should be glorified through his death. We see Jesus explaining the method of his glorification in the Gospel of John. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal…Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.” (John 12:24-27)

Even as a young child Jesus knew he should be about his Father’s business. (Lucas 2:49) In Hebrews 5:7-9, we read of Jesus’ agonizing in Gethsemane, “Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.”

Jesus’ life did not end in defeat. He fulfilled his mission. Apostle John writes, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8). Jesus has defeated death and will ultimately defeat Satan. God’s love has won the battle. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10.) Propitiation means to placate or make atonement for but with the added concept of appeasement of anger. (yourdictionary.com) Through his death Jesus has brought conciliation between God and man to as many as believe and follow him. Psalm 88 may have ended without conciliation, but we have reconciliation through the blood of Christ. “But thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.“ (1 Corinthians 15:57).

Remember that your prayers don't always have to end in victory. God hears your prayers and will answer and turn apparent defeat into victory for those who trust in Him. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you hope in your latter end.”