What's Your Take on Psalm 88

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Ed Walsh

Puritan Board Graduate
Greetings to the Friends,

So, what's with Psalm 88?

Unlike every other Psalm, there seems not to be a hint of Light in it.

Psalm 88:18 (NIrV)
18 You have taken my companions and loved ones away from me.
The darkness is my closest friend.
 
The desertion of Christ and in a relative respect of the believer. There are times when no light appears. Ps. 88 is one of them.

And of course there are still invisible tokens, as it were, of the principle joining us to our Father (in contrast to the truly abandoned reprobate, such as Judas) insofar as the Psalmist is yet clinging to his Father, as Christ did as well: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
 
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Greetings to the Friends,

So, what's with Psalm 88?

Unlike every other Psalm, there seems not to be a hint of Light in it.

Psalm 88:18 (NIrV)
18 You have taken my companions and loved ones away from me.
The darkness is my closest friend.
Two things.
1. V1 contains a statement of faith.
2. Because David wrote it, and Christ sang and fulfilled it, we too have holy words to quote and imitate in our dark night of soul. This Psalm meets us in our humanity, God hears us when we struggle to express any hope of faith.
 
Exactly as the brothers above have answered. I'm comforted to know that there is a Psalm for me on those days and seasons when the darkness just doesn't seem to lift. I can say to myself, "Today is a Psalm-88-kind-of day. No matter how miserable I am, at least Christ holds me in union by his Spirit. That's my only victory..." I think Psalm 88 and Job 3 are the greatest balms for the soul afflicted with depression. The Bible is beautiful that way. No matter what I feel or think, I find it expressed in the pages of Holy Writ.
 
Psalms 88 is all about what our Lord suffered on the cross. And any who would deny penal substitution should take a close look at it - it's about the righteous wrath of God being poured out upon His servant.
 
Psalms 88 is all about what our Lord suffered on the cross. And any who would deny penal substitution should take a close look at it - it's about the righteous wrath of God being poured out upon His servant.

That's what I thought, but I wanted to hear from others first.
I think all the Psalms reveal the heart of our Lord in one way or another. I think the same is true of the Book of Job.
 
Don't miss the setting of Psalm 88 near the end of the alternating pattern of psalms of communal laments expressing the people's abandonment by God, followed by psalms of hope in God's faithfulness, that runs through Book 3 of the psalter. Psalm 88 is the darkest lament, followed by Psalm 89 in which it looks as if the covenant God made with David has been renounced because of the people's unfaithfulness which resulted in the Babylonian exile. Where is hope to be found in such darkness for Israel? Psalm 90, the beginning of Book 4, points Israel back to Moses, reminding them that God had been faithful to his people through a comprehensive judgment upon their faithlessness before. So too there was hope for Israel in the God who brought them out of Egypt and through the Wilderness (key themes in Book 4). From Psalm 90 onward, the predominance of laments in the psalms is replaced by a predominance of praise, centering on the reign of the Lord over all.

So Psalm 88 speaks of Christ as the new Israel, experiencing the undeserved judgment for their sins in its fullest depths, in whom is their (and our) only hope. It also speaks a word of hope to us when we find ourselves in the depths, reminding us that we are united to Christ in his sufferings that we might also be made like him in glory.

(For a persuasive explanation of the message of the psalter as a whole, I highly recommend O. Palmer Robertson's book, The Flow of the Psalms).
 
Two things.
1. V1 contains a statement of faith.
2. Because David wrote it, and Christ sang and fulfilled it, we too have holy words to quote and imitate in our dark night of soul. This Psalm meets us in our humanity, God hears us when we struggle to express any hope of faith.
Ps. 88 was written by Heman. John Owen uses the psalm as an example of someone who was diligent in mortification of sin, yet did not receive peace from God.

I do not say [strength and comfort, and power and peace] proceed from [mortification of sin], as though they were necessarily tied to it. A man may be carried on in a constant course of mortification all his days; and yet perhaps never enjoy a good day of peace and consolation. So it was with Heman, Ps. lxxxviii.; his life was a life of perpetual mortification and walking with God, yet terrors and wounds were his portion all his days. But God singled out Heman, a choice friend, to make him an example to them that afterward should be in distress. Canst thou complain if it be no otherwise with thee than it was with Heman, that eminent servant of God? and this shall be his praise to the end of the world. God makes it his prerogative to speak peace and consolation, Isa. lvii. 18, 19. “I will do that work,” says God, “I will comfort him,” verse 18. But how? By an immediate work of the new creation: “I create it,” says God. The use of means for the obtaining of peace is ours; the bestowing of it is God’s prerogative.
Mortification of Sin, Ch. 4
 
Ps. 88 was written by Heman. John Owen uses the psalm as an example of someone who was diligent in mortification of sin, yet did not receive peace from God.

I do not say [strength and comfort, and power and peace] proceed from [mortification of sin], as though they were necessarily tied to it. A man may be carried on in a constant course of mortification all his days; and yet perhaps never enjoy a good day of peace and consolation. So it was with Heman, Ps. lxxxviii.; his life was a life of perpetual mortification and walking with God, yet terrors and wounds were his portion all his days. But God singled out Heman, a choice friend, to make him an example to them that afterward should be in distress. Canst thou complain if it be no otherwise with thee than it was with Heman, that eminent servant of God? and this shall be his praise to the end of the world. God makes it his prerogative to speak peace and consolation, Isa. lvii. 18, 19. “I will do that work,” says God, “I will comfort him,” verse 18. But how? By an immediate work of the new creation: “I create it,” says God. The use of means for the obtaining of peace is ours; the bestowing of it is God’s prerogative.
Mortification of Sin, Ch. 4
I was careless with attribution, apologies. I am most at pains to point out inspiration at that point in my reply.
 
I am very thankful that Psalm 88 has a place in the Psalter. That psalm has been a source of consolation for me during some very dark times in my life, and it comforts me to know that our Lord has given us words to wail and groan back to Him when all we can see is darkness. Even though it does not end with the statement of trusting praise that the psalms of lament normally end with, yet I see this as being an eminently faith-filled prayer. For one, Heman's faith is demonstrated just by the fact that he is praying and laying all of his afflictions and struggles before God. We also see slight glimmers of hope shining through the overall dark landscape of the psalm: "O LORD, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you... Every day I call upon you, O LORD, I spread out my hands to you... But, I, O LORD, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes to you" (Ps. 88:1, 9, 13). He trusts in the name and the promises of his covenant God when he walks in darkness and has no light (Isa. 50:10).
 
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