Psalms 88

O LORD, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you. Both hear: salvation's God; day-and-night cry before him.

Even the darkest psalm begins with "God of my salvation." Keep the title when the night does not lift.

Calvin: form of prayer for the afflicted; "God of my salvation" bridles excess of sorrow, shuts despair's door, prepares for the cross. Cry and day-night importunity mark earnestness; "before thee" is rare—many murmur aside from God.

God of salvation; cry day and night before him. Address God; do not only bleed into the air.

Let my prayer enter into your presence. Turn your ear to my cry! Both see: prayer admitted; ear inclined to the cry.

Ask access when feelings say the door is shut. Cry is still prayer.

Calvin: let prayer come into thy presence; incline the ear—the same earnestness continues from v. 1.

Let prayer come; incline the ear. Presence sought is itself faith under pressure.

For my soul is full of troubles. My life draws near to Sheol. Soul saturated; life near the grave.

Fullness of trouble is honest speech. Nearness to Sheol is not theatrical; it is felt.

Calvin: excuse for the excess of grief—not soft effeminacy but immense accumulation; life not far from the grave.

Severity of case justifies lament without canceling piety.

I am counted among those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no strength, Wesley: Counted—given up by friends for a lost man. Reckoned among the descending; strength gone.

Friends may write you off; still speak to God. Weakness named is not unbelief named.

Calvin: numbered with those who go down into the pit; as a man with no strength—distresses crushing enough for the strongest.

Counted with the pit-bound; no strength. Many deaths threaten though breath remains.

“Set apart among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more.” They are cut off from your hand. Wesley: Free—discharged into the dead's society; Whom—thou seemest to neglect. Undisputed: death-society language; seeming forgottenness.

"seemest" matters—experience of oblivion is not final theology. Still the God of salvation (v. 1).

Calvin: free among the dead—unfit for life's business, cut off from the world; more grievous than common death. The prophet feels cast from God's care.

Among the dead; seemingly unremembered; cut off from your hand. Pastoral care holds both the feeling and the earlier title of salvation.

You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Godward agency—laid in lowest darkness.

Speak the depths to God, not only about God. Dark and deep are prayer's map.

Calvin: lowest pit, darkness, deeps—threefold grave imagery under which the afflicted still turns Godward.

You have laid me in the depths. Agency confessed without atheism.

Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have afflicted me with all your waves. Selah Wesley: Waves—judgments like sea waves. Heavy wrath; overwhelming waves; Selah.

Pause at Selah under the waves. Judgments felt as flood still meet a praying soul.

Calvin: wrath lies hard; afflicted with all thy waves—sustaining the whole burden of wrath; yet so dreadful a flood did not prevent lifting heart and prayers.

Wrath heavy; waves overwhelm. Example: pray under the flood, not only after it.

You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape; Shared: social abandonment; shut in.

Isolation is part of the lament's truth. Horror to acquaintances is spoken before God who can reverse it.

Calvin: acquaintances put far; made an abomination; shut up and cannot come forth—compound misery of sickness, wrath, and loneliness.

Companions shun; horror; shut in. The God of salvation remains the addressee.

“My eyes are dim from grief.” I have called on you daily, LORD. I have spread out my hands to you. Wasted eye; daily call; hands spread.

Dim eyes and open hands together. Daily calling is the resistance to silence.

Calvin: eye mourns by affliction; called daily; stretched out hands—perseverance of gesture when sight fails.

Eye dim; call daily; hands spread. Gesture of prayer outlasts emotional brightness.

Do you show wonders to the dead? Do the departed spirits rise up and praise you? Selah Wesley: Wonders—raising to life; praise—in this world? Rhetorical anguish over praise among the dead; Selah.

The questions are plea, not denial of God's power. He wants to praise now among the living.

Calvin: wilt thou perform a miracle for the dead? shall the dead arise to praise?—argument from God's interest in being praised among the living; urgency of present mercy.

Hold the plea as hunger for living praise.

Is your loving kindness declared in the grave? Or your faithfulness in Destruction? No dispute here: hesed and faithfulness asked as public praise among the living.

Love and faithfulness deserve declaration—ask to live to declare them.

Calvin: shall loving-kindness be declared in the grave? truth in destruction?—same urgency: God's attributes seek living witnesses.

Steadfast love in the grave? faithfulness in Abaddon? The questions press for mercy now.

Are your wonders made known in the dark? Wesley: Forgetfulness—grave where nearest relations forget. Darkness and forgetfulness as praise-less land.

Fear of being forgotten by people intensifies the cry to the God who remembers. Ask for light to know his wonders.

Calvin: wonders in darkness? righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?—continues the living-praise argument.

Darkness is not celebrated; it is protested in prayer.

But to you, LORD, I have cried. In the morning, my prayer comes before you. Wesley: Prevent—come before dawn. "but" of persevering cry; morning prayer first.

The turn is not mood but motion—still I cry. Beat the sun to the throne.

Calvin: but to thee have I cried; in the morning my prayer prevents thee—return from the dead-questions to actual petition.

But I cry; morning prayer before you. Perseverance is the psalm's obedience.

O LORD, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? Both affirm: why of rejection and hidden face—still addressed to the LORD.

Why-questions are allowed inside covenant speech. Hidden face is experience; God of salvation remains the You.

Calvin: wherefore reject my soul and hide thy face?—vehement complaint from one who still prays; the form begun in v. 1 guards against charging God with injustice while feeling cast off.

Why cast away? why hide? Faith asks why without becoming the judge of God.

While I suffer your terrors, I am distracted. His affliction has lasted from youth, and the terrors leave him helpless.

From-youth suffering is not proof of divine absence. Name helplessness without quitting the cry.

Calvin: afflicted and ready to die from youth; suffered terrors—long duration deepens the trial.

Afflicted from youth; terrors; helpless. Duration of pain is spoken inside faith.

Your fierce wrath has gone over me. Your terrors have cut me. Both traditions hear: sweeping wrath; destroying terrors.

Wrath-language is biblical honesty. Destruction felt is brought to the destroyer's ear as plea.

Calvin: wraths passed over; terrors cut off—flood language continued; severity named to the God still addressed.

Wrath swept; assaults destroy. Keep speaking to the You of v. 1.

They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me together. Wesley: Water—as the sea encompasses one in its midst.

Surrounded differs from abandoned by the God of salvation. Cry from the middle of the waters.

Calvin: daily encompassed like waters; surrounded together—totalizing pressure of terrors.

Flood all day; close in together. Enclosure intensifies prayer rather than ending it.

You have put lover and friend far from me, and darkness has become my companion. Shared close: beloved and friend far; darkness as companion—no sunny resolution verse.

The psalm ends in darkness without canceling v. 1. Sit with sufferers here; do not force a tidy bow the text refuses.

Calvin: lover and friend put far; acquaintance into darkness—the form of prayer has taught endurance to the end of the complaint; God remains the one who put and who can restore.

Beloved and friend shun; companions darkness. Fair pastoral care refuses to invent a missing verse of ease; it holds salvation's God with the unfinished night.