88

Psalm 88 · Book Three · Heman the Ezrahite

A song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. For the choirmaster. According to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.

The Hebrew title · Berean Standard Bible

Maskil · For the choirmaster

About this psalm

The darkest page in the Psalter, and the only one that does not turn. It cries day and night, says the soul is full of troubles, and finishes with the words mine acquaintance into darkness. There is no resolution offered and none pretended. That it was kept in the book at all, and set for singing, is the mercy in it.

Read it when you are in the dark and everyone keeps telling you to cheer up.

My psalms

One verse at a time · it stops at all 2 Selahs

¹O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee:²Let my prayer come before thee:incline thine ear unto my cry;³For my soul is full of troubles:and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.⁴I am counted with them that go down into the pit:I am as a man that hath no strength:⁵Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more:and they are cut off from thy hand.⁶Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.⁷Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves.

Selah

⁸Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me;thou hast made me an abomination unto them:I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.⁹Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction:LORD, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.¹⁰Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee?

Selah

¹¹Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?¹²Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?¹³But unto thee have I cried, O LORD;and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.¹⁴LORD, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?¹⁵I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up:while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.¹⁶Thy fierce wrath goeth over me;thy terrors have cut me off.¹⁷They came round about me daily like water;they compassed me about together.¹⁸Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.

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