Christian Bible

There is a psalm in the Bible that the popular liturgy uses much less frequently than the others. Not because it is difficult to understand. But because it does not produce the conclusion that popular piety needs.

Psalm 22 begins with My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? —and ends with the proclamation of Yahweh's victory before the nations. Psalm 46 declares God is our refuge and strength. Psalm 23 ends in the house of Yahweh forever. Even the darkest psalms in the Psalter have a twist — the moment where complaint turns to trust, where lament opens into hope, where the one who prayed from the bottom finds something firm to stand on before the last verse.

Psalm 88 has no such twist. There is no final opening towards hope. There is no declaration of confidence that closes the poem. The last verse says: My acquaintances have departed from me in darkness. And it ends.

Three thousand years of faith preserved that text without adding the ending it was missing. Without editing it so that it concluded better. Without adding a stanza of consolation to soften the darkness of the last verse.

The darkest text of the Psalter survived exactly as it was written. And the fact that it survived — the fact that it is there, in the canon, in Scripture, in the text that tradition calls inspired — says something that no sermon on Psalm 88 can say better than the silence of the final verse itself.

To understand Psalm 88 you must first understand what makes it extraordinary within the Psalter. Not only within the Bible. Within the genre of lament — which is the genre most represented in the Psalms.

The Psalter: The Book of Laments that Popular Preaching Has Turned into a Book of Praise Of the 150 psalms in the Psalter, approximately half are psalms of lament. Complaints. protests. Direct questions to God about his absence. Accusations of abandonment.

The book most used in the Christian liturgy throughout history is not a book of ordered theological answers. It is a book where the human voice brings to the text all dimensions of experience—including those that no comfortable theological system can fully contain.

But there is a structure that almost all lament psalms share. An architecture that Hebraists call the lament turn. The complaint that turns into trust. The descent that leads to an affirmation before the end.

Psalm 22 is the best-known example:

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? — fourteen verses of intense complaint — and then: Because he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the poor, nor did he hide his face from him; but when he cried to him, he heard him.

Psalm 13:

How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? — five verses of complaint — and then: But I have trusted in your mercy; my heart will rejoice in your salvation.

Psalm 42:

As the deer pants for the streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God—lament, complaint, depth—and then: Wait on God; because I still have to praise him. The turn. Almost all psalms of lament have the twist.

Psalm 88 does not have it.

The Authorship: The Darkest of the Sons of Korah The Hebrew title of Psalm 88 identifies its authorship as a song, a psalm of the sons of Korah, for the main musician; on Mahalat Leannot, masquil of Heman the Ezrahite.

The sons of Korah were one of the families of Levites responsible for the music of the Temple.

The same group responsible for Psalms 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 84, 85, 87. And all of those psalms — including 46, which says God is our refuge and strength, our help in trouble — have the twist toward trust. 88 is different.

And the author's name — Heman the Ezrahite — also appears in 1 Kings 4:31, where he is described as one of the wisest men in Israel, surpassed in wisdom only by King Solomon. The wisest man in the ancient world after Solomon wrote the darkest psalm in the Psalter.

No spin, no resolution. no hope declared at the end.

The Text: Verse by Verse Psalm 88 has eighteen verses. And each one of them descends a little further. The Opening: The Prayer That Comes at Night "O Yahweh, God of my salvation, day and night I cry before you." (v.1) The first verse is the only one that contains a positive statement about God: God of my salvation. He who prays recognizes Yahweh as his God. And as the God of his salvation. That is the only time in the psalm where anything resembling confidence appears.

And the rest of the psalm is the contrast between that statement in the first verse and the experience of the next seventeen.

Day and night I cry before you. Not an occasional prayer. Not the prayer of the moment of crisis.

The prayer continues, by day, night, permanent.

And — the psalm will reveal — without a visible response.

The Descent into the Pit:

The Description of the Situation "Let my prayer come to your presence; incline your ear to my cry." (v.2) "For my soul is full of evils, and my life is close to Sheol." (v.3) "I am numbered among those who go down to the grave; I am like a man without strength." (v.4) "Abandoned among the dead, like those put to the sword who lie in the grave, whom you no longer remember, and who were taken from your hand." (v.5) The one who prays is described as someone who is already functionally dead. Not metaphorically. With the specificity of someone describing a real experience: My soul is fed up with evils. My life is close to Sheol — the place of the dead. I am numbered among those who go down to the grave. Abandoned among the dead. Whom God no longer remembers.

The implied accusation is extraordinarily direct: The one who prays claims to be in the place where God no longer remembers. In the Dark: The Accumulation of Images "You have put me in the deep pit, in darkness, in deep places." (v.6) "Your wrath rests on me, and you have afflicted me with all your waves." (v.7) Steering turn is crucial here. No: I am in the pit because the adversary put me here. No: I am in darkness because of my enemies. You have put me. You. Yahweh. You put me in the deep hole. In darkness In deep places. And your anger rests on me. And you afflicted me with all your waves.

The responsibility for suffering is placed squarely on God. Not as blasphemy. Like the honest description of the experience of the one who prays. Who perceives suffering not as the absence of God but as the active presence of God's judgment upon him. Isolation: Those Who Walked Away "You have removed my acquaintances from me; you have made me an abomination to them; I am shut up, and cannot come out." (v.8) Social isolation adds to spiritual isolation. The people who knew him walked away. And the text is specific about the reason: You have made me an abomination to them. The person who prays perceives that his social situation—the distance from acquaintances—is not the result of his own behavior. It is the result of what God has done with it. God made him an abomination before others. The isolation of the sufferer when those around him move away — because the suffering is uncomfortable, because the intensity of the pain makes proximity difficult, because the sufferer's situation raises questions that no one wants to confront — is described here as an act of God. You have made me an abomination to them.

The Prayer That Continues Unanswered "My eyes have become sick because of my affliction; I have called upon you, O Yahweh, daily; I have stretched out my hands to you." (v.9) The image of sick eyes — exhausted, damaged by crying — is one of the most accurate images of chronic suffering available in the Psalter. Not the high-pitched crying of the moment of crisis. Eyes sick from prolonged crying. Of suffering that lasts long enough to physically damage the ability to see. And in that state — with sick eyes, hands outstretched — the prayer continues.

I have called you every day. I have extended my hands to you. The sufferer did not abandon prayer. He did not stop addressing God. He continued praying. With sick eyes. Spreading your hands. No response recorded in the text.

Rhetorical Questions: The Heart of the Psalm Verses 10 through 12 contain the psalm's five most puzzling questions:

“Will you manifest your wonders to the dead?

Will the dead rise to praise you?" (v.10)

Will your mercy be told in the grave, or your truth in Abaddon?" (v.11)

Will your wonders be recognized in darkness,

and your justice in the land of oblivion?" (v.12)

The five questions have the structure of legal arguments of the ancient world. They are not questions that wait for answers. They are arguments disguised as questions.

The underlying argument is: God, if you let me die, you will lose someone who praises you. The dead do not praise. Sheol does not proclaim your mercy. If you want to be praised, you have to save me. It is the most pragmatic argument available to address God. No: you deserve to be praised for your abstract goodness. But: if you want praise, you need someone alive to praise. And that argument — which also appears in other psalms — produces no response here. The prayer made the argument. And the psalm continued its descent without the plot producing the expected turn.

The Third Movement: The Renewed Cry That Produces No Result "But I have cried to you, O Yahweh, and in the morning my prayer will go before you." (v.13) Verse 13 could be the twist. In every other psalm of lament, but I have cried to you indicates the change of direction. It is the but that transforms complaint into confidence. The one who in Psalm 13 produces: but I have trusted in your mercy. The one who in Psalm 22 produces: because he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the poor. In Psalm 88, verse 13 does not produce that twist. Produces verse 14: "Why, O Yahweh, do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me?" (v.14) Why do you throw away my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? The but I have cried to you from verse 13 does not lead to confidence. Leads to another question. To another accusation. To another layer of descent.

The End: The Verse That Has No Turn "I am afflicted and needy; from youth I have borne your terrors, I have been afraid." (v.15) "Your wrath has passed over me, and your terrors have cut me off." (v.16) "They have surrounded me like waters continually; they have surrounded me together." (v.17) "You have removed friend and companion from me, and put my acquaintances in darkness." (v.18) Verse 15 adds the most devastating detail of the psalm: Since youth. This is not the acute suffering of a recent crisis. It is the suffering of a lifetime. Since youth I have carried your terrors. The one who prays has lived in this state for decades. Not weeks. Not months. Since I was young. And the final verse — the last verse of the psalm — is the most complete darkness available in the Psalter: You have removed friend and companion from me, and put my acquaintances in darkness. There is no twist. There is no but. There is no however. There is no more I will trust.

Only: My acquaintances left me in darkness. And the psalm ends.

The Silence After the Last Verse: What the Text Did Not Do The text did not add verse 19 that the psalm needed to have the ending that the popular liturgy prefers. No one—at any point in the transmission of the text for three thousand years—inserted the stanza of hope to soften the darkness of verse 18.

The rabbis who compiled the Psalter included Psalm 88 exactly as it was. The translators of the Septuagint translated it without adding. Medieval copyists copied it without editing it. The Church preserved it in the canon without adding the missing ending. And that fact — the fact that the text is there, exactly as it was written, without the twist that almost all other psalms of lament have — is theologically significant. Not in the way that no argument can be meaningful. In the way that only the presence of a text in the canon can be significant.

The text says: There is a form of human experience that biblical faith recognizes as legitimate, that has no resolution before the end, that does not lead to the turn before verse 18, that ends in darkness without that darkness being a failure of the prayer's faith. What Psalm 88 Is Not Psalm 88 is not a letter of abandonment of faith. He who prays - with sick eyes, from youth, in the pit, with distant acquaintances - continues praying. The psalm is a prayer. From start to finish. All the descent, all the accusations, all the rhetorical questions, all the darkness—they are directed to Yahweh.

O Yahweh, God of my salvation, day and night I cry before you. He who prays did not abandon God. He did not close the possibility of the meeting. He did not declare that Yahweh did not exist or did not matter. He continued praying from the bottom of the well. With sick eyes. Spreading your hands. Since youth. Psalm 88 is not faith that ends. It is faith that continues in conditions where most popular religious systems would expect it to have ended. What Psalm 88 Is Neither Psalm 88 is not an invitation to stay in the dark. It does not say: darkness is the right destiny. It does not say: hope is illusion. It does not say: God never answers. He says something more specific and more honest: There are times—there are lives, there are periods of years, there are from youth to old age—when the experience of one who honestly believes is that of verse 18 and not that of the final verse of Psalm 23. And that experience is valid. And God — through the process of forming the biblical canon — preserved it without editing it.

Those Who Need Psalm 88: The Population It Was Written For Psalm 23 is the psalm of mature faith that has found the valley of the shadow of death and knows that Yahweh is there. Psalm 46 is the psalm of the community that has found refuge even though the earth is transformed and the mountains fall into the sea. Psalm 88 is someone's more specific psalm: The one who has been in the dark for years. The one who prayed from youth and did not see the turn. The one who extended his hands and the acquaintances walked away. The one whose eyes are sick from crying so much in silence. The one who is afraid of being the only believer who didn't find the verse of hope at the end of the tunnel. He who in prayer groups hears testimonies of restoration and miracle and feels that his experience does not qualify as a testimony because it did not end well yet. For that person — and popular religious tradition tends to make them invisible because their experience makes the system uncomfortable — Psalm 88 exists. It was preserved. It's in canon. It's in Scripture. And it says: what you experience is real enough to be in the sacred text. Without the twist it was missing. Without the comforting verse that someone should have added. Exactly how it was lived.

Jesus and Psalm 88: The Connection that Classical Christology Developed The Church Fathers and medieval commentators read Psalm 88 as a messianic psalm—applicable to Christ in his passion. Abandoned among the dead, like those put to the sword who lie in the tomb, whom you no longer remember. (v.5) Your wrath rests on me, and you have afflicted me with all your waves. (v.7) Why, O Yahweh, do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? (v.14) Psalm 22 was quoted directly by Jesus from the cross: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Psalm 88 was not quoted directly. But Christology that reads Psalm 88 in the voice of Christ says something that popular preaching rarely fully develops: If Psalm 88 is the voice of Christ in the descent to Sheol — in the three days of death before the resurrection — then the text without a twist, the text that ends in darkness, the text without the verse of hope at the end, is the text of the hours where hope was not yet visible. The resurrection is not within Psalm 88. It came later. And the psalm — by ending in darkness — preserves the honesty of the hours where the resurrection had not yet occurred. Where darkness was all there was. And the prayer continued anyway. Psalm 88 in the Liturgical Tradition: Why It is Rarely Used Psalm 88 is one of the least used psalms in contemporary Christian liturgy. In charismatic and evangelical worship services, it is conspicuous by its absence. In the more formal liturgies it appears occasionally in the Office of Readings — especially on Good Friday. And its absence from the popular liturgy says something about the relationship between popular faith and suffering: Popular liturgy tends to select texts that confirm the desired experience — victory, restoration, hope, happy testimony. And it tends to exclude texts that name experiences that the system doesn't fully know how to handle. Psalm 88 is the excluded text par excellence.

The one that biblical faith preserved but popular liturgy rarely uses. Because text that does not have a twist bothers those who need all texts to have a twist. And because those who need the psalm without a twist do not always know that it exists. The Question that Psalm 88 Leaves Open The final verse — my acquaintances departed from me in darkness — is not a theological conclusion. It's a description. The description of where the prayer was when he finished praying. In darkness. With distant acquaintances. With sick eyes. Since youth. Without the twist. Without the hope verse. And the psalm is in the canon. Preserved. Unedited. And the question he leaves open for any reader who brings him to the text with his own suffering is not theological in the abstract sense: Have you been — or are you right now — in verse 18? Not in the victory verse of Psalm 23. Not in the twist of Psalm 22. In verse 18 of Psalm 88 — where the psalm ends and the darkness has not gone away. And if you are there: the sacred text has your address. Not to tell you that the twist will come tomorrow. Not to promise you the verse of hope you haven't found yet. But to tell you that the faith that prays with sick eyes from the darkness without the answer coming — that faith is also in the book. Unedited. Unsoftened. Exactly how it was lived.

DOCUMENTED SOURCES Psalm 88:1-18 — Primary Bible text: The complete psalm — eighteen verses without a turn toward hope, the only one of its kind in the Psalter. Psalms 22, 13, 42, 46 — Comparative biblical texts: The psalms of lament that do have the turn toward trust — to establish the contrast with 88. Hermann Gunkel — Die Psalmen (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1926): The father of biblical form-criticism, whose analysis of the genres of the Psalter established the Klagelied (lament song) as the most represented genre — and whose description of the structure of the turn is the foundational academic reference for understanding why Psalm 88 is extraordinary. Claus Westermann — Praise and Lament in the Psalms (John Knox Press, 1981): The most influential analysis of the function of lament in the Psalter — with reflection on what it means that God has preserved in the canon texts of direct complaint without resolution. Walter Brueggemann — The Message of the Psalms (Augsburg, 1984): Analysis of Psalm 88 as the purest example of the psalm of lament without movement toward trust — with theological reflection on what its presence in the canon says about the nature of biblical faith. Walter Brueggemann — Spirituality of the Psalms (Fortress Press, 2002): The analysis of the psalms of disorientation — the texts that name the experience of darkness without resolving it — with Psalm 88 as the limiting case of the genre. John Goldingay — Psalms, Volume 2: Psalms 42-89 (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms, Baker Academic, 2007): The most detailed scholarly commentary available on Psalm 88 — with verse-by-verse analysis of the descent and identification of verse 15 (from youth) as the element that transforms the psalm from acute crisis to chronic, lifelong suffering. Tremper Longman III — Psalms (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, IVP Academic, 2014): The analysis of the identification of the author — Heman the Ezrahite, described in 1 Kings 4:31 as one of the wisest men of Israel — and the implications of the darkest psalm in the Psalter being written by one of the greatest sages of his generation. Bernd Janowski — Arguing with God: A Theological Anthropology of the Psalms (Westminster John Knox Press, 2013): The philosophical and theological analysis of Klage (lament) as a legitimate form of faith — with reflection on Psalm 88 as the extreme limit of complaint permitted within the biblical canon. Kathleen Norris — The Psalms (Riverhead Books, 1997): Not an academic commentary but the most honest essay available by a Christian writer on what it means to live with the Psalms — including those without the expected ending. Masoretic Text — Bible Hebraica Stuttgartensia (5th ed., Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997): The base Hebrew text for the analysis of yode'ay machashak (my acquaintances in darkness, v.18 — the final phrase), shiva'at (weary with evils, v.3), miqqetani (from youth, v.15), and the debate over whether verse 18 is a second person addressed to God or a descriptive third person — with the majority concluding that it is second person: you have put my acquaintances in darkness.