As we approach the time of year which is called Easter or Passover by those who observe such things Coco thought to offer a few words on Psalm 88, as we number it, which speaks eloquently, though darkly, about the things which took place at that time. First of all read the psalm itself:

A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. To the Chief Musician. Set to Mahalath Leannoth (The suffering of affliction). A Contemplation (maskil) of Heman the Ezrahite.

That last phrase appears to be quite hard to translate. Our version has:
my acquaintances into darkness

The first words of the psalm also have different translations, but the meaning is essentially the same. There is little difference between:
O LORD, God of my salvation, and eg
O LORD, the God who saves me (NIV)

But difference in the final words is not the same as at the opening. Literally the words appears to be simply my friend/acquaintance darkness. This could be darkness is my friend. The translator has to try to get these words into an English sentence that makes sense. Our translator says Loved one and friend you have put far from me and takes the final words to be and my aquaintances into darkness. It works. Another, the NIV, renders the final words: Darkness is my closest friend. That also works. And I think it works better than our version, for it contains within it everything of which this psalm is speaking.

This is a dark psalm. There is only one glimmer of light in it: O LORD, the God of my salvation the opening words, and there are some who would try to take even that away by suggesting that there is a mistake in the pointing of the Hebrew text which would reduce the idea of salvation to merely help.

We might wonder why it is here, why would David include this song of darkness in his book of praises? Well, when at home take a look at psalms 87 and 89. 87 is about the City of God. 89 is about the king of the city. 88, as we shall see is about the king’s journey to the city. David is a wiser man than we.

The writer

When we look at the psalms, as you know, there are three ways to read them:

1. They were written by real people in real circumstances. They were not written ‘in the air’. What did the psalm mean for the writer? we ask.
2. They can all be put into the mouth of the Lord himself. With some psalms how this is done is more obvious than with others. Remember our Lord was a man, and still is a man, who walked on this earth as we do.
3. We can read them and make them our own, again we need to be careful how that is done, but in all cases we can learn from them for all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for us.

So, who wrote the Psalm?

Look at the title, we are told: Heman the Ezrahite. Who is he? Well there are several references to Heman, and we can be fairly sure that there are at least two individuals. One is a grandson of Judah, who being a child of harlotry, and living in Egypt may well have had cause to speak in the way of this psalm. Another is a Levite, he and his relatives, Asaph, whom we know well, and Ethan are often mentioned together. They of the family of Levites were set aside to lead the tabernacle and temple worship.

This Heman is mentioned in relation to the bringing of the ark by David up to Jerusalem, and later in a comparison with the wisdom of Solomon:
For [Solomon] was wiser than all men—than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the surrounding nations.

We mentioned earlier that David is a wiser man than we – how much more wise was Heman with whose wisdom that of Solomon was comparable.

It is worth noting that Heman is likely to have been present when David carried the ark on the ox-cart and was a witness to the outbreak against Uzzah (2 Samuel 6). The ‘war-weary’ David was angry because of that, but what effect did it have on Heman or the others who were there? When we read Asaph and Ethan we do not find the kind of darkness that Heman describes. Did Heman suffer from what we would call PTSD as a result of this incident? We don’t need to answer that question.

Let us look at the psalm.

The divisions

There are a number of ways we could break up this psalm. I shall divide it into two halves, for the first half and the second half are saying very much the same things. The second half echoes or amplifies what the first has said.

v1 day and night I cry out to you v9 I have called daily upon you
v3 My life draws near the grave v10 Will you work wonders for the dead?
v5 one whom you remember no more v14 why do you hide your face from me
v7 your wrath lies heavily upon me v16 your fierce wrath has gone over me
v8 you have put friends far from me v18 Loved one…you have put far from me
v9 my eye wastes away v18 darkness [is my closest friend]

In summary
A believer’s psalm – Daily prayer – Does the LORD listen? – No, he is rejected.

The psalm begins O LORD, God of my salvation.
This is the cry of a believer. He knows the Lord and he knows him as the God of salvation.

This is confirmed in v2 and v13 where he says let my prayer come before you. There is no doubt in his mind that the Lord is aware of his prayer, that he hears the sound of it, but does the Lord listen?

Daily prayer

Then he speaks of the persistence of his cry – I have cried out day and night before you and in v9 daily!. The psalmist does not pray from time to time, as some do who only have set times for prayer or who only pray in difficulty. He prays early in the day: as if his first thought is to pray v13 in the morning my prayer comes before you. This man is constant in prayer – it is as if he had already heard the apostle’s injunction to pray without ceasing (1Thess 5:17). It certainly seems to take first place for him. But there is a problem, does the Lord listen?

Does the Lord listen?

It appears to the psalmist that the Lord does not listen. V2 incline your ear to my cry he says. It is all very well for the sound of our prayers to reach heaven, but unless God listens to the words, unless he inclines/turns his ear to us, then of what use is it? We may as well speak to the air. And this is what it appears to be to the psalmist.

No, he is rejected

He makes it quite plain in v14: Why do you cast off my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? He asks the question because for him that is the way that it is. Whatever the affliction the psalmist faced, it seems to him, whilst in the middle of it that the Lord has rejected him, that the Lord has turned away and is therefore not listening to him.

Paul was afflicted and three times he asked the Lord to remove it, but the Lord did not (2 Cor 12:9) and Paul had to continue to bear it. Heman likewise for whatever his current affliction is it is not new to him: v15 I have been afflicted and ready to die from my youth up he says. We cannot tell whether this was a recurrent malady that struck him from time to time or whether it was a permanent condition from which he sometimes had some modicum of relief. But whatever it was it took him to the depths as we now see.

What seems to be the case for the psalmist is of course not the reality for him, but whilst he is in this condition for him it is reality. He has good reason to not see things clearly however.

The two halves

So, as I mentioned earlier, the psalm falls into two parts the first part of which contains a description of his condition and the second pleas based upon it and upon what he knows (or perhaps better – what he is able whilst in despair to remember) of the Lord.

A deeper dive – his ailment – his despair – the pit – the darkness – God’s wrath – silence – and worse

His ailment
V3 my soul is full of trouble. This is primarily a soul ailment. There my be some external aspect to it as well for we read v8 you have made me an abomination – repulsive – to [my closest friends]. But even that may not be a physical revulsion but rather a revulsion because of the manner of his behaviour whilst he is in this condition. Perhaps, and it is entirely speculative his condition was some kind of mental condition which so drove him to despair that he was as we might say in a kindly way hard work to get on with or to have around because he demanded so much support, or it may have been that his condition was such that he rejected them and then blamed them for rejecting him. He is not to be blamed for his affliction, and he shows some understanding of what is happening to him.

His despair
But the soul ailment casts causes him to despair to the extreme v3: my life draws near the grave. I am counted with those who go down to the pit..adrift among the dead like the slain who lie in the grave. It is if he is on a battlefield. He is alive, but no-one seems to notice it, and as the bodies of the dead are carried away for burial he too is carried away to be thrown into the pit which will become their and his grave. And no one will notice that he is not yet dead.

The pit
So deep is his despair that he consider that even the Lord has forgotten him, like the ones whom you remember no more who are cut off from your hand(care). How wrong he is! Surely the Lord will remember his people – he is a believer and yet he comes to this point that he thinks that the Lord no longer remembers him, that the Lord no longer has any care for him. Oh, surely if this man, this man whose wisdom was compared to that of Solomon can come to this, is it a wonder that at times we also feel this way? But see this and know it, that though Heman was wrong in his assessment that the Lord’s care had been taken away, it is the way he saw it. For him that was the false reality. Again, things can have an appearance to us, which are not in accordance with reality.

In the darkness
But why does he not see? Put simply the light has failed him. He is aware of that v6 You have laid me in the lowest pit in darkness, in the depths. If we were thrown into a deep dark pit and the cover placed over us, would we not despair? We do not know where we are, we do not know how large the place is. We do not know what else there may be in the pit. We do not know whether it is safe even to move from where we fell in case we fall into an even deeper pit. Even if on every side of the pit was a door, just beyond the stretch of our hands, and behind the door a staircase leading to freedom, because we could not see them we would despair. So the palmist’s condition casts darkness over him.

God’s wrath
And in the darkness he imagines that the wrath of God lies heavily upon him. The psalmist is aware of his sin and in his better moments he is able to hear the promises of God concerning the sacrifices and concerning the promised one who will come to make an end of all sacrifices, but now the awful reality of his sin takes over and he imagines the wrath of the God, who is his salvation, is now falling upon him. He loses the connection between the God who saves and what that salvation means. This is a response which is much more severe that Peter’s depart from me for I am a sinful man (Luke 5:8), or John’s I fell at his feet as if dead (Rev 1:17). It is the same response as theirs but he does not hear the words: Do not be afraid which follow.

And so he is overwhelmed by this thought like those who were taken away by the awful floods and tsunami of which we hear. The waters come in and you are powerless against them. The waters take you first this way, then that way, throwing you about like a rag doll that has no strength of its own, and eventually you succumb. You sink into the deep and silence descends upon you as you fall further and further into the depths. Even the sound of the violence and raging of the sea itself slips away from your ears and all is silent and grey. Jonah describes this feeling wonderfully!

Silence
Then there is silence Selah – WAIT

What is it like for the wrath of God to fall upon you then! It is an unbearable situation, and in it the psalmist finds no comfort anywhere or from anyone for he considers that not being content with overwhelming him with wrath v8 the Lord has also put (taken) away from him [his] closest friends, making [him] an abomination (repulsive) to them. There is no comfort for him anywhere. Even his friends had left him.

So he is left alone, overwhelmed by the wrath of God on the edge of the pit confined with no escape, with eyes that waste away because of affliction v9.

Could anything be worse for this man?

He tries again by pleading the Lord’s name
Well, he has not finished (and if we are to finish I need to make haste!). He starts again. But this time there is a difference, instead of just describing his condition he asks the Lord whether his condition is doing the Lord’s reputation any good. Not, I think that the Lord is concerned with his reputation so much as with his character. Reputations can be ruined by a misunderstanding of what was really going on. The character of the Lord is without question.

But even when he is asking these questions which are really challenging he doesn’t quite get it right. His misunderstanding becomes more apparent. Let us look at them v10ff:

Will you work wonders for the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise you? Selah Shall your lovingkindness be declared in the grave (sheol)? Or your faithfulness in the place of destruction (abaddon)? Shall your wonders be known in the dark? And your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

The first question then:
Will you work wonders for the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise you?

Is it not obvious? It is the living that see the wonders of the Lord, not the dead The dead do not rise up either, so they cannot possibly praise you!

Is there any fault in Heman’s logic? He thinks not. Selah! He waits. He doesn’t need to ask anything else. He thinks he has got God with his argument. Like a fisherman with the fish on the hook, he thinks that all he has to do is to reel God in. So Selah! He waits.

God is silent
But there is no response. Selah! Silence. And as the silence sinks in Heman has to cry out again: Ok, I’m sorry, perhaps the question wasn’t clear enough. Let me ask again in a different way just to be clear about it, what I really mean is: Shall your lovingkindness be declared in the grave (sheol)? Or your faithfulness in the place of destruction (abaddon)? Shall your wonders be known in the dark? And your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

Heman is digging a hole (a pit) for himself, and even when he realised that he had started – no answer to the first question – he carries on digging. Still no answer! You have to remember that Heman is not being insolent here, he is not self-righteous, crying out in a sense of indignation as if these things should never happen to him. He is genuine in his cry though not seeing things clearly. Later on a prophet will say: A bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax he will not quench (Isaiah 42:3) – the Lord understands our weakness and that we do not always see things properly. How much he puts up with then the complaints of his children!

Still no response and so he concludes that v13-14 even though he cries out every morning, the Lord rejects him, casts him off and hides his face from him.

The fault in his logic
But again that is not true. The wise man’s logic is at fault. He has reached the wrong conclusion. His argument, though having an appearance of solidity is in fact fatally flawed. And he ought to have known it! When the Lord was confronted by the Sadducees about the resurrection he quoted words that Heman knew Mark 12:26 quoting Ex 3:6: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken.

So returning to the first question when Heman asks: Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? There is only one answer: Who are the dead? When God spoke to Moses Abraham was in the grave, but was he dead? God said I am the God of Abraham not I was the God of Abraham (I am the God of Abraham who was). So even when Heman clarified the question and asked a second time: Shall your lovingkindness be declared in the grave (sheol)? Or your faithfulness in the place of destruction (abaddon)? Now recognising that the dead are, if I may say, merely in the grave for the time being. They are dead to us for we have no contact with them nor can we, but to the living God they are alive waiting for the time when they shall indeed, contrary to Heman’s question rise up and praise him.

If wise men forget, how much more we?
So we learn that even wise men, when pressed in by afflictions can have their perspectives skewed. They lose sight of reality and substitute for it the apparent present illusion which their own thoughts, imaginations and afflictions present to them as reality. That is not to downplay the afflictions! We can see from this psalm that the afflictions are real, and the responses to it are just as real. The psalmist’s feelings and responses are not to be dismissed as the ravings of someone who does not understand. None of us see clearly, and any of us could find ourselves if not in the shoes of the psalmist in a similar place.

His conclusion
In the closing verses 15-18 he repeats what he said in the first part of the psalm with a note that this condition is the way it has been ever since he was a youth – with the implication that he is no longer in his youth. He has never been completely free from it if at all free. It is a condition that has dogged him all his life and he does not see a way out of it. He still waits for the way out for though Heman is now in the grave which was his closest friend in his life – the very last words – words of hopelessness – so difficult to translate – darkness. You could almost think that this man was suicidal as you read this, but even though it is a deeply dark psalm there is light. He cried out to the God of his salvation. He ascribed all of his afflictions to the Lord – he knew that the Lord was deeply involved in his life. There is a glimmer. But all his thoughts appears to end in this bitter darkness, which he describes as an acquaintance. It is familiar to him. As the NIV puts it: The darkness is my closest friend.

But I have digressed – Heman still waits for the way out for though he is now in the grave which was his closest friend in his life, and therefore out of reach of the afflictions of this life, he has not yet reached that day when the dead rise up and praise the Lord. He continues to wait, but in that day, along with all the saints of God he shall be truly and fully free of all affliction.

Of the Saviour
So then, what does the psalm say of the Saviour. If we place it in his mouth what do we learn? Well we cannot be as thorough as we have been in considering Heman, but there are several things to notice which answer to his experiences as a man on this earth.

His affliction in life
First of all: I have been afflicted and ready to die from my youth; / from my youth I have been afflicted and close to death. The Lord knew from an early age that he must be about [his] Father’s business (Luke 2:49). He knew why he had come into the world and that the consequences of that would be death: coming in the likeness of man..he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the cross (Phil 2:8). Death was indeed his companion throughout his life – even as a child Herod sought to kill him. But the one who came into this world was God, the pure and holy Son of God came into this filthy sinful world. The stink of which rose up to fill his nostrils before he came and provoked him to anger. Isaiah 65:5 These are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all day. Even from heaven the sins of men provoked him, how much more do you think they afflicted him when he walked in the filth of this world. We hear him weep (John 11:35) at the sin around him, at the unbelief of men, as he walked this earth.

His prayers
The Lord was also one who prayed – day and night, early in the morning, day after day. He spreads out his hands to his Father who is able to save him. Hear him in the garden where this psalm expresses most wonderfully his sorrow: Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me! (Matt 26:39). Almost he might be asking Do you show your wonders to the dead? v10. The Lord knew that it was not possible, yet still he asks. Do we not see the sorrow of his soul here?

His troubles
The Lord can say with the psalmist: My soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave. John 12:27 My soul is exceedingly troubled and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour!

The flood
And so the hours roll on relentlessly as a flood coming in, towards the hour at which he would be nailed to the cross. The Jews look at him and count him as one who goes down to the pit v4. The leaders wanted rid of him. The pit was the place for him. They would slay him and cut him off from the land of the living.

And as the day draws nearer the terrible reality of it opens up more and more to the Lord. And eventually they take him, and he is adrift/set apart with the dead v5. Two others were to be crucified with him. They are all as good as dead – you know the expression he was a dead man when he walked into the room. This is similar. He is made to carry his own cross, but he is like a man with no strength v4. Though he is the Lord of glory, and is able to command twelve legion of angels any one of whom would have intervened for him at the merest whisper, he was without strength, he could not carry his own cross and another was made to carry it for him.

He was shut up and cannot get out/confined without escape v8 a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Is 53) which dimmed his eyes v9.

The pit of wrath
What more could they do to him? Once he had been nailed to the cross there was nothing more man could do though we see that his closest friends left him v8 and v18 and he became repulsive to us (v8 and Is 53). It was an ignominious death.

But more was to come than man could do. The Lord would soon take the words of the psalmist again to himself: Your wrath lies heavily upon me. You have overwhelmed me with all your waves. The one who knew no sin, the one who of all men deserved every good thing and only every good thing from the Lord, the one who had only ever been obedient to the Father was now going to feel the wrath of God on his back. The weight of that wrath would be far more than the weight of the cross that he could not carry for himself. How would he stand? He cannot he will be overwhelmed by it.

But even before this day he knew what was coming. We have already seen:

From my youth I have been afflicted, I have suffered your terrors and am in despair. But then it was only in prospect, now the day has come for the reality to come upon him. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you have afflicted me with all your waves. They came around me all day long like water; they engulfed me altogether.

There is no escape. And it becomes true of him what was never true of Heman (though Heman thought it was) that Adrift among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, and who are cut off from your hand for on that cross he was forsaken by the Father whom he loved.

Heman in his (limited) suffering prefigures Christ in his unlimited suffering
It is a mystery that we cannot fathom, but it is the reality which Heman’s psalm prefigures for us and gives us an insight into our Lord’s suffering. A suffering that was far more real than Heman’s. Heman thought that he had been cut off. Heman thought that the Lord had hidden his face from him. But for our Lord Jesus these things were a reality – a reality that took him to the deepest pit and the darkest depths (v6) for us.

For us
So now, when we hear the questions asked:
10 Will you work wonders for the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise you? Selah 11 Shall your lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or your faithfulness in the place of destruction? 12 Shall your wonders be known in the dark? And your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

There is only one answer Yea and Amen! In Christ for he has shown his love and faithfulness to the grave and to destruction so that they can no longer hold onto his people. And soon the dead shall rise up to praise the Lord on the day when he gives up the kingdom to his Father and every knee shall bow to him and confess that he is Lord.

So the next time you pass by this psalm look upon the Saviour of whom Heman spoke and see if there were ever any sorrow like his. And know that it was for your sin he suffered there. For your sin he endured the wrath of God and sank to the darkest depths that he might raise up many sons to glory who would praise his righteous deeds.

All ye that pass by,
To Jesus draw nigh:
To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?
Your ransom and peace,
Your surety he is:
Come, see if there ever was sorrow like his.

He dies to atone
For sins not his own;
Your debt he hath paid, and your work he hath done.
Ye all may receive
The peace he did leave,
Who made intercession, “My Father, forgive!”

For you and for me
He prayed on the tree:
The prayer is accepted, the sinner is free.
That sinner am I,
Who on Jesus rely,
And come for the pardon God cannot deny.

His death is my plea;
My Advocate see,
And hear the blood speak that hath answered for me.
He purchased the grace
Which now I embrace:
O Father, thou know’st he hath died in my place.

Charles Wesley 1707-88