A Petition to Be Saved from Death.
A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. For the choir director; according to Mahalath Leannoth. A [a]Maskil of Heman [b]the Ezrahite.
88 O Lord, the God of my salvation,
I have cried out by day and in the night before You.
2 Let my prayer come before You;
Incline Your ear to my cry!
3 For my soul has [c]had enough troubles,
And my life has drawn near to [d]Sheol.
4 I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit;
I have become like a man without strength,
5 [e]Forsaken among the dead,
Like the slain who lie in the grave,
Whom You remember no more,
And they are cut off from Your hand.
6 You have put me in the lowest pit,
In dark places, in the depths.
7 Your wrath has rested upon me,
And You have afflicted me with all Your waves. [f]Selah.
8 You have removed my acquaintances far from me;
You have made me an [g]object of loathing to them;
I am shut up and cannot go out.
9 My eye has wasted away because of affliction;
I have called upon You every day, O Lord;
I have spread out my [h]hands to You.10 Will You perform wonders for the dead?
Will the [i]departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah.
11 Will Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave,
Your faithfulness in [j]Abaddon?
12 Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness?
And Your [k]righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?13 But I, O Lord, have cried out to You for help,
And in the morning my prayer comes before You.
14 O Lord, why do You reject my soul?
Why do You hide Your face from me?
15 I was afflicted and about to die from my youth on;
I suffer Your terrors; I am [l]overcome.
16 Your burning anger has passed over me;
Your terrors have [m]destroyed me.
17 They have surrounded me like water all day long;
They have encompassed me altogether.
18 You have removed lover and friend far from me;
My acquaintances are in darkness.
If you’ve felt alone (or are feeling it right now), this psalm likely resonates with you quite a lot. The psalmist (Heman) was in a very dark place. He felt like he was nearly dead, had been rejected by God, and his friends and family, even his wife, were far from him. There doesn’t seem to be much hope in such a state, and there is no answer in this psalm.
At least not anything that we would call a resolution. Often in the psalms, there is the terrible struggle, but the daylight shines through in the end. Not so for Heman, and yet there is something we can learn from his struggle as we face our own. He cried out to God, and never stopped. In vs. 9, we see that Heman cried out to God every day. And in vs. 13 we see him again cry out to God for help.
We might ask, like Job’s wife, “Why do you keep trusting in God? Why don’t you just give up, curse God, and let death come and take you away from this pain and misery?” That’s a bit of a paraphrase, but you get the idea. Why does Heman keep coming back to God, what hope could there possibly be as he is “forsaken among the dead”?
And yet he does not give up, and neither should we. We don’t know God’s timing, and we may be stuck in our pain and misery a while longer, maybe even a long while, but this is not the end. Keep seeking God, keep pressing on, and never ever give up. He’s not finished with you yet, so keep holding on to hope and daily cry out to Him.