Psalms 88:8

Like Job he is deserted even by his familiar friends (not merely acquaintance, as A.V.), and this is due to the act of God, Who has smitten him with a sickness which makes them loathe even the sight of him. Cp. Psalms 31:11; Job 19:13 ff., Job 19:19. He seems to describe himself as a leper like Job. Leprosy was a living death (Numbers 12:12): more than any other disease it was regarded as the direct -stroke" of God (Job 19:21). The leper was cut off from all society and even from taking part in the public worship of God, and was compelled to live alone (Leviticus 13:46; 2 Chronicles 26:21). The reference is of course not to the temporary seclusion for the purpose of ascertaining whether a man was really a leper (Leviticus 13:4 ff.), but to the permanent separation from society, in which the leper was virtually a prisoner, not daring to expose himself to the public gaze (Job 31:34).

Possibly however the last line of the verse is not literal but metaphorical, describing the hopelessness of his condition as a prisoner who cannot escape. Cp. Job 3:23; Job 13:27; Job 19:8; Lamentations 3:7.

St Luke seems to allude to this verse in his narrative of the Crucifixion, ch. Luke 23:49.