Verse Psalms 88:11. Or thy faithfulness in destruction?] Faithfulness in God refers as well to his fulfilling his threatenings as to his keeping his promises. The wicked are threatened with such punishments as their crimes have deserved; but annihilation is no punishment. God therefore does not intend to annihilate the wicked; their destruction cannot declare the faithfulness of God.
SHALL THY LOVING-KINDNESS BE DECLARED IN THE GRAVE? - Thy goodness; thy mercy. Shall anyone make it known there? shall it there be celebrated? OR THY FAITHFULNESS IN DESTRUCTION? - In the place where...
Psalms 88 The Deepest Soul Misery Poured Out _ 1. In deepest misery and distress (Psalms 88:1)_ 2. Crying and no answer (Psalms 88:8) This is a Maschil Psalm by Heman the Ezrahite. See...
LXXXVIII. A LEPER'S PRAYER. This Ps. has striking peculiarities. The suffering here portrayed has been long and terrible. The Psalmist has been tormented by sickness from his youth (Psalms 88:15). Yah...
Again (cp. Psalms 88:1) he pleads the constancy of his prayers. His strength is failing. He will soon be dead; and in the grave he will be beyond the reach of God's love and faithfulness. Cp. Job 10:2...
To proclaim God's lovingkindness and faithfulness is the delight of His people (Psalms 40:10; Psalms 92:2), but in the grave they will neither have cause nor power to do it. These two attributes, so o...
WILT THOU SHEW WONDERS TO THE DEAD— The Psalmist in this, and the following verses, exaggerates his own distress, and the seeming impossibility of relief, by representing himself as a dead man, and hi...
PSALMS 88 DESCRIPTIVE TITLE The Anguished Cry of one Smitten and Forsaken. ANALYSIS Stanza I., Psalms 88:1-2, Urgent Prayer to be Heard. Stanzas II., III., IV., V., Psalms 88:3-4;...
Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah. -Appeal to God's regard to His own honour as involved in delivering the suppliant; because it is to the living that...
88:11 Destruction? (n-12) Heb. _ Abaddon_ ....
This is the saddest and most despairing of all the Pss. The writer is apparently the victim of some incurable disease like leprosy, with which he has been afflicted from his youth (Psalms 88:15), and...
IN DESTRUCTION] RV 'in Destruction.' The Heb. is _Abaddon,_ used as a proper name for Sheol: see Job 26:6; Job 28:22; Job 31:12; Proverbs 15:11;...
Psalms 73:89 _GORDON CHURCHYARD_ DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN PSALMS 88 Jesus went into a town called Nain. Many of his *disciples and a lot of people went with him. Now when he came near to the gate...
(10-12) These verses probably contain the prayer tittered with the “stretched-out hands.”...
LOVINGKINDNESS. — Better here, _covenant grace._ The grave knew nothing of this. Death severed the covenant relationship. So “faithfulness,” “wonders,” “righteousness” are all used in their limited se...
In these verses appear three prominent features of the Hebrew conception of the underworld. It is a place of “destruction” (comp. Job 26:6; Job 28:22), of “darkness” (comp. Psalms 88:6), and of “forge...
_[Psalms 88:12]_ הַ יְסֻפַּ֣ר בַּ † קֶּ֣בֶר...
Psalms 88:1 A PSALM which begins with "God of my salvation" and ends with "darkness" is an anomaly. All but unbroken gloom broods over it, and is densest at its close. The psalmist is so "weighed upon...
A CRY FROM THE WAVES Psalms 88:1 Most of the psalms which begin in sorrow end in exuberant joy and praise. This is an exception. There seems to be no break in the monotony of grief and despair. In Ps...
This is a song sobbing with sadness form beginning to end. It seems to have no gleam of light or of hope. Commencing with an appeal to Jehovah to hear, it proceeds to describe the terrible sorrows thr...
_Proud one. Hebrew Rahab, Egypt or Pharao, Psalm lxxxvi. 4., and Isaias li. 9. (Calmet) He alludes to the plagues inflicted on the Egyptians, &c. (Worthington)_...
If I mistake not, the force and beauty of these expressions are intended to confirm the certainty of the things they seem to inquire after. We meet with many such passages in Scripture, where the cert...
13._But to thee have I cried, O Jehovah! _There may have been a degree of intemperateness in the language of the prophet, which, as I have granted, cannot be altogether vindicated; but still it was a...
Psalms 88 puts the remnant under the deep and dreadful sense of a broken law, and God's fierce wrath, which, in justice comes upon those who have done so. It is not now outward sorrows or oppression o...
SHALL THY LOVINGKINDNESS BE DECLARED IN THE GRAVE?.... Where he saw himself now going, and where should he be detained, and not raised out of it, the lovingkindness of God to him, as his Son, and as m...
Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? [or] thy faithfulness in destruction? Ver. 11. _Shall thy loving kindness, &c._] The same again, and Psalms 88:12 a third time, _pro more dolentium....
_Wilt thou show wonders to the dead?_ Namely, in raising them to life again in this world? No: I know thou wilt not. And therefore now hear and help me, or it will be too late. _Shall the dead arise a...
A LAMENT IN THE MIDST OF SUFFERING AND TRIBULATION. A song or psalm for the sons of Korah, written by a member of this illustrious family of musicians, to the chief musician upon Mahalath Leannoth, fo...
Shall Thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave or Thy faithfulness in destruction, in the place of ruin?...
10-18 Departed souls may declare God's faithfulness, justice, and lovingkindness; but deceased bodies can neither receive God's favours in comfort, nor return them in praise. The psalmist resolved to...
I am not without hopes that thou hast a true kindness for me, and wilt faithfully perform thy gracious promises made to me, and to all that love thee and call upon thee in truth. But then this must be...
Psalms 88:11 lovingkindness H2617 declared H5608 (H8792) grave H6913 faithfulness H530 destruction H11 in destruction -...
A Song or Psalm for the sons of Korah, to the chief Musician upon Mahaloth Leannoth, Maschil of Heman the Ezrahite. I think that this is the darkest of all the Psalms; it has hardly a spot of light in...
CONTENTS: Lamentation over trouble and pleading with God for mercy. CHARACTERS: God, Psalmist. CONCLUSION: Sometimes the best of God's saints are severely exercised with the sorest of inward troubles...
Dr. Lightfoot affirms that this, and the eighty ninth psalm, were written by Heman and Ethan, sons of Zerah, or the Ezrahites mentioned in 1 Chronicles 2:6. Consequently, they lived about the time whe...
_Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead?_ shall the dead arise and praise Thee? THE GREAT PROBLEM I. Here is a problem common to humanity. Lived there ever a man who has not asked this question in some...
_O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before Thee._ A PORTRAIT OF A SUFFERING MAN I. Depicting his wretched state. He speaks of himself as “full of troubles,” satiated with sufferi...
PSALM PSALM—NOTE ON PSALMS 88:1. This is an individual lament. It is suited for a person who is so overwhelmed with troubles that even his friends shun him, and who suspects that the Lord has shunned...
PSALM—NOTE ON PSALMS 88:10 The mention of dying under God’s wrath (vv. Psalms 88:3) leads to the question: DO YOU WORK WONDERS FOR THE DEAD? If one were to die under
INTRODUCTION _Superscription.—“A Song or Psalm,” i.e._, combining the properties of both a Psalm and a song. _“For the sons of Korah_,” see Introduction to Psalms 42. “The expression, ‘To the Chief Mu...
EXPOSITION THE most mournful of all the psalms. After one almost formal "word of trust" (_Psalms 88:1_), the remainder is a continuous bitter cry of complaint, rising at times into expostulation (Psal...
Psa 88:1-18 is just a sad psalm, all the way through. There just seems to be no hope; it's just miserable. When you really are feeling lower than low, and you think there is absolutely no way out, the...
2 Peter 2:1; Job 21:30; Job 26:6; Matthew 7:13; Proverbs 15:11;...
Do the dead have remembrance of anything? (See comments under Ecclesiastes 9:5)...