Psalm LXXXVIII
A Song or Psalm (or the sons of Korah. To tho chief Musician. Upon Mahalath Leannoth. Maschil of Heman the Ezrahite.
1 O Lord God of inj’ salvation, I have cricrt day and night heforc thee.
2 Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry;
3 For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.
4 I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that
hath no strength:
5 Free, among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave,
Whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.
6 Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.
7 Thy wrath lieth hard upon me.
And thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.
8 Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; Thou hast made me an abomination unto them:
I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.
9 Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction:
Lord, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.
10 Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead?
Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.
11 Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or thy faithfulness in destruction?
12 Shall thy wonders be known in the dark?
And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer
prevent thee.
14 Lord, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?
15 I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up! While I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.
16 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.
17 They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about
together.
18 Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into
darkness.
It has been said of some of our poets, that their living utterance threw more feeling into particular phrases than those phrases conveyed in themselves, and that consequently they who knew the men saw far more meaning in their language than strangers could. In reference to the same fact, it has been said, “Who would part with a ring that contained a dead friend’s hair? and yet a jeweller will give for it only the value of the gold.” In many compositions of our deep-feeling poets, there is “the hair of the dead friend in the gold.” Their verses are not to be weighed in the scale, and judged of, by mere style and expression. To read them right, we should be able to call up the person himself who wrote, and make the verse glow with his impassioned feeling.
If this can be said of mere human compositions, how much more of such a Psalm as this before us? The language is strangely and awfully saddening; and yet, evidently he who speaks is far more deeply sad than his words express, and filled with submissive calmness, while he bends his soul under the stonn. Heman, the grandchild of Samuel, was the instrument of delivering it to the Church, perhaps on some occasion when very singularly tried — nigh overwhelmed — but still, his case was but the shadow of one who sank
Beneath a rougher sea,
And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.”
Heman is the person who, in 1 Chron. xv. 1 7, stands side by side with Asaph, and with the Ethan, who writes the Psalm that follows. Heman selected the most suitable instrument, no doubt, for a piece so profoundly melancholy; and this may be meant by “Mahalatli,” if derived from the root that signifies “to sing,” (see Gesenius). Hengstenberg translates it as the noun that means “sickness, or distress,” as in the title of Psalm liii. We agree, however, with most interpreters in supposing it an instrument of music, that same instrument used in singing Psalm liii., where the world’s disease and sore sickness are sung of in strains so sad. That same instrument is to be used in singing the sorrows of Him who bore the world’s sickness. And then “Leannoth” means, “in reference to affliction,” such affliction as is described by that very term in verse 7 and verse 9. Some, indeed, join the term “Leannoth” to “Mahalath” as if it had formed one compound name for the instrument used by Heman. But even if this be so, the etymology would still point to something melancholy, something of affliction, in the occasions on which it was to be used.
“We have in this Psalm the voice of our suffering Redeemer,” says Home; and the contents may be thus briefly stated —
“1. The plaintive wailing of the suffering one, verses 1,2. It strongly resembles Psa. xxii. J, 2.
2. His soul eosceeding sorrowful, even unto death, verses 3, 4, 5. The word “free,” in our version, is “”t^EirT, properly denoting separation from others, and here rendered by Juniu.s and Tremellius, “set aside from all intercourse and communication with men, having nothing in common with them, like those who are afflicted with leprosy, and are sent away to separate dwellings.” They quote 2 Chron. xxvi. 21.
3. His feelings of hell, verses 6, 7. For he feels God’s prison, and the gloom of God’s darkest wrath. And “Selah” gives time to ponder,
4. His feelings of shame and helplessness, verse 8. “His own receive him not.”
5. The effects of soul-agony upon his body, verse 9.
6 His subTYiission to the Lord, verse 9. It is the very tone of Gethsemane, “Nevertheless, not my will!”
7. The sustaining hope of resurrection, verses 10 (with a solemn pause, ‘’Selah”), 11,12. The “land of forgetfulness” and “the dark,” express the unseen world, which, to those on this side of the vail, is so unknown, and where those who enter it are to us as if they had for ever been forgotten by those they left behind. God’s wonders shall be made known there. There shall be victory gained over death and the grave: God’s “loving-kindness” to man, and his ‘^ faithfulness,” pledge him to do this new thing in the universe. Messiah must return from the abodes of the invisible state; and in due time, Heman, as well as all other members of the Messiah’s body, must return also. Yes, God’s wonders shall be known at the grave’s mouth. God’s righteousness, in giving what satisfied justice in behalf of Messiah’s members, has been manifested gloriously, so that resurrection must follow, and the land of forgetfulness must give up its dead. O morning of surpassing bliss, hasten on! Messiah has risen; when shall all that are his arise? Till that day dawn, they must take up their Head’s plaintive expostulations, and remind their God in Heman’s strains of what he has yet to accomplish.
“Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead,’’’’ o&c.
8. His perseverance in vehement prayer, verses 13, 14.
9. His loiig-continued and manifold woes, verses ] 5, 16, 1 7. 10. His loneliness of soul, verse 18. Hengstenberg renders
the last clause of this verse more literally — “The dark kingdom of the dead is instead of all my companions.” What unutterable gloom! completed by this last dark shade — all sympathy from every quarter totally withdrawn! Forlorn indeed! Sinking from gloom to gloom, from one deep to another, and every billow sweeping over him, and wrath, like a tremendous mountain, “leaning” or resting its weight on the crushed worm! Not even Psalm xxii. is more awfully solemnising, there being in this deeply melancholy Psalm only one cheering glimpse through the intense gloom, namely, that of resurrection hoped for, but still at a distance. At such a price was salvation purchased by Him who is the resurrection and the life. He himself wrestled for life and resurrection in our name — and that price so paid is the reason why to us salvation is free. And so we hear in solemn joy the harp of Judah struck by Heman, to overawe our souls not with his own sorrows,* but with what Horsley calls “The lamentation of Messiah,” or yet more fully. The sorrowful days and nights of the Man of Sorrows.