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88. Psalm 88

¹ LORD, you are the God who saves me;
day and night I cry out to you.
² May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.

    ³ I am overwhelmed with troubles
   and my life draws near to death.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
   I am like one without strength.
⁵ I am set apart with the dead,
   like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
   who are cut off from your care.

    ⁶ You have put me in the lowest pit,
   in the darkest depths.
⁷ Your wrath lies heavily on me;
   you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. The Hebrew has Selah (a word of uncertain meaning) here and at the end of verse 10.
⁸ You have taken from me my closest friends
   and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
    ⁹ my eyes are dim with grief.

   I call to you, LORD, every day;
   I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰ Do you show your wonders to the dead?
   Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
¹¹ Is your love declared in the grave,
   your faithfulness in Destruction Hebrew Abaddon?
¹² Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
   or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

    ¹³ But I cry to you for help, LORD;
   in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ Why, LORD, do you reject me
   and hide your face from me?

    ¹⁵ From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
   I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
   your terrors have destroyed me.
¹⁷ All day long they surround me like a flood;
   they have completely engulfed me.
¹⁸ You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
   darkness is my closest friend.

6 Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit. The Psalmist now acknowledges more distinctly, that whatever adversities he endured proceeded from the Divine hand. Nor indeed will any man sincerely betake himself to God to seek relief without a previous persuasion that it is the Divine hand which smites him, and that nothing happens by chance. It is observable that the nearer the prophet approaches God the more is his grief embittered; for nothing is more dreadful to the saints than the judgment of God.