Daily Devotional Thursday 27th July 2023
by William Moody
Psalm 88
I Cry Out Day and Night Before You
A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil1 of Heman the Ezrahite.
88:1 O LORD, God of my salvation,
I cry out day and night before you.
2 Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!
3 For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
5 like one set loose among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.
6 You have put me in the depths of the pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah
8 You have caused my companions to shun me;
you have made me a horror2 to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9 my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon you, O LORD;
I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness,
or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But I, O LORD, cry to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O LORD, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.3
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
your dreadful assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long;
they close in on me together.
18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.4Footnotes
[1] 88:1
Probably musical or liturgical terms
[2] 88:8Or an abomination
[3] 88:15The meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain
[4] 88:18Or darkness has become my only companion (ESV)
This is a Psalm of lament from someone going through a very difficult time. It begins with a statement of faith (v1), but the trouble for the Psalmist is that his experience doesn’t seem to match what he believes. He prays to God (v2) because he is so deeply burdened that he feels death is grabbing hold of him (v3-7). It isn’t that he feels the burdens of life, he believes that God’s hand of wrath is against him (v7).
The Psalmist feels shunned by God but also by other people (v8, 18) including those who were very close to him. This would have greatly exasperated his sense of despondency. This surely speaks of Jesus and His experience of being betrayed by Judas and abandoned by the other disciples. The wonderful thing as we face sufferings and trials, including a sense of being abandoned, Jesus knows, Jesus understands, Jesus walks with us.
As challenging as the abandonment by others is, it is the sense of being abandoned by God that is the hardest thing for the Psalmist to cope with (v9-17). His prayer feels as if they are not being answered and he feels surrounded by death, destruction and darkness. Again, our great encouragement is that Jesus experienced this also on the cross when He cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27 v46).
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