Bird's-eye view
Psalm 88 is the darkest psalm in the psalter. It is a prayer from the pit, and what makes it unique is that it ends there. There is no final verse of triumphant confidence, no concluding assurance that the Lord has heard. It begins in the dark and ends in the dark. The Christian faith is robust enough to include such prayers in its hymnbook. This is not the cry of unbelief, but rather the cry of a faith that is being severely tested, a faith that feels forsaken but still cries out to "the God who saves me" (v. 1).
In verses 10-12, the psalmist, Heman the Ezrahite, brings his central argument before God. It is a series of desperate, rhetorical questions. He is not asking for information. He is pleading his case on the basis of God's own character and glory. The logic is simple: dead men don't praise God. If God allows His servant to perish, He robs Himself of a worshiper. This is a raw, honest appeal from a man on the brink, arguing with God from within the limited understanding of the afterlife available under the Old Covenant. These are the questions that Christ Himself would ultimately answer, not with words, but by His descent into the grave and His glorious resurrection from it.
Outline
- 1. An Argument from the Grave (Ps 88:10-12)
- a. The Silence of the Dead (Ps 88:10)
- b. The Absence of Covenant Love in the Grave (Ps 88:11)
- c. The Darkness of Forgetfulness (Ps 88:12)
Context In Psalm 88
Before this section, Heman has laid out the utter misery of his condition. He is full of troubles, near to death (v. 3), counted among those who go down to the pit (v. 4). He feels as though God Himself has put him there, in the "lowest pit, in the darkest depths" (v. 6). God's wrath lies heavy on him (v. 7), and his friends have been driven from him (v. 8). Having established the severity of his plight, he now pivots to his central plea. These questions in verses 10-12 are the heart of his lament. He is not challenging God's power, but rather appealing to God's purpose. Why would God, who desires praise and whose character is defined by lovingkindness and faithfulness, allow His servant to enter a realm where those attributes are seemingly absent and unproclaimed?
Key Issues
- Sheol in the Old Testament
- Lament and Arguing with God
- God's Glory as the Basis of Prayer
- Progressive Revelation of the Afterlife
- The Messiah's Answer to the Psalmist's Questions
Commentary
Verse 10
Will You do wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah.
The psalmist begins his appeal with a sharp, almost sarcastic, question. He knows the answer expected in his day. Does God perform His miracles, His mighty acts, for those who are already dead? The implied answer is no. God's wonders are for the living, to be seen and declared by the living. The second question builds on the first. Will the rephaim, the shades or departed spirits, get up from their shadowy existence in Sheol to give You praise? Again, the assumed answer is no. The Old Testament understanding of the afterlife was murky. Sheol was a place of silence, of separation from the land of the living where God's praise was sung. This is not a denial of a future resurrection, but a potent argument from the present reality as he understood it. If God wants praise, He must preserve the praiser. The psalmist is essentially saying, "Lord, if you let me die, you lose a worshiper. My voice will be silenced." The Selah instructs us to pause and weigh this heavy argument. It is a profound appeal to God's own self-interest, His desire to be glorified.
Verse 11
Will Your lovingkindness be recounted in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon?
Here, Heman appeals to God's covenant character. The two words he uses are central to God's relationship with His people. "Lovingkindness" is hesed, God's steadfast, loyal, covenant love. "Faithfulness" is His reliability, His truthfulness to His promises. The psalmist asks if these foundational attributes will be declared, talked about, and celebrated in the grave. Will anyone preach on God's hesed in Sheol? Will there be testimonies to His faithfulness in "Abaddon," a Hebrew word meaning "Destruction," another name for the pit? The questions are pregnant with a negative answer. The grave is a place where the story of God's covenant love seems to end. From the psalmist's perspective, to be in the grave is to be cut off from the sphere where God's faithfulness is experienced and proclaimed. This is the cry of a man who feels he is about to fall out of the story of redemption. Of course, the gospel provides the stunning answer. It was precisely in the grave, in the death of Christ, that God's lovingkindness and faithfulness were most profoundly declared.
Verse 12
Will Your wonders be known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
He continues to pile up the rhetorical questions, painting a bleak picture of the afterlife. "Darkness" and "the land of forgetfulness" are yet more poetic synonyms for Sheol, the realm of the dead. It is a place where God's wonders are not known because they are not seen. It is a land of forgetfulness, where the dead are forgotten by the living, and, the psalmist fears, forgotten by God Himself. How can God's "righteousness," His justice and saving activity, be known in a place defined by amnesia? The argument remains the same: God's glory is manifested in the land of the living. To let the psalmist die is to consign him to a place where that glory is seemingly veiled and forgotten. This is the ultimate dread for a man of faith. But for us, who live on this side of the cross, we know the answer. Christ entered that very darkness. He went to the land of forgetfulness, and in His resurrection, He made God's wonders and righteousness known in a way Heman could never have imagined. He defeated the darkness and made it impossible for His people to ever be forgotten.
Application
This psalm gives Christians permission to be brutally honest with God. There are times in the life of every believer when God feels distant, His promises seem void, and the darkness feels absolute. Psalm 88 is in our Bibles to teach us what to do in those moments: pray. And not just polite, restrained prayers, but raw, desperate, argumentative prayers. Heman argues with God on the basis of God's own glory. This is a profoundly faithful thing to do. It shows that even when he cannot feel God's love, he still believes in it enough to appeal to it.
But we pray with a knowledge that Heman did not have. His questions hang in the air, unanswered within the psalm itself. But they are not unanswered in the canon of Scripture. Will God do wonders for the dead? Yes, He raised His Son. Will the departed rise and praise Him? Yes, because Christ is the firstfruits of the resurrection. Is His lovingkindness declared in the grave? Yes, at the empty tomb. Are His wonders known in the darkness? Yes, for the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. We can cry out from our darkest places, knowing that Christ has been to the very bottom of the pit and has come out the other side, holding the keys of Death and Hades. Our darkest laments, therefore, are always penultimate. The final word is not darkness, but resurrection.