The Rhetoric of Despair Text: Psalm 88:10-12
Introduction: The Black Psalm
We come this morning to what is undoubtedly the darkest psalm in the entire Psalter. Psalm 88 is an unrelieved cry from the depths. Unlike other psalms of lament, which almost always turn a corner in the final verses to a statement of trust or a vow of praise, this one begins in the dark, descends into deeper darkness, and ends in a blackness that is absolute. The final word of the psalm in Hebrew is "darkness." It is a prayer that seems to go entirely unanswered. It is the cry of a man whose soul is full of troubles, who feels that God has put him in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the deeps. His friends have been removed from him, and he is shut in, unable to escape.
This is the Black Psalm. And because it is in the Bible, it is a gift to the church. It gives inspired language to those saints who are in such a place of profound spiritual depression and affliction that they cannot see any light at all. It teaches us that faith is not a feeling. Faith is crying out to the "God of my salvation" even when every circumstance, every emotion, and every bit of evidence seems to scream that you have been abandoned. The psalmist, Heman the Ezrahite, is drowning, and all he can do is cry out in the direction of heaven.
But in the section before us today, his cry takes the form of a series of desperate, rhetorical questions. He is arguing with God, pleading his case from the dust. He is essentially asking, "What good is a dead worshiper to You? What glory do You get from my destruction?" These are not the questions of abstract theology. These are the raw, visceral arguments of a man on the very brink of Sheol, the grave. And in these questions, we find a window into the Old Testament understanding of death, and a deep, dark backdrop against which the glorious light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ will one day shine with world-altering brilliance.
The Text
Will You do wonders for the dead?
Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah.
Will Your lovingkindness be recounted in the grave,
Your faithfulness in Abaddon?
Will Your wonders be known in the darkness?
And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
(Psalm 88:10-12 LSB)
No Praise from the Pit (v. 10)
Heman begins his argument by appealing to God's desire for glory through His mighty works.
"Will You do wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah." (Psalm 88:10)
The implied answer to both questions, from the psalmist's perspective, is a resounding "No." His logic is straightforward: God performs wonders, His mighty acts of salvation and judgment, for the living. The living see them and give Him praise. But the dead? They are cut off. They are in the land of silence. How can God get any glory from them?
The phrase "departed spirits" is the Hebrew word Rephaim. This term can refer to a race of giants, but here it means the shades, the ghosts, the inhabitants of Sheol. The Old Testament picture of the afterlife, before the triumph of Christ, is uniformly shadowy and grim. Sheol is a place of weakness, inactivity, and separation. Think of the prophet Samuel when he is called up by the witch of Endor. He is a weary, disembodied spirit who asks, "Why have you disturbed me?" There is no sense of joy or fellowship there.
So Heman's argument is this: "Lord, if you let me die, you lose a worshiper. The Rephaim are not going to get up and form a choir. Your congregation will be smaller by one. Is that what you want?" This is a powerful, God-centered argument, even in its desperation. He is not just trying to save his own skin; he is appealing to God's own desire for praise. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and Heman is arguing that his death would frustrate that very purpose.
The "Selah" at the end of the verse invites us to pause and consider the weight of this. Think about it. Is this true? Is the grave the end of praise? From the vantage point of the old covenant, looking forward, the answer was shrouded in shadows. They had the promise of a resurrection, certainly. Job knew that his Redeemer lived and that in his flesh he would see God (Job 19:25-26). But the reality of it was distant, and the intermediate state was bleak. Heman is standing on this side of the cross, and from there, the grave looks like a final, praise-silencing reality.
No Gospel in the Grave (v. 11)
He continues this line of reasoning, pressing his case by listing the very things that define God's covenant relationship with His people.
"Will Your lovingkindness be recounted in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon?" (Psalm 88:11 LSB)
"Lovingkindness" is the great Hebrew word chesed. It is covenant love, steadfast loyalty, mercy. "Faithfulness" is emunah, the very bedrock of our trust in God. These two words are the twin pillars of God's relationship with Israel. The entire story of redemption is the story of God's chesed and emunah.
Heman asks if these glorious attributes will be declared in the "grave," which is Sheol, the place of the dead. And then he uses a synonym: "Abaddon." Abaddon means "destruction" or "place of destruction." It is a name for the abyss, the deepest and most fearsome aspect of the grave. In the book of Revelation, it is the name of the angel of the bottomless pit (Rev. 9:11).
The argument is potent. "Lord, your whole reputation is built on your covenant love and faithfulness. I have lived my life depending on it. The saints gather and they tell stories of it. Our psalms are full of it. But who tells these stories in Sheol? Who preaches the gospel in Abaddon?" Again, the implied answer is "no one." The grave is a place where the good news is forgotten because the inhabitants are forgotten. It is a place of ruin, not testimony.
This is the cry of a man who fears being cut off not just from life, but from the story of life, the story of God's covenant faithfulness. To go to Abaddon is to be removed from the theater where the drama of God's chesed is being played out. It is to be benched, permanently.
No Light in the Land of Oblivion (v. 12)
He concludes this series of six questions with a final couplet that summarizes the horror of his situation.
"Will Your wonders be known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" (Psalm 88:12 LSB)
"Darkness" is the opposite of the place where God's wonders are revealed. God's wonders are acts of power and light. They are meant to be seen. But Sheol is a place of darkness. And "the land of forgetfulness" is perhaps the most chilling description of the grave in all of Scripture. It is a land where the dead are forgotten by the living, and, it feels to the psalmist, forgotten by God Himself. It is a place of oblivion, where all memory, all relationships, all knowledge of God's righteousness, are erased.
God's righteousness is His justice, His right-ordering of the world. It is displayed in history, among the living. But in the land of forgetfulness, who remembers God's judgments? Who recalls His salvation? The answer, once more, is nobody. The land of forgetfulness is the land of un-knowing, un-remembering, and un-praising.
The Resurrection Answers the Question
So what are we to do with this? Heman asks six questions, and the implied answer to every single one of them, from his vantage point, is "No." No wonders for the dead. No praise from the Rephaim. No lovingkindness in the grave. No faithfulness in Abaddon. No light in the darkness. No righteousness in the land of forgetfulness.
And from his perspective, he was right. But he was asking questions that would only be answered centuries later, and answered with a thunderous, world-changing "YES!" that would echo from an empty tomb in Jerusalem.
Will God do wonders for the dead? Yes! For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son, who entered into death itself, and on the third day, God performed the greatest wonder of all time by raising Him from the dead.
Will the departed spirits rise and praise Him? Yes! Jesus descended into Hades, into this very land of shadows, and as the creed says, He "preached to the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:19). He led captivity captive (Eph. 4:8). He gathered up all the Old Testament saints who were waiting in hope, and He brought them into glory. And on the last day, all the dead, the righteous and the unrighteous, will be raised. The sea will give up its dead, and Death and Hades will give up their dead. And the redeemed will praise Him forever.
Will His lovingkindness be recounted in the grave? Yes! The cross itself was planted in the grave, you could say. Jesus' death was the ultimate demonstration of God's chesed, His covenant love. And He entered the grave to declare that His love is stronger than death.
Will His faithfulness be declared in Abaddon? Yes! Jesus went to the very pit of destruction to destroy destruction. He took the keys of Death and Hades (Rev. 1:18). He disarmed the principalities and powers in that dark place. His faithfulness was declared in the very heart of the enemy's territory.
Will His wonders be known in the darkness? Yes! For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness in creation, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). And Jesus is the light that invaded the ultimate darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it.
And will His righteousness be known in the land of forgetfulness? A thousand times yes! God did not forget His Son in the grave. He did not allow His Holy One to see corruption (Psalm 16:10). And because He raised Jesus, He has not forgotten us. We are not destined for a land of oblivion, but for a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. In Christ, we are remembered forever. Our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Heman's desperate questions, born of unimaginable suffering, become for us, on this side of the resurrection, a glorious catechism of the gospel. The very things he thought were impossible are the central pillars of our faith. This is the beauty of an inspired text. Heman's despair was real. His questions were honest. But God has answered them in His Son, turning the darkest psalm into a preface for the brightest morning.