My eye grows dim from misery; I have called upon You every day, Lord; I have spread out my hands to You. Psalm 88:9 NASB Called upon – Internal contradiction! Yes, Hebrew has a few words that mean exactly the opposite depending on the circumstances. When an author takes advantage of this, his choice can mean either one—or both. Perhaps…
You have removed my acquaintances far from me; You have made me an object of loathing to them; I am shut up and cannot go out. Psalm 88:8 NASB An object of loathing – How do you effectively destroy what makes us human without killing the body? Isolation! There’s a very good reason why prisons employ isolation…
Your wrath has rested upon me, and You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah Psalm 88:7 NASB Wrath – God is good, right? Good all the time, right? Then why do we resonate with the thought in this verse? Why do we sometimes feel as if we’re under God’s thumb? “Your wrath” is from the Hebrew…
You have put me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the depths. Psalm 88:6 NASB Put – The Hebrew verb šît comes with some very odd translation history. Occurring eighty-five times in the Bible, it covers the range from commitment (“to set the heart on”) to enemy opposition (“set against me”). It is also used for…
Abandoned among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You no longer remember, and they are cut off from Your hand. Psalm 88:5 NASB No longer remember – zākar. What an important Hebrew verb! Zākar means “to remember,” but the same consonants in noun form also mean “male.” It seems to me that…
Abandoned among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You no longer remember, and they are cut off from Your hand. Psalm 88:5 NASB Abandoned – What an interesting choice of words! Sometimes translated “forsaken,” the Hebrew root is the verb ḥāpaš. Here it is ḥopšî, an adjective. What’s interesting is the basic…
I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength, Psalm 88:4 NASB Down to the pit – “Modern man’s greatest fault, Kierkegaard maintains, is his total self-reliance. It is his nineteenth-century delusion that he has progressed beyond his ancestors. This conceit derives from egotism. There is but…
For my soul has had enough troubles, and my life has drawn near to Sheol. Psalm 88:3 NASB 1995 Has had enough – Is your life filled to the brim? Oh, I didn’t ask if it is filled up with good things. I just asked if you feel as if it is up to the top. Yes, it’s…
Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry! Psalm 88:2 NASB Incline – “The 215 occurrences of this verb, excluding derivatives, are translated some thirty-five different ways in the KJV alone. The ASV and RSV add other renderings to this wide range of English expressions.”[1] That’s not very comforting, is it? If…
Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry! Psalm 88:2 NASB Let . . . come before You – The first thing you should notice is the change in syntax. In Hebrew the verb comes first. So, it reads, “Let come before You my prayer.” The action is the important thing. What…
