Psalms 88:10 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, the psalmist talks to God about the terrible condition he is in now. He asks, in effect, whether God will work a miracle for the dead and raise them to life again. His point is that the dead do not rise to praise God in this world, and the buried cannot declare God’s love, faithfulness, wonders, or righteousness from the grave, the land of forgetfulness. Departed souls may know God’s works and speak of them, but dead bodies cannot receive his comfort or return praise.

We should not read these questions as despair, as if he thought God could not help him or would not help him. They do not mean he doubted the resurrection at the last day either. Rather, he is pleading for quick help, saying that God’s goodness, faithfulness, and righteousness will be shown in his rescue, but only if that rescue comes soon. If relief is delayed too long, he will be dead and beyond earthly comfort. Job made similar appeals to God (Job 7:8; Job 10:21).

He then resolves to keep praying, especially because help is delayed. He says he has cried to God many times and found comfort in prayer, so he will keep doing it. Even if his prayers are not answered right away, he must not stop praying, because God’s answer comes at the right time. Delays are often meant to test our patience and help us persevere in prayer.

He also says he will pray early in the morning, when his mind is fresh and before the day’s work crowds in. After a night full of worry and sorrow, he wants his prayer to come before God at the first chance. He does not mean he can wake up before God is able to hear, since God never sleeps. He means he will rise earlier than usual to pray and will come with faith and expectation before the day begins. The heavier our trouble is, the more earnest our prayers should be. God often comes to meet our prayers and hopes with his mercies, and we should bring our prayers and hopes to meet his mercies.

He then tells what he will say to God. First, he will humbly ask why God seems to have rejected him and why he is being treated as one abandoned. He is surprised that God should cast off an old servant, and one who is determined not to cast him off. Men may reject him, but why should the Lord do so, when his gifts and calling are without repentance, meaning God does not change his mind about his purposes and gracious call? Nothing hurts a child of God more than God hiding his face, and nothing is feared more than God casting off the soul.

He will also repeat his complaints until God has mercy on him. One grief he names is that God is a terror to him. He lives with frightening thoughts of God’s anger against his sins and the result of that anger. The thought of meeting God and receiving judgment fills him with fear and trembling. Yet even those who are meant for God’s favor may, for a time, go through his terrors. The spirit of adoption, the spirit that makes us God’s children, may first be felt as bondage that produces fear. Job spoke in a similar way about God’s terrors (Job 6:4).

The psalmist explains that by God’s terrors he means God’s fierce wrath. These terrors have nearly taken away his life, so that he is ready to die and give up the ghost. They have also nearly taken away his reason, leaving him distracted. This sad effect has been felt by many under deep spiritual distress, and it should be met with compassion. He says this has gone on since his youth. He has been under sorrow from early life, as if trained in that school of affliction. If our days begin with trouble and our mourning lasts a long time, we should not think it strange, but let suffering produce patience.

It is also worth noting that Heman, the writer here, became greatly wise and good, even though he had suffered in this way from youth. Many have found it good to bear the yoke early in life. Sorrow has sometimes done more for them than laughter would have done. Being often afflicted and near death when young has helped some develop a serious mind and a heart less attached to the world, which has served them well all their days. Sometimes God prepares people for important service through this kind of discipline.

Now his trouble has become even worse than before. God’s terrors have surrounded him on every side, so that he is attacked from all directions and gets no comforting relief from anywhere.

They rushed in on him together like a flood of water. This came day after day, with no rest and no break at all. He had no breathing space, no clear moments of relief, and not even a small sign of hope. This was the sad condition of a very wise and good man. He was surrounded by terrors, and he could find no safe place to hide or rest.

The psalmist also says that no friend in the world could comfort him (Psalm 88:18). “Lovers and friends have you put far from me.” Some had died, others were far away, and many may have turned against him. Next to the comforts of faith, the comforts of friendship and fellowship are very precious. So to have no friends is, for this life, almost the same as having no comfort at all. For those who once had friends and then lost them, the sorrow is even harder to bear.

With this, the psalmist ends his complaint, as if this were the thing that completed his misery and gave the final blow to his grief. If God’s providence, his wise rule over events, has scattered our friends far from us, or if death has taken them into the darkness, we should still feel the loss deeply. But we must also acknowledge God’s hand in it and submit to him.