“A Lament Without A Solution: Psalm 88.”

 Many psalms are laments in which a psalmist complains about various kinds of crises.  Thought the laments are often bitter, typically toward the end of the psalm God either intervenes to deal with the causse of the complaint or God’s intervention is anticipated.  That is not the case in Psalm 88.  In this lament, there is not amelioration or anticipation of amelioration.  The psalmist prays persistently, but there is no resolution.  At the same time, the psalmist refuses to give up.  Regardless of how bad things are—he seems close to death—he continues to cry out to God.  Ironically, laments only make sense if one believes in God.  If there is no God, there is no expectation of how things should be.  They just are!  Laments underscore how profoundly the lamenter holds on to God.  And, the lamenter continues to pray regardless of the answer.  

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Bible is full of stories that we all know
and love, but how well do we know? That the
answer might surprise you. The Bible you thought you knew
is going to dive deep into the exquisite details of
the Biblical stories that make them fascinating and transforming. In

(00:26):
this week's podcast, we are going to deal with a
very difficult psalm, namely Psalm eighty eight. This psalm is
not difficult because it is a lament or complaint to
God about a particular crisis. There are many lament psalms.
That is not where the difficulty lies. Instead, the psalm

(00:49):
is tough to digest because it breaks the pattern of
virtually every other lament psalm. Typically, lament psalms present in
lure language. A psalmist complaints about whatever the crisis is.
The crisis might be assault from enemies, illness, betrayal on

(01:10):
the part of friends, crop failure, military defeat, and the like,
but that is not how lament psalms conclude. In one
way or another, God, who is made privy about the complaint,
either ameliorates the crisis or the psalmist anticipates a future amelioration.

(01:34):
In short, laments are finally resolved. That is not the
case in Psalm eighty eight. The complaints are relentless. That
is to be expected. But alas there is no relief,
no resolution, no amelioration whatsoever. God never shows up to

(01:57):
deal with the psalmist crisis. That is what makes this
psalm so difficult. This psalm has a title, but the
title tells us very little about the circumstances in which
the psalm was generated. In the title, the psalm is
referred to as a song and a psalm of the

(02:19):
sons of Korra. It is also addressed to the choir
master and is according to mahalath Leenos. We have no
idea what that means. It might even be the name
of the tune used for chanting the psalm. Finally, we
are told that the psalm is a mass kill of

(02:39):
Haman the Ezrahit. A mass kill is a contemplative poem,
although the term applies to different types of psalms, as
for Heiman the Ezrahite, we do not know who this
person is, other than perhaps a devity of the circle

(03:00):
of followers of Ezra. Given this reference, this is likely
an exilic psalm. That means it was written and sung
after Judah had been defeated by Babylon and many had
been deported to Babylon. Of course, the exile was more
than a military defeat. By losing the land, the monarchy,

(03:24):
and the temple in Jerusalem, Israel lost every symbol of
the presence and promise of its deity. Given that circumstance,
we should expect serious lamentation. The psalm begins by addressing
God with God's distinctive name y hwh the so called tetragrammaton,

(03:51):
and the psalm is intensely personal. Even though translations begin
with quote I call for help by day, that is
not what the Hebrew says. Quite literally, it says instead,
O Lord, God of my salvation, I daily, I cry

(04:11):
out by night before you. Because day and night are opposites,
most translators want each element to be put in different
parts of the line. However, starting this poignant lament with
the notation that the Lord is the God of my
salvation intensifies the complaint. Often a verb is voiced in

(04:37):
one part of the line and an implied verb in
the next that, in my judgment, is the case here
I translate therefore, O Lord, God of my salvation, I
cry out daily at night. My cry is before you.

(04:59):
Then the Thomas lets God know that his cry is
also a prayer. Again, notice the first person personal pronouns.
Let my prayer come before you. Incline your ear to
my cry. Prayers and laments can be interchangeable. Having established this,

(05:23):
the Psalmist begins to rehearse his troubles. I use a
masculine pronoun because of the name in the title Heimon,
but this lament or prayer can be on the lips
of both men and women in any case. First, the
troubles are enumerated gen generically, because my soul is full

(05:48):
of troubles. Translating with the word soul requires explanation. Soul
usually renders Hebrew, nefish Nephish primarily means person or not so.
Very long ago, this was standard in English, as for example,
when we learned how many souls were lost when the

(06:10):
Titanic went down. That is what the word means. In
this context. I could easily translate because myself is full
of troubles, but that is less than elegant English. These
troubles are specified in the second part of the line,

(06:30):
my life draws near to sheol. In other words, the
sawmist is approaching death. That's in verse three. In the
Old Testament, she ol is the realm of the dead,
a lifeless place in which there is somehow incoate activity.

(06:51):
This is further explicated in the next line. I am
considered among those down to the pit. Pitt is a
synonym of shield in that dreary place. The psalmist is
a man who has no strength. That's in verse four.

(07:12):
The explication continues when the psalmist complains that he is
like someone forsaken among the dead, like those who were
slain and now lie in a grave. Even worse, in
this awful situation, God no longer remembers the Psalmis. Instead,

(07:36):
these forgotten people are now caught off from God's hands,
which means they can no longer count on God's help.
As the psalm continues, there is no question about the
source of the psalmist troubles. God. God is the one

(07:57):
who has put the psamis in the depths of the
a region that is dark and deep. Even though it
is the place where the dead reside, the Psalmist still
manages to feel divine wrath, which overwhelms him. That's in
verses six and seven. In addition, God's role in the

(08:21):
Ssamis's wretched state is not a passive. God has had
a role in causing his companions to shun him, going
so far as making him a thing of horror to them.
That's in verse eight. He is in a circumstance that

(08:41):
he cannot escape. It is a place where sorrow dims
his eyes. Even so, every day the Psalmist calls upon
the Lord and spreads his hands out in prayer. But
this does nothing to reverse the Ssamis's plight. Why because

(09:05):
in shioh or the pit, the realm of the dead
makes people immune to God's wonders. The Psamis is not
quite dead, but he is getting closer. That is why
he is soon to be beyond God's wonders or have
the capacity to praise God shades, a word describing the

(09:28):
ghostly existence. Cannot praise God. That's in verse ten. The
p Ssamis doubles down on this depressing lament with a
few rhetorical questions, the answer to which is a resounding no.
Is God's amazing graves declared in the grave? No? Or

(09:49):
is God faithful? In abdon another word for the realm
of the dead. No are God's wonders known in the darkness,
or God's saving help known in the land of forgetfulness. No. Nevertheless,
the Psalmist insists on crying out to God, a prayer

(10:10):
that begins every single morning. That's in verse thirteen. In
this personal prayer, the Psalmist asks God directly, why do
you cast me away or hide the divine face from me?
No answer is forthcoming. A terrible silence from God obtains.

(10:37):
Without any answer from God, the Psalmist continues his unrelenting lament.
He is afflicted and close to death, a situation with
which he has had to deal since he was a
young man. All that is left for him is suffering
in verse fifteen. Again, this is not because God is passive.

(11:03):
The Psalmist experiences God's wrath, a dread emanating from God
is about to destroy him. That's in verse sixteen. These
assaults now surround the Ssawmist like a flood all day long.
In a return to the motif, God's prompting the Psalmist

(11:25):
to behave negatively towards the Psawmist, he accuses God making
his lover and friend shun him. His companions remain in
the darkness that's in verse eighteen. At that point the
psalm ends, there is no reversal. Nothing is solved, no

(11:49):
crisis is ameliorated, no hope is expressed, no light at
the end of the tunnel is seen. There is only glue, boom,
and doom. The psalm begins with a depressing note and
concludes with a depressing note. What are we to make

(12:11):
of such a psalm? The psalmist laments and complaints are understandable.
We can comprehend life taking in turn where everything seems
stacked up against us. We can imagine awful situations where lost,
threat and negativity are simply overwhelming. But what about God?

(12:34):
What accounts for God's silence? Why has the psalm? What
has the Psalmist done to merit this close to death experience?
Why has God turned this man's companions against him? No
answer or no answers to these heart wrenching questions are given.

(12:57):
The psalm ends on a most sour note. There is
only one positive element in the song. The circumstance, as
terrible as it is, has not deterred the Psalmist from praying, complaining,
or lamenting. The psamus is convinced of God's reality. Therefore,

(13:23):
he will persist in calling out, crying out to God,
regardless of the silence. Here is a great irony. Only
someone who believes in God can lament. If there is
no God, there is no way that the world should be.

(13:43):
Everything we experience is neither right nor wrong. It just
is complaining, makes no sense. Life happens, events take place.
There is no meaning. There is no God whom we
might address and asks why things are out of whack.

(14:04):
There is no whack. The Psalmis of Psalm eighty eight
is in dire straits. He is scared to death about
shield or the pit. He does not understand why God
has had something to do with his companions shunning him.
He hates his life, despises his situation, but he still

(14:29):
calls on God cries out to God. One does that
only because of a deep seated conviction that eventually, one
day God will hear and answer. Let me encourage you
to go to my website faspoina dot com. Let me

(14:52):
have your email. Take a look at the website. See
what else I've put in there recently. If you want
me to answer a question in a coming Q and
A session, email me at Fspino one zero six at
gmail dot com. I want to thank you so very

(15:20):
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(15:41):
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Then listen in to hear your question answered on a
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Thought you Knew when we discuss Jesus' personal Bible. God

(16:05):
bless h