Psalm 88
This Sunday we will be looking at the 88th Psalm, it is known to be a Psalm of Heman, and is one of only three Psalms that does not end in praise or resolution to the Psalmists suffering. I have included an excerpt of Matthew Henry’s commentary on this Psalm to help give you some background so that this Sunday we can dive right into the meat of what is happening…
This psalm is a lamentation, one of the most melancholy of all the psalms; and it does not conclude, as usually the melancholy psalms do, with the least intimation of comfort or joy, but, from first to last, it is mourning and woe. It is not upon a public account that the psalmist here complains (here is no mention of the afflictions of the church), but only upon a personal account, especially trouble of mind, and the grief impressed upon his spirits both by his outward afflictions and by the remembrance of his sins and the fear of God’s wrath. It is reckoned among the penitential psalms, and it is well when our fears are thus turned into the right channel, and we take occasion from our worldly grievances to sorrow after a godly sort.
It should seem, by the titles of this and the following psalm, that Heman was the penman of the one and Ethan of the other. There were two, of these names, who were sons of Zerah the son of Judah, 1 Chron 2 4, 6. There were two others famed for wisdom, 1 Kings 4 31, where, to magnify Solomon’s wisdom, he is said to be wiser than Heman and Ethan. Whether the Heman and Ethan who were Levites and precentors in the songs of Zion were the same we are not sure, nor which of these, nor whether any of these, were the penmen of these psalms. There was a Heman that was one of the chief singers, who is called the king’s seer, or prophet, in the words of God (1 Chron 25 5); it is probable that this also was a seer, and yet could see no comfort for himself, an instructor and comforter of others, and yet himself putting comfort away from him. The very first words of the psalm are the only words of comfort and support in all the psalm. There is nothing about him but clouds and darkness; but, before he begins his complaint, he calls God the God of his salvation, which intimates both that he looked for salvation, bad as things were, and that he looked up to God for the salvation and depended upon him to be the author of it.
(Excerpt from Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Psalm 88)
See you Sunday!
Nathan Bentley