The Dark Night Rises - Psalm 88

Introduction

If puritan writers were often tortured with physical persecution, these faithful, godly, preachers were no strangers to spiritual affliction either. Though they were reckoned to be the most-skilled pastors at dealing with melancholy, or what we would term depression, they were also spiritual physicians, trained by experience, to treat the "dark night of the soul."

Context

This Psalm of the Korahite choir, was designed to be used in Temple worship in the cases of a humbling sickness, or even spiritual seeming-hopelessness - hence the superscription term Mahalath Leannoth. It was also aimed to teach us wisdom, and coach believers through harrowing affliction: Heman the Ezrahite, a priestly associate of King David (who, himself, had left instructions for sanctuary worship), uttered this Psalm in an agonized, tormented, "total eclipse of the heart."

The Shape of His Darkness v3

From what ensues in the Psalm, it looks like this ailment, unlike the illness of Hezekiah, was some kind of "sickness unto death." Of all of the prayers in Psalter, this last-but-one entry in Book Three, is the only composition with hardly any ray of hope - it is shrouded and entombed in thick, palpable, inky, darkness. His adversity, misery, and injury is so c9mplete and deep that his soul has had enough – he has come very close to throwing in the towel, but not with the LORD, of course, as his draws near to Sheol.

The Shock of His Darkness v4

As far as family, friends and foes are all concerned, Heman is a hopeless case, beyond any medical help, and a total write-off: he has, it appears, no hope of recovery to full health. As he prays to God, he hears the scratch of the stonemason's stylus as his epitaph is being etched on his tombstone: with the cemetery plot already reserved, and his funeral arrangements made for a final lowering into the pit, the only outstanding details are his day of death and his burial date.

The Sense of His Darkness v5

He believes himself a dead-man, like those stretchered-out by undertakers, and put to bed beneath the turf. This is even worse than the 'Land that time forgot': he feels like a zombie, beyond the of sight of Yahweh’s watchful eye. Cut-off from fellowship with the Lord, by a terrifying divine stroke, he languishes in the pit, in the underparts of earth.

The Sea of His Darkness v6-7

His mind ranges through the cosmos, then finally fastens hold on an even darker space – he mixes his metaphors to describe the depth of gloom in his lightless, hopeless, soul. He is plunged beneath the waves, far beyond God's gaze, in a deep, dark, ocean floor of a Marianas Trench. Overwhelming billows of wrath buffet and burden his heart. Hyperbole is used, but hardly conveys the full extent of bottomless, charcoal, unfathomable darkness.

The Solitude of His Darkness v8-12

Friends or family who come to visit, much like the three friends of Job, look askance, and recoil in horror. Seeing how they glance at his hunched corpus, before taking a step back, only heightens and intensifies his numbed sense of lonely, dark, despair. There looks to be no way out for this shut-in, walled-in, patient - with eyes wept dry, and prayer-hands spread out, he seeks life-light from His wonder-working, faithful, loving, Covenant God, who is not praised in death.

The Submission to His Darkness v13-18

This seems to have been a chronic, protracted, lifelong, disease. What is remarkable is that there is not even a hint or trace of bitter complaint. Though Heman considers himself cast-off, and he cannot make sense of why God hides his face, yet he doubles-down on morning prayer, and submits to the fact that darkness will stay by his side, without hope of morning light. There must be some ultimate divine purpose to this pit!

The Source of His Darkness

This Psalm is quite unique: all other prayers and praises in the Psalter, offer some ray of light. This, it would seem, is as dark as it gets. The only thing left for Heman is submission to God's will - if destined for death, God must be enough. If this prophet speaks out of the dark night of the soul, it was by the Spirit of Christ, whose shadow is cast back all the way from the Cross, who suffered curse for us. This helps explain the depth and acceptance of his grief.

The Solace in His Darkness

If the experience of Messiah breathes out through the lungs of Heman, who seems to be His type, in Psalm 88, we are reminded that, however gloomy it gets, the troubled believing soul can bask in light of the Cross, cheered by hope in death. Was our Lord laid in the grave, and did he rise from gloom to glory on the third day? Our Great High Priest, has sounded hellish depths, broken bars of death, and been submerged in wrath, where all light of heaven was eclipsed, in order to shine light on justified saints from His sympathetic heart.

Conclusion

Are you mildly discouraged or deeply depressed? Have you had a devastating or life-changing shock? Maybe you are terminally ill, or your body is racked with pain? Has hope of cure, or even temporary respite, all but gone? Are you gripped by a desperate sense of handicap, failure, uselessness or purposeless? Or is your gloominess the result of tragic reverse, grief, or palpable loneliness? In the night, where you may think there is no lamp, use Psalm 88 to pray, submit, and brighten up – the glory of Jesus will flood your soul with peace. If this lament was a buttress to our Lord as He endured His "Darkest Hour", then it will surely, in the Spirit, also minister to us.