Psalm 88:6

Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Lowest pit.—See Note, Psalm 86:13.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 88:6-7. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, &c. — In hopeless and remediless calamities. Thus greatly may good men be afflicted, and such dismal apprehensions may they have concerning their afflictions, and such dark conclusions may they sometimes be ready to make concerning the issue of them, through the power of melancholy, and the weakness of faith. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me — The sense of thy wrath, or rather, the effects of it, as the next clause explains it. Thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves — With thy judgments breaking in furiously upon me, like the waves of the sea.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

88:1-9 The first words of the psalmist are the only words of comfort and support in this psalm. Thus greatly may good men be afflicted, and such dismal thoughts may they have about their afflictions, and such dark conclusion may they make about their end, through the power of melancholy and the weakness of faith. He complained most of God's displeasure. Even the children of God's love may sometimes think themselves children of wrath and no outward trouble can be so hard upon them as that. Probably the psalmist described his own case, yet he leads to Christ. Thus are we called to look unto Jesus, wounded and bruised for our iniquities. But the wrath of God poured the greatest bitterness into his cup. This weighed him down into darkness and the deep.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit - That is, I am as if I were thus laid; the deep grave seems now to lie so certainly before me, that it may be spoken of as if it were already my abode. The words rendered "lowest pit" mean literally the pit under, or beneath. The reference is to the sepulchre, as in Psalm 88:4.

In darkness - The dark grave; the realms of the dead. See the notes at Job 10:21-22.

In the deeps - The caverns; the deep places of the earth or the sea. All these expressions are designed to convey the idea that he was near the grave; that there was no hope for him; that he must die. Perhaps also there is connected with this the idea of trouble, of anguish, of sorrow; of that mental darkness of which the grave was an image, and into which he was plunged by the prospect of death. The whole scene was a sad one, and he was overwhelmed with grief, and saw only the prospect of continued sorrow and gloom. Even a good man may be made afraid - may have his mind made sad and sorrowful - by the prospect of dying. See Isaiah 38. Death is naturally gloomy; and when the light of religion does not shine upon the soul, and its comforts do not fill the heart, it is but natural that the mind should be full of gloom.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. Similar figures for distress in Ps 63:9; 69:3.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Either, first, in the grave; the same thing being expressed in divers words; or, secondly, in hopeless and remediless calamities.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit,.... The Targum interprets it of

"captivity which was like unto the lowest pit;''

and so Jarchi and Kimchi. Some understand it of a prison or dungeon, into which the psalmist was put; it may be interpreted of the pit of the grave, into which Christ was laid; though he continued in it not so long as to see corruption; from that prison and judgment he was quickly taken, Psalm 16:10, "in darkness"; both corporeal and spiritual, Matthew 27:45, and it is in the Hebrew text "in darknesses" (k), denoting both:

in the deeps; in the deep waters of affliction, sorrows, and sufferings; see Psalm 69:1. The allusion is to a dark and deep pit, under ground, such as in the eastern countries they used to put their captives and prisoners into in the night, and take them out in the morning; and which custom continues still among the Turks. Leo Africanus (l) says he has seen three thousand Christian captives together, clothed in a woollen sack, and chained to one another; and in the night put into pits or ditches under ground; see Zechariah 9:11.

(k) "in loca tenebrosa", Tigurine version, Musculus; "in tenebrosissimis", Junius & Tremellius; "in densis tenebris", Piscator; "in caligines, vel obscuritates", Gejerus. (l) Descriptio Africae, l. 3. p. 413.

Geneva Study Bible

Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. Thou hast laid me] God is treating him as though he were actually dead. The same word is used in the same connexion in Psalm 49:14.

in the lowest pit] The nether world in the depths of the earth. Cp. Psalm 86:13; Psalm 63:9; Lamentations 3:55. The Targum explains it allegorically of the Exile. “Thou hast placed me in exile which is like the nether pit.” in darkness] R.V. in dark places. So Sheol is described in Psalm 143:3; Lamentations 3:6. Cp. Job 10:21-22.

in the deeps] A word generally used of the depths of the sea: here metaphorically of the depths of misery (Psalm 69:15; cp. Lamentations 3:54), or as another synonym for Sheol, which was supposed to be situated below the sea. Cp. Psalm 71:20; Job 26:5.

The LXX and Syr. however read ‘shadow of death’ or ‘deep gloom’ (Psalm 44:19, note). This reading only implies a transposition of the consonants in the Heb. text, and is supported by the parallel passage in Job 10:21-22, which seems to be in the Psalmist’s mind.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit. The affliction whereof the psalmist complains has come direct from the hand of Cod. It is some severe stroke of illness which has brought him to his last gasp. The "lowest pit" is here metaphorical - the deepest depth of calamity. In darkness; literally, in darknesses, where no ray of thy favour shines upon me. In the deeps (comp. Psalm 69:2, "deep waters, where the floods overflow him"). Psalm 88:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The poet finds himself in the midst of circumstances gloomy in the extreme, but he does not despair; he still turns towards Jahve with his complaints, and calls Him the God of his salvation. This actus directus of fleeing in prayer to the God of salvation, which urges its way through all that is dark and gloomy, is the fundamental characteristic of all true faith. Psalm 88:2 is not to be rendered, as a clause of itself: "by day I cry unto Thee, in the night before Thee" (lxx and Targum), which ought to have been יומם, but (as it is also pointed, especially in Baer's text): by day, i.e., in the time (Psalm 56:4; Psalm 78:42, cf. Psalm 18:1), when I cry before Thee in the night, let my prayer come... (Hitzig). In Psalm 88:3 he calls his piercing lamentation, his wailing supplication, רנּתי, as in Psalm 17:1; Psalm 61:2. הטּה as in Psalm 86:1, for which we find הט in Psalm 17:6. The Beth of בּרעות, as in Psalm 65:5; Lamentations 3:15, Lamentations 3:30, denotes that of which his soul has already had abundantly sufficient. On Psalm 88:4, cf. as to the syntax Psalm 31:11. איל (ἅπαξ λεγομ. like אילוּת, Psalm 22:20) signifies succinctness, compactness, vigorousness (ἁδρότης): he is like a man from whom all vital freshness and vigour is gone, therefore now only like the shadow of a man, in fact like one already dead. חפשׁי, in Psalm 88:6, the lxx renders ἐν νεκροῖς ἐλεύθερος (Symmachus, ἀφεὶς ἐλεύθερος); and in like manner the Targum, and the Talmud which follows it in formulating the proposition that a deceased person is חפשׁי מן חמצוות, free from the fulfilling of the precepts of the Law (cf. Romans 6:7). Hitzig, Ewald, Kster, and Bttcher, on the contrary, explain it according to Ezekiel 27:20 (where חפשׁ signifies stragulum): among the dead is my couch (חפשׁי equals יצועי, Job 17:13). But in respect of Job 3:19 the adjectival rendering is the more probable; "one set free among the dead" (lxx) is equivalent to one released from the bond of life (Job 39:5), somewhat as in Latin a dead person is called defunctus. God does not remember the dead, i.e., practically, inasmuch as, devoid of any progressive history, their condition remains always the same; they are in fact cut away (נגזר as in Psalm 31:23; Lamentations 3:54; Isaiah 53:8) from the hand, viz., from the guiding and helping hand, of God. Their dwelling-place is the pit of the places lying deep beneath (cf. on תּחתּיּות, Psalm 63:10; Psalm 86:13; Ezekiel 26:20, and more particularly Lamentations 3:55), the dark regions (מחשׁכּים as in Psalm 143:3, Lamentations 3:6), the submarine depths (בּמצלות; lxx, Symmachus, the Syriac, etc.: ἐν σκιᾷ θανάτου equals בצלמות, according to Job 10:21 and frequently, but contrary to Lamentations 3:54), whose open abyss is the grave for each one. On Psalm 88:8 cf. Psalm 42:8. The Mugrash by כל־משׁבריך stamps it as an adverbial accusative (Targum), or more correctly, since the expression is not עניתני, as the object placed in advance. Only those who are not conversant with the subject (as Hupfeld in this instance) imagine that the accentuation marks ענּית as a relative clause (cf. on the contrary Psalm 8:7, Psalm 21:3, etc.). ענּה, to bow down, press down; here used of the turning or directing downwards (lxx ἐπήγαγες) of the waves, which burst like a cataract over the afflicted one.