◄ Psalm 88:12 ►














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
Mournful Views Of Death
Psalm 88:10-12
S. Conway
These verses are by no means the only ones which set forth similar views. Their melancholy is very profound. See this in -

I. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE HABITATION OF THE DEAD. The terms they use are all sad. As:

1. "The pit." (Ver. 4.) "The lowest pit" (ver. 6). The idea is of a vast profound subterranean cavern, into which no ray of light entered. Infernal regions indeed:

2. "Destruction." (Ver. 11.) A place where all living powers came to an end, and death only reigned.

3. "The dark. (Ver. 12.) And darkness" (ver. 6).

4. "The land of forgetfulness and silence. God had been their Light, their Joy, their Life; but now they should know him no more. What wonder that they so shrank from death!

II. THE BLESSINGS OF WHICH THEY WERE DEPRIVED. The living might rejoice in them, but never the dead. These blessings were:

1. Knowledge of God's wonders. The memory and experience of these were to the living their perpetual gladness; but the dead know and can know nothing of them. They are unhappy beings who know not anything, clean forgotten, out of mind - beings whom God himself remembers not.

2. God's loving kindness. (Ver. 11.) They had been wont to exclaim, How excellent is thy loving kindness!" to pray that God would "continue" it; to declare that they would "not conceal" it from all men, that they continually "thought of" it, that it was "good," that it was "life," yea, "better than life." But now they were shut off from it altogether.

3. God's "faithfulness. (Ver. 11.) This, too, they were wont lovingly to extol (cf. Psalm 36:5; Psalm 40:10; Psalm 89:1, 5, 8, 24, 33, etc.). But it was gone from them in the grave.

4. God's righteousness. (Ver. 12.) This had been all their trust and stay when living, but in the grave they knew it no more.

III. THEIR LOSS OF ALL POWER.

1. They cannot praise God. (Ver. 10.) This had been their joy on earth.

2. They cannot see. It would be in vain that God's wonders were displayed before them.

3. They cannot hear. Therefore it would be of no avail to declare God's loving kindness to them.

4. They cannot know either the wonders or the righteousness of God.

5. They have no power even to stand on their feet. Body, mind, and soul all stripped of their former powers. No wonder that Hezekiah cried, in his dread of death, The living, the living, he shall praise thee!" And this was the belief of all the saints of the Old Testament.

IV. QUESTIONS THAT ARISE FROM THE FACT OF THESE VIEWS ABOUT DEATH.

1. Are they true? Certainly not. In no one single particular are they true. The believer does not after death abide in the grave, nor in any pit, nor in the land of destruction, of darkness, and of forgetfulness. He is "with Christ, which is far better" (see New Testament, passim).

2. Were they ever true? In part they were. Christ opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. He was the Forerunner. None entered into the heavens until Christ, "the Way," first entered. Until then the spirits of the just were being safely guarded - the rendering (1 Peter 3:19) "in prison" is surely a misleading one, suggesting, as it does, the idea of punishment, whereas the word only signifies being "watched over," "guarded," "kept" - in the invisible world, in Hades, the place of departed spirits. They were in an inferior, but not in an unhappy, condition. It was called by the Jews "Abraham's besom," "Paradise" (Luke 16:23; Luke 23:43). And again and again in the Psalms we have utterances of bright though not definite hope as to the future (Psalm 11:7; Psalm 16:8-11; Psalm 17:15; Psalm 49:15, etc.). But they had their seasons of despondency, and then this hope fled away, and they could speak only as in these verses before us, which are so very far from the complete truth. Even then, blessed were the dead who died in the Lord!

3. Why was our better, brighter hope withheld from them, so that they could hold such sad views as these? The reply is to be found in God's method of educating the race. Step by step, here a little and there a little, progressively - such seems to have been the Divine plan. As we educate our children, so did God educate man (cf. Hebrews 1:1). Our Lord taught the people, when he was here on earth, "as they were able to bear it." And such seems ever to have been God's way. It has been suggested (J.A. Froude) that, seeing how Egypt had perverted the doctrine of a future life, making it the minister of all kinds of wrong, God kept any clear knowledge of this life from Israel, concentrating their attention upon the present life and its duties by means of present temporal rewards and punishments. It may have been so; but the question is one beyond our power to fully answer.

4. Why is the better hope given to us? To vindicate God (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:12-19). To sustain men's hope. "We are saved by hope." To quicken the love and pursuit of believers. To deliver from the fear of death. All this our hope does. - S.C.

Biblical Illustrator
Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise Thee?
Psalm 88:10-12
The great problem
Homilist.
I. Here is a problem COMMON TO HUMANITY. Lived there ever a man who has not asked this question in some form or other?

II. Here is a problem that UNAIDED REASON CANNOT ANSWER.

1. Ancient philosophy tried and failed. Witness .

2. Modern philosophy has nothing but speculations.

III. Here is a problem ON WHICH THE GOSPEL THROWS LIGHT. What saith the Gospel? (1 Corinthians 15:51).

(Homilist.)

Wonders shown to the dead
J. C. Philpot.
In these verses we find mention made of four things on the part of God: "wonders," "lovingkindness, .... faithfulness," and "righteousness" — four attributes of the blessed Jehovah, which the eyes of Heman had been opened to see, and which the heart of Heman had been wrought upon to feel. But he comes, by Divine teaching, into a spot where these attributes seem to be completely lost to him;and yet (so mysterious are the ways of God!) the very place where those attributes were to be more powerfully displayed, and made more deeply and experimentally known to his soul.

1. "Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead?" He is speaking here of his own experience; he is that "dead" person, to whom those "wonders" are to be shown. And being in that state of experience, he considered that every act of mercy shown to him where he then was must be a "wonder." All God's people are brought by the Spirit's operations upon their souls, sooner or later, to be in that spot where Heman was. Paul was there, when he said (Romans 7:9). Then, surely, he was "dead"; that is, he had been killed in his feelings by the spirituality of God's law made known in his conscience — killed, as to all hopes of creature-righteousness, and killed as to any way of salvation which the creature could devise. But the word "dead" carries with it a still further meaning than this. It expresses a feeling of utter helplessness; not merely a feeling of guilt and condemnation, so as to be slain to all hopes of salvation in self, but also to feel perfectly helpless to deliver himself from the lowest hell. But if We look at the expression as it simply stands, it seems to be uttered by one who is passing under the sentence of death before the wonder is displayed. It does not run in the past tense, "Hast Thou shown wonders to the dead?" It is not couched in the present tense, "Art Thou showing wonders to the dead?" The language is not the language of praise for the past; nor of admiration for the present; but that of anxious inquiry for the future" "Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead?" Is it possible? Am I not too great a sinner? Is not my case too desperate?

2. "Shall Thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave?" We have come a step lower now. We had been communing with "the dead"; but now we must go a step lower. We must go to the sepulchre; we must accompany the corpse to the grave. Now, what is "the grave" but the place where corruption riots, where putrefaction reigns? Here, then, is a striking figure of what a living soul feels under the manifestations of the deep corruptions of his heart. All his good words, once so esteemed, and all his good works, once so prized, and all his prayers, and all his faith, and hope, and love, and all the imaginations of his heart, not merely paralyzed and dead, not merely reduced to a state of utter helplessness, but also in soul feeling turned into rottenness and corruption. Now, were you ever there? Did your prayers ever stink in your nostrils? And are all your good words, and all your good works, and all your good thoughts, once so esteemed, now nothing in your sight but filthy, polluted and unclean?

3. "Or Thy faithfulness in destruction?" What is this "faithfulness" of which Heman speaks? It is, I believe, in two different branches; faithfulness to the promises that God has made in His word of truth — and faithfulness to His own witness and His own work upon the souls of His children. The Lord has destroyed your false religion, your natural hopes, your imaginary piety, your mock holiness, and those things in you which were not of Himself, but which were of the earth earthy, and were drawing you aside from Him; and has made you poor, naked, empty before His eyes. But it is in these very acts of destruction that He has shown His faithfulness — His faithfulness to His covenant, His faithfulness to His written word, His faithfulness to those promises which He has dropped with power into your heart.

4. "Shall Thy wonders be known in the dark? and Thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" Here is another attribute of God about which Heman was exercised. His "righteousness," God's righteousness, I believe, here and elsewhere does not mean only Christ's righteousness, but also the righteous acts of God in dealing with the soul in a way consistent with His own equitable character. This land of forgetfulness seems to imply two things — our forgetfulness of God, and God's apparent forgetfulness of us.(1) We often get into this sleepy land of forgetfulness toward God; we forget His universal presence, forget His heart-searching eyes, forget His former benefits, forget His past testimonies, forget the reverence which belongs to His holy name; which, above all things, we have desired most earnestly to remember. It is, then, in this land of forgetfulness, in this dull and heavy country, when, like the disciples in the garden, we sleep instead of watching, that God is still pleased to show forth His righteousness. God's righteousness runs parallel with Christ's atonement, for therein is His intrinsic righteousness manifested, that is, His strict compliance with equity and justice, because equity and justice have been strictly fulfilled by the propitiation of the Son of God.(2) But the land of forgetfulness often means forgetfulness on God's part — God seems to forget His people (Isaiah 49:13). "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" Does it not seem, at times, as though the Lord had utterly forgotten us, would take no more notice of us, slights us, rejects us, and would not cast one look, or bestow one word upon us?

(J. C. Philpot.)

Marvels amidst the tombs
J. W. Hardman, LL. D.
What a sad day in the history of a great country was that when over the gateway of the chief cemetery of Paris was inscribed the sentence, "Death is an eternal sleep"! This hopeless statement was the product of a highly civilized age, that chose to live without God; but the primitive races of men had not sunk so low in religious matters. When the chieftain of prehistoric days was placed in his tomb, before they raised his tumulus they placed with his bones his weapons of stone, or bronze, that he might in "the spirit world" pursue his avocations which he had followed on earth. But when men became philosophers, and studied the grounds of evidence, a cold withering frost of doubt seemed to freeze up their cheering convictions. Even the great , with his last breath, speaks with a kind of faltering utterance to his judges, "And now we part, and whether it will be best for you, or for me, is known to God only." Then came the dawn of a nobler day. Christ Jesus walked on earth. In the death-chamber of the little Jewish maiden He recalled the vanished spirit. Thus the Christian answers to the despairing, wailing cry of Scepticism — "Does God show signs amongst the dead?" by pointing to the empty sepulchre; to the white-robed angels, that announce — "He is not dead, He is risen"; to the testimony of the pious women, who found the spices might be reserved for incense to burn in the worship of their Ascended Lord; and to the multitude of sober and sufficient witnesses, who both on the first Easter Day, and afterwards in Galilee, by many infallible proofs, perceived that He was alive, and alive for evermore! And now He holds the keys of death and of Hades — that is, the unseen world — and adoring Christendom bows before His name, who has "shown wonders amongst the dead." In this faith our dear ones close their eyes, in His peace they rest; "in sure and certain hope "of His resurrection power we lay their earthly tabernacles beneath the green sod.

(J. W. Hardman, LL. D.)

The land of forgetfulness
The land of forgetfulness
J. Parker, D. D.
There is a fabled river in ancient mythology called Lethe, — simply meaning forgetfulness. The idea of the fabulist was that whoever drank water out of that river instantly forgot everything that had happened; all the past was a forgotten dream. Nay, more than this, consciousness itself was not left after the Lethal water was taken. The man who drank one draught of the water of Lethe, oblivion, was not aware of his own existence; that draught had utterly extinguished him. Men have often longed for a draught of that water; men have sighed for the land of forgetfulness; souls, harps on which music was meant to be played, have desired with unspeakable earnestness to be allowed to die, to forget, to be forgotten.

I. In some aspects the land of forgetfulness is A DESIRABLE LAND. There are moments when we want to enter it and be enfranchised in it for ever. There are things that other people have done to us that we long to forget; if we could wholly forget them life would be sweeter, friendship would be dearer, the outlook would be altogether more inviting. What is it that makes the land of forgetfulness a land in poetry, a land inaccessible? Is there no potion that the soul may take? there are potions that the body may drink, but we do not want to drink our bodies into some lower level and some baser consciousness; we are inquiring now about soul-potions, drinks that affect the mind, draughts that lull the soul.

II. There are other aspects in which the land of forgetfulness is AN ATTAINABLE LAND. We can so live as to be forgotten. Men can live backwards. Men can be dead whilst they are alive, and forgotten while they are present to the very eyes. What is there to remember about them? Beginning as ciphers they have continued as ciphers; they have never done anything for the world, or for any individual in the world. Where are the parts of character on which we can lay hold and say, By these we shall remember you evermore?

III. But the land of forgetfulness is in fact AN IMPOSSIBLE LAND. Effects follow causes: deeds grow consequences. The Lord forgets nothing: but after a process known to us by the sweet name "forgiveness" there comes the state in the Divine mind which is known by the human word "forgotten." Sometimes we say we can forgive but never forget. Then we cannot forgive; and if we cannot forgive we cannot pray; if we cannot forgive we cannot believe. Forgiveness is the true orthodoxy. Largeness, sensitiveness, responsiveness of heart, slavery to love, that is orthodoxy.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

Things that should be forgotten
J. Parker, D. D.
Let us forget all unkindness, incivility, discourtesy. Let us forget our good deeds. That will be one great step towards the land of heaven. There are some who remember every good deed they ever did, and therefore they never did anything worth doing. No man has ever done anything for God if he has kept account of it. It may be difficult to teach this lesson, and to drive it home; but so long as a man can tell you when he gave pounds and shillings, and when he rendered service, and to what inconvenience he put himself, all that he did is blotted out. The value of our greatest deeds is in their unconsciousness. The rose does not say, I emitted so much fragrance yesterday and so much the day before. The rose knows nothing about it; it lives to make the air around it fragrant. Thus ought souls to live, not knowing how long they have preached, how much they have done, what the extent of their good deeds has boon. They know nothing about it; they are absorbed in love; they are borne away by the Divine inspiration, and whilst anything remains they suppose that nothing has been given.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

People
Abaddon, Ethan, Heman, Korah, Mahalath, Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Dark, Darkness, Dead, Deeds, Forgetfulness, Memory, Oblivion, Righteous, Righteousness, Saving, Wonders
Outline
1. A prayer containing a grievous complaint.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 88:1-18

     5831   depression
     8613   prayer, persistence

Psalm 88:3-18

     5265   complaints

Psalm 88:10-12

     4811   darkness, symbol of sin

Psalm 88:11-12

     9540   Sheol

Library
Out of the Deep of Doubt, Darkness, and Hell.
O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night unto Thee. Oh! let my prayer enter into Thy presence. For my soul is full of trouble and my life draweth nigh unto Hell. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in a place of darkness, and in the deep.--Ps. lxxxviii. 1, 2. If I go down to Hell, Thou art there also. Yea, the darkness is no darkness with Thee; but the night is as clear as the day.--Ps. cxxxix. 7, 11. I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my calling. …
Charles Kingsley—Out of the Deep

How to Make Use of Christ as the Truth, that we May Get Our Case and Condition Cleared up to Us.
The believer is oft complaining of darkness concerning his case and condition, so as he cannot tell what to say of himself, or what judgment to pass on himself, and he knoweth not how to win to a distinct and clear discovery of his state and condition. Now, it is truth alone, and the Truth, that can satisfy them as to this. The question then is, how they shall make use of, and apply themselves to this truth, to the end they may get the truth of their condition discovered to them. But first let us …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

How a Desolate Man Ought to Commit Himself into the Hands of God
O Lord, Holy Father, be Thou blessed now and evermore; because as Thou wilt so it is done, and what Thou doest is good. Let Thy servant rejoice in Thee, not in himself, nor in any other; because Thou alone art the true joy, Thou art my hope and my crown, Thou art my joy and my honour, O Lord. What hath Thy servant, which he received not from Thee, even without merit of his own? Thine are all things which Thou hast given, and which Thou hast made. I am poor and in misery even from my youth up,(1) …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Our Status.
"And he believed in the Lord: and he counted it to him for righteousness." --Gen. xv. 6. The right touches a man's status. So long as the law has not proven him guilty, has not convicted and sentenced him, his legal status is that of a free and law-abiding citizen. But as soon as his guilt is proven in court and the jury has convicted him, he passes from that into the status of the bound and law-breaking citizen. The same applies to our relation to God. Our status before God is that either of the …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

His Past Work.
His past work was accomplished by Him when he became incarnate. It was finished when He died on Calvary's cross. We have therefore to consider first of all these fundamentals of our faith. I. The Work of the Son of God is foreshadowed and predicted in the Old Testament Scriptures. II. The incarnation of the Son of God. III. His Work on the cross and what has been accomplished by it. I. Through the Old Testament Scriptures, God announced beforehand the work of His Son. This is a great theme and one …
A. C. Gaebelein—The Work Of Christ

How is Christ, as the Life, to be Applied by a Soul that Misseth God's Favour and Countenance.
The sixth case, that we shall speak a little to, is a deadness, occasioned by the Lord's hiding of himself, who is their life, and "the fountain of life," Ps. xxxvi. 9, and "whose loving-kindness is better than life," Ps. lxiii. 3, and "in whose favour is their life," Ps. xxx. 5. A case, which the frequent complaints of the saints manifest to be rife enough, concerning which we shall, 1. Shew some of the consequences of the Lord's hiding his face, whereby the soul's case will appear. 2. Shew the …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Letter xvi to Rainald, Abbot of Foigny
To Rainald, Abbot of Foigny Bernard declares to him how little he loves praise; that the yoke of Christ is light; that he declines the name of father, and is content with that of brother. 1. In the first place, do not wonder if titles of honour affright me, when I feel myself so unworthy of the honours themselves; and if it is fitting that you should give them to me, it is not expedient for me to accept them. For if you think that you ought to observe that saying, In honour preferring one another …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Letter xxiv (Circa A. D. 1126) to Oger, Regular Canon
To Oger, Regular Canon [34] Bernard blames him for his resignation of his pastoral charge, although made from the love of a calm and pious life. None the less, he instructs him how, after becoming a private person, he ought to live in community. To Brother Oger, the Canon, Brother Bernard, monk but sinner, wishes that he may walk worthily of God even to the end, and embraces him with the fullest affection. 1. If I seem to have been too slow in replying to your letter, ascribe it to my not having …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

The Wrath of God
What does every sin deserve? God's wrath and curse, both in this life, and in that which is to come. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.' Matt 25: 41. Man having sinned, is like a favourite turned out of the king's favour, and deserves the wrath and curse of God. He deserves God's curse. Gal 3: 10. As when Christ cursed the fig-tree, it withered; so, when God curses any, he withers in his soul. Matt 21: 19. God's curse blasts wherever it comes. He deserves also God's wrath, which is …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Period ii. The Church from the Permanent Division of the Empire Until the Collapse of the Western Empire and the First Schism Between the East and the West, or Until About A. D. 500
In the second period of the history of the Church under the Christian Empire, the Church, although existing in two divisions of the Empire and experiencing very different political fortunes, may still be regarded as forming a whole. The theological controversies distracting the Church, although different in the two halves of the Graeco-Roman world, were felt to some extent in both divisions of the Empire and not merely in the one in which they were principally fought out; and in the condemnation …
Joseph Cullen Ayer Jr., Ph.D.—A Source Book for Ancient Church History

Sense in Which, and End for which all Things were Delivered to the Incarnate Son.
For whereas man sinned, and is fallen, and by his fall all things are in confusion: death prevailed from Adam to Moses (cf. Rom. v. 14), the earth was cursed, Hades was opened, Paradise shut, Heaven offended, man, lastly, corrupted and brutalised (cf. Ps. xlix. 12), while the devil was exulting against us;--then God, in His loving-kindness, not willing man made in His own image to perish, said, Whom shall I send, and who will go?' (Isa. vi. 8). But while all held their peace, the Son [441] said, …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Of Faith. The Definition of It. Its Peculiar Properties.
1. A brief recapitulation of the leading points of the whole discussion. The scope of this chapter. The necessity of the doctrine of faith. This doctrine obscured by the Schoolmen, who make God the object of faith, without referring to Christ. The Schoolmen refuted by various passages. 2. The dogma of implicit faith refuted. It destroys faith, which consists in a knowledge of the divine will. What this will is, and how necessary the knowledge of it. 3. Many things are and will continue to be implicitly …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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