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Psalm 88 is the 88th psalm from the Book of Psalms. According to the title, it is a "psalm of the sons of Korah" as well as being a "maskil of Heman the Ezrahite".
Contents
It is described Psalm for the sons of Korah, a prayer for mercy and deliverance and a Maschil.
According to Martin Marty, a professor of church history at the University of Chicago, Psalm 88 is “a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness.” Psalm 88 ends by saying:
You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend. (Psalm 88:18, NIV). Indeed, in Hebrew, the last word of the Psalm 88 is "darkness".
Judaism
Psalm 89 s
Byzantine rite
This Psalm is part of the Six Psalms (Psalms 3, 38, 63, 88, 103 and 143) that constitute the heart of the "orthros", that is to say Matins Orthodox and Catholic Churches of the Byzantine rite.
Commentary
It is often assumed that it is the Psalm is a sick Psalm. The disease, which laid low the psalmist, could have been leprosy or some other unclean illness. Others see rather than a specific disease, a more general calmity.
By contrast Hermann Gunkel contends that this Psalm involves accusations against the Psalmist, regarding their sins mentioned.
Neale and Littledale find it "stands alone in all the Psalter for the unrelieved gloom, the hopeless sorrow of its tone. Even the very saddest of the others, and the Lamentations themselves, admit some variations of key, some strains of hopefulness; here only all is darkness to the close.—Neale and Littledale.