Psalms 88 Footnotes

88:15-18 The suffering psalmist attributed his life-long affliction to God (“your wrath,” “your terrors”). This is the realism of the faith—God is sovereign, even over difficult circumstances his people must endure. Everything has a purpose in the outworking of God’s plan, even though in the time of pain it is hard to appreciate this. If the psalm seems to end on a negative note, two considerations apply. First, however much the speaker felt God had deserted him, he was still talking to him. Second, the psalm, as it is given, may not reproduce the entire scene; when it was used in worship, another speaker not quoted here (e.g., a priest or a prophet) may have responded with an answer affirming the Lord’s help. There are many places in Psalms that suggest there was an unrecorded response from another speaker, in the Lord’s name.