Episode Details

Psalm 88: The Psalm That Does Not Look Up

Every other psalm of lament, however dark it becomes, eventually turns a corner. A shaft of light breaks through, a memory of deliverance surfaces, a stubborn "yet" appears. Not this one. Psalm 88 is the one psalm that ends exactly where it begins — in the dark. Heman the Ezrahite cries out from a place so deep that even his friends have been taken from him, and the final word of the psalm is, simply, "darkness." It is tempting to rush past this, to supply the hope the psalmist does not. But the Bible will not let us. It places this psalm here, unsoftened, unresolved, as if to say: this too is prayer. To cry out to the God of your salvation even when salvation seems to have forgotten your address — this is not the failure of faith. It is faith at its most stripped and stubborn. The psalm asks God a series of questions He does not answer. And yet the asking itself is addressed to "O Lord God of my salvation." Even in the pit, Heman knows Whose name to call.

00:00 A Cry from the Depths
01:00 Wrath and Waves
02:00 Darkness as a Companion