The Dark Night Rises - Psalm 88

Source: (scripture-images.com)

 By Pastor Andrew Kerr - Posted at Gentle Reformation:

Introduction

If puritan writers were often tortured with physical persecution, these faithful, godly, preachers were no strangers to spiritual affliction either. Though they were reckoned to be the most-skilled pastors at dealing with melancholy, or what we would term depression, they were also spiritual physicians, trained by experience, to treat the "dark night of the soul."

Context

This Psalm of the Korahite choir, was designed to be used in Temple worship in the cases of a humbling sickness, or even spiritual seeming-hopelessness - hence the superscription term Mahalath Leannoth. It was also aimed to teach us wisdom, and coach believers through harrowing affliction: Heman the Ezrahite, a priestly associate of King David (who, himself, had left instructions for sanctuary worship), uttered this Psalm in an agonized, tormented, "total eclipse of the heart."

The Shape of His Darkness v3

From what ensues in the Psalm, it looks like this ailment, unlike the illness of Hezekiah, was some kind of "sickness unto death." Of all of the prayers in Psalter, this last-but-one entry in Book Three, is the only composition with hardly any ray of hope - it is shrouded and entombed in thick, palpable, inky, darkness. His adversity, misery, and injury is so complete and deep that his soul has had enough – he has come very close to throwing in the towel, but not with the LORD, of course, as his draws near to Sheol.

The Shock of His Darkness v4

As far as family, friends and foes are all concerned, Heman is a hopeless case, beyond any medical help, and a total write-off: he has, it appears, no hope of recovery to full health. As he prays to God, he hears the scratch of the stonemason's stylus as his epitaph is being etched on his tombstone: with the cemetery plot already reserved, and his funeral arrangements made for a final lowering into the pit, the only outstanding details are his day of death and his burial date.

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