35 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Psalms 88 A Song [or] Psalm for the sons of Korah, to the chief Musician upon Mahalath Leannoth, Maschil of Heman the Ezrahite. Of the word "maalath", [See comments on Psalms 53:1]. "Leannoth" signifies "to answer". Perhaps this song was to be sung alternately, or by responses. Both words are thought by some, as Aben Ezra, to be...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
O Lord God of my salvation,.... The author both of temporal and spiritual salvation; see Psalms 18:46 from the experience the psalmist had had of the Lord's working salvation for him in times past, he is encouraged to hope that he would appear for him, and help him out of his present distress; his faith was not so low, but that amidst all his...
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary - Matthew Henry
This psalm is a lamentation, one of the most melancholy of all the psalms; and it does not conclude, as usually the melancholy psalms do, with the least intimation of comfort or joy, but, from first to last, it is mourning and woe. It is not upon a public account that the psalmist here complains (here is no mention of the afflictions of the...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee: It was only a cry, a cry as of an animal in pain, or at best the cry as of a child that has lost its mother: “I have cried day and night before thee.”
Spurgeon - Treasury of David - Charles H. Spurgeon
Ver. 1. O Lord God of my salvation. This is a hopeful title by which to address the Lord, and it has about it the only ray of comfortable light which shines throughout the Psalm. The writer has salvation, he is sure of that, and God is the sole author of it. While a man can see God as his Saviour, it is not altogether midnight with him. While the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Let my prayer come before thee,.... Not before men, as hypocrites desire, but before the Lord; let it not be shut out, but be admitted; and let it come with acceptance, as it does when it ascends before God, out of the hands of the angel before the throne, perfumed with the much incense of his mediation, Revelation 8:3, incline thine ear unto my...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Let my prayer come before thee: “Give me an audience, O Lord. Do not shut the door in my face. My prayer has been knocking, knocking, knocking, at thy gate; open to it. ‘Let my prayer come before thee.’” Psa_88:2. Incline thine ear unto my cry; “Stoop down to me out of heaven, O Lord. Bow that ear of thine to hear even my feeble and unworthy cry....
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For my soul is full of troubles,.... Or "satiated or glutted" (e) with them, as a stomach full of meat that can receive no more, to which the allusion is; having been fed with the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, so that he had his fill of trouble: every man is full of trouble, of one kind or another, Job 14:1 especially the saint,...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
For my soul is full of troubles: “Full of troubles, brimming over with grief, and every drop of it is as bitter as gall.”
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
And my life draweth nigh unto the grave. I am counted with them that go down into the pit: “They put me down as a dead man. They that see the lines of fierce despair upon my face reckon that I cannot live long: ‘I am counted with them that go down into the pit.’” These were his pleas in crying unto God,-“ Distresses round me thicken, My life draws...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
I am counted with them that go down into the pit,.... With the dead, with them that are worthy of death, with malefactors that are judicially put to death, and are not laid in a common grave, but put into a pit together: thus Christ was reckoned and accounted of by the Jews; the sanhedrim counted him worthy of death; and the common people cried...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
I am as a man that hath no strength: Here is one, in the time of manhood when he should be strongest, who yet says, “I am as a man that hath no strength.” This subject may not interest some of you, just now; but it is here, so we must mention it; and it may be wanted even by you one of these days. Bright eyes are not always bright, and the earthly...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Free among the dead,.... If he was a freeman, it was only among the dead, not among the living; if he was free of any city, it was of the city of the dead; he looked upon himself as a dead man, as one belonging to the state of the dead, who are free from all relations, and from all business and labour, and removed from all company and society; he...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Free among the dead,- A freeman of the sepulcher, at home at death’s dark door: “Free among the dead,” Psa_88:5. Like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. This is perhaps the most awful depth of the whole Psalm. The writer bemoaned that be was not remembered even by God any more, and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit,.... The Targum interprets it of "captivity which was like unto the lowest pit;'' and so Jarchi and Kimchi. Some understand it of a prison or dungeon, into which the psalmist was put; it may be interpreted of the pit of the grave, into which Christ was laid; though he continued in it not so long as to see...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah, Very properly here comes a “Selah.” Such a strain upon the harp-strings had put them all out of tune; so the players had notice to retune their harps, and the singers were bidden to lift up the strain...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
The wrath lieth hard upon me,.... So some good men apprehend, when they are under afflictive dispensations of Providence, and are left of God, and have not his immediate presence, and the discoveries of his love; though fury is not in him, nor does any wrath in reality fall upon them, only it seems so to them; see Psalms 38:1, but the wrath of God...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me,.... His familiar friends, who were well known to him, and he to them: it is a mercy and privilege to have good acquaintance, and hearty faithful friends, to converse and advise with, whether about things civil or religious; and it is an affliction to be deprived of them; and oftentimes in distress...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth. This is the utterance of a soul imprisoned in solitary confinement, nobody able to come to it to breathe out consolation: “Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me. They cannot come to me, and I am shut up,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction,.... Or dropped tears, as the Targum, by which grief was vented; see Psalms 6:7. Lord, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee; in prayer, as the Targum adds, this being a prayer gesture: notwithstanding his troubles continued and increased, he did not leave off praying,...