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Psalm 88, the darkest psalm in the Psalter, has one of the most extensive and detailed superscriptions, and appears to have gone through many stages before it was placed at this point in Book Three. The final part of the title (‘A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite’) suggests, as with Ethan the Ezrahite in Psalm 89, some *Korahite associations (see for example 1 Chron. 6:18, 15:17, 19) and this is perhaps why it was included in this collection.²⁴⁷ Another heading, ‘al maḥalat le‘annot, may suggest some accompaniment to the flutes (Psalm 53 has a similar heading), which were used for lamentation (Jer. 48:36), and certainly ‘lament’ is a feature of this bleak psalm. The editors possibly placed it here to highlight its differences, rather than similarities, with Psalm 87: God who loves Zion (87:2) and is known by his people (87:4) is neither loved nor known by this suppliant (88:11–12); and the waters which represented life in 87:7 signify drowning and death in 88:5. If Psalm 87 was about faith in God’s promises, Psalm 88 expresses outrage at broken trust. It has some correspondences with Psalm 49, the final lament in the first Korahite collection, although it is much bleaker than that psalm. It can be divided into three strophes (verses 1–7, 8–12 and 13–18); the first is discernible by *selah (although the second occurrence of this term is in verse 10, in the heart of the middle strophe and the second diapsalma is absent from the LXX recension). Rhetorical questions dominate, bringing this depressing lament close to the complaints of Jeremiah and Job.

There are several difficulties of translation here, with alternative readings supplied both in the Hebrew and in the Greek and Latin translations, for example in verses 2, 4, 5, 8, 15 and 16.²⁴⁸ None of the emendations vastly change the thrust of the psalm. The *Septuagint perhaps uses more metaphors of shades and darkness (for example in verse 6–7), and in verse 10 where the reference to dead spirits or ‘shades’ (rofe’im) is changed to ‘physicians’ (iatroi), taking away the more polytheistic element, now indicating it is the doctors who might restore the dead. *Targum also takes out the mythical implications of this verse: ‘Is it possible that you will work wonders for the dead, or that the bodies that have dissolved in dust shall rise to give praise before you?’. But in terms of translation there is little else which has affected the reception of this psalm.

Later commentaries reveal the differences between Jewish and Christian approaches to Psalm 88. In Jewish tradition the psalmist is personified as a ‘lonely Jew’ who represents Israel in exile, whose complaint is based on a false accusation that the Jews do not believe their ‘home’ is the Torah which is still with them.²⁴⁹ *Rashi reads verses 5, 9 and 10 (Eng. 4, 8 and 9) as ‘concerning the congregation of Israel’ and sees the psalm as a lament of the Jewish community overcome by Gentile oppression.²⁵⁰

In Christian tradition, by contrast, the psalm was read as a prediction of the passion and resurrection of Christ, or, more precisely, as a psalm spoken by Christ to the Father when on the cross (in which reading, the abandonment by friends in verse 18 corresponds with Jesus’ betrayal by his disciples). *Cyril of Jerusalem speaks of Christ as the one who was in the pit (verse 4), without friends (verse 8) and the one who can indeed work wonders amongst the dead (verse 10).²⁵¹ *Ambrose’s observation that verse 4 (‘I am like those who have no help’) is a prediction of the prayer of Mary at the foot of the cross is also typical of this type of interpretation.²⁵² *Augustine reads the psalm as a prayer by Christ in his humanity, taking upon himself the burden of our frailty, and so praying on our behalf to the Father.²⁵³ *Chrysostom also reads the psalm as a prediction of the passion of Christ, who was put in the lowest of places, death itself (verse 6).²⁵⁴ *Cassiodorus, following Augustine, writes of how the psalm shows us how Christ was filled with evils (not his own) which burdened his soul in his prayer for us.²⁵⁵

Such Christian reception resulted in the psalm having a central place in funeral services; the origins go back at least to Chrysostom. It was also used in the offices of *Lauds and *Prime, with their focus on our temporal nature as darkness turns to dawn. This is also an Easter psalm: the *BCP prescribes its use for Good Friday (along with Psalms 22, 40, 54 and 69), and it is frequently used on Easter Saturday, where verses such as 88:14 (‘Why do you cast me off?’) have echoes of Psalm 22:1, a key psalm in the Gospels which is seen to predict the suffering and death of Christ. The use of this psalm at Eastertide goes back to the ancient Roman Rite.²⁵⁶

The association of this psalm with death in general as well as with the death of Christ has resulted in a number of choral arrangements and hymns. Philippe de *Monte’s arrangement of verses 15–19 is a late Renaissance example; another is by the nineteenth-century composer John *Whittier: ‘Immortal Love, for ever full’ is a more positive reading of Ps. 88:11 (presuming an answer ‘yes’ to the question about God’s love extending beyond the grave). We have already noted its appearance in *Mendelssohn’s Elijah, at the point when the widow’s son is raised from the dead.²⁵⁷ A more recent example is its use in the night vigil in *Tavener’s ‘Veil of the Temple’, which plays on the shades of light and darkness in the psalm through the medium of Orthodox Liturgy, using an intricate formation of ascending pitches.²⁵⁸

The sheer bleakness of this psalm intrigued sixteenth and seventeenth-century poets who frequently created their own imitations of it. These are profoundly personal appropriations; they could not be more different from the more communal Jewish readings. The Earl of Surrey, imprisoned in the Tower in 1546, before his execution in 1547, composed his own version of Psalm 88, and his letter to Sir Anthony Denny reveals how this brings out the ‘particular grief of a particular person’.²⁵⁹ Mary *Sidney’s dramatised version of this psalm, punctuated with questions, hesitations and anxieties, gives the psalm a conversational feel and a sense of urgency. This is seen, for example, in this extract from verses 10–12:²⁶⁰

Alas, my Lord, will then be tyme,

When men are dead,

Thy truth to spread?

Shall they, whome death hath slaine,

To praise thee live againe,

And from their lowly lodgings clime?

Shall buried mouthes thy mercies tell?

Dust and decay

Thy truth display?

And shall thy workes of mark

Shine in the dreadfull dark?

Thy Justice where oblivions dwell? (Lines 43–54.)

One of the earliest identifications of Psalm 88 with Christ’s passion in art is a Gospel Book Miniature, Codex Purpureus Rossanensis, held in the Biblioteca Arcivescovado, Rossano, dating around 500 CE. The full page prefatory is of Christ, bearded and cross-*nimbed, in Gethsemane, addressing three sleeping apostles. Below are two images of David, crowned, with two prophets associated with the Assyrian crisis, Jonah and Nahum; one figure of David holds an inscribed roll with the words of Ps. 109:4 and the other, Ps. 88:2 (‘let my prayer come before you …’).²⁶¹

The *Theodore Psalter (fol. 116r) illustrates verse 4 (‘I am counted as those who go down to the Pit’) with an image of Christ being placed in the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus (John 19:38–42). An angel reaches down; Mary and two women close by are grieving.²⁶² *Khludov (fol. 87r), *Pantokrator (fol. 122r), *Bristol (fol. 415r) and *Barberini (fol. 149v) have similar images. The illustration to verse 7 (‘…You overwhelm me with all your waves’) in the Theodore Psalter (fol. 117v) is of Christ in a sailing boat, in a storm, with two figures in red personifying the wind and sea. ‘Wind’ has a hand to her mouth, indicating she has been silenced.²⁶³ The text is Mark 4:36–41 and the illustrations are also found in Khludov (fol. 151v), Bristol (fol. 147r) and Barberini Psalters (fol. 151v). Here the psalm has been turned into an expression of hope.

The *Stuttgart Psalter (fol. 102v), by contrast, reads this in the light of western commentators: Christ is the actual speaker of the psalm. The title given is ‘vox Christi ad patrem’. Christ is alone on the cross except for the presence of a demon, yet he still stretches out his hands in this prayer.²⁶⁴

By contrast, the *St Albans Psalter encloses the illuminated letter ‘D’ (‘Domine Deus salutis meae die’) with an image of the psalmist drowning beneath the waves, surrounded by four fish. This is a very different illustration of verses 4–7, and it is of the psalmist praying to Christ: ‘I spread out my hands to you’ (verse 9). Christ, flanked by two other figures, leans over to listen. Though a different reading, this psalm somehow still evokes hope.

There are many contemporary interpretations of this psalm, not least in the light of the atrocities of World War II. One example is of the appropriation of verses 6–9, with its metaphorical description of being cast ‘in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep.’ During the Holocaust years those who hid in makeshift bunkers and cellars called them ‘bor taḥtiyyot’ (‘the pit of the depths’) making literal what was once figurative in this psalm.²⁶⁵

This is one of the few psalms whose reception really wrestles with unanswered personal questions about the character of God: in Christian tradition, the questions are about the extent to which God in Christ suffers with and for his people, and in Jewish tradition, the questions are about his justice and power to ‘restore’ his people.