Psalms 88:3

²May my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry. ³For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. ⁴I am counted among those descending to the Pit. I am like a man without strength.

Summary

In this verse, the psalmist expresses deep distress and despair, feeling overwhelmed by troubles and near death. The psalmist's cry to God reflects a sense of abandonment and hopelessness, as if even God's presence feels distant. This raw and honest expression of pain serves as a reminder that it is acceptable to bring our deepest struggles and emotions before God in prayer, even when we feel forsaken. Despite the darkness of the psalmist's situation, the act of crying out to God demonstrates a glimmer of faith and trust in His ability to hear and respond.

Commentary

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
John Gill

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

grave--literally, "hell" (Psa 16:10), death in wide sense.

John Gill Bible Commentary

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, who besides his outward troubles has inward ones, arising from indwelling sin, the temptations of Satan, and divine desertions, which was now the case of the psalmist: this may be truly applied to Christ, who himself said, when in the garden, "my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death", Mat 26:38, he was a man of sorrows all his days, but especially at that time, and when upon the cross, forsaken by his Father, and sustaining his wrath: "his soul" was then "filled with evil things" (f), as the words may be rendered: innumerable evils compassed him about, Psa 40:12, the sins of his people, those evil things, were imputed to him; the iniquity of them all was laid upon him, as was also the evil of punishment for them; and then he found trouble and sorrow enough: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave: a phrase expressive of a person's being just ready to die, Job 33:22 as the psalmist now thought he was, Psa 88:5, it is in the plural number "my lives" (g); and so may not only denote the danger he was in of his natural life, but of his spiritual and eternal life, which he might fear, being in darkness and desertion, would be lost, though they could not; yea, that he was near to "hell" itself, for so the word (h) may be rendered; for when the presence of God is withdrawn, and wrath let into the conscience, a person in his own apprehension seems to be in hell as it were, or near it; see Jon 2:2. This was true of Christ, when he was sorrowful unto death, and was brought to the dust of it, and under divine dereliction, and a sense of the wrath of God, as the surety of his people. (e) "saturata", Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius; "satiata", Tigurine version. (f) "in malis", Pagninus, Montanus; "malis", Junius & Tremellius, &c. (g) "vitae meae", Montanus, Michaelis. (h) "ad orcum", Cocceius; "inferno", Gejerus; "ad infernum", Michaelis; so Ainsworth.