John Calvin Commentary Psalms 88:5

"Cast off among the dead, Like the slain that lie in the grave, Whom thou rememberest no more, And they are cut off from thy hand." — Psalms 88:5 (ASV)

Free among the dead, lie the slain who lie in the grave. The prophet intended to express something more distressing and grievous than common death. First, he says that he was free among the dead because he was rendered unfit for all the affairs that engage human life and, as it were, cut off from the world.

The refined interpretation of Augustine—that Christ is described here and is said to be free among the dead because he obtained victory over death by a special privilege, so that it might not have dominion over him—has no connection with the meaning of the passage. The prophet should rather be understood as affirming that, having finished the course of this present life, his mind had become disengaged from all worldly anxieties, his afflictions having deprived him of all feeling. Next, comparing himself with those who have been wounded, he laments his condition as worse than if, weakened by calamities, he were going down to death little by little, for we are naturally filled with horror at the prospect of a violent death.

What he adds—that he is forgotten by God and cut off from his hand or guardianship—is apparently harsh and improper, since it is certain that the dead are no less under Divine protection than the living. Even the wicked Balaam, whose purpose was to turn light into darkness, was nevertheless constrained to cry out:

Let me die the death of the righteous,
and let my last end be like his (Numbers 23:10).

To say, then, that God is no longer mindful of a person after death might seem to be the language of a pagan. To this it may be answered that the prophet speaks according to the common opinion of people, just as the Scriptures, similarly, when discussing God’s providence, adapt their style to the state of the world as it appears to the eye, because our thoughts ascend only slowly to the future and invisible world.

I, however, think that he was instead giving voice to those confused thoughts that arise in the mind of a person under affliction, rather than considering the opinion of the ignorant and uninstructed among humankind. Nor is it surprising that a man endowed with the Spirit of God was, as it were, so stunned and stupefied when sorrow overcame him that he allowed unadvised words to escape his lips.

Although faith in the truth that God extends his care to both the living and the dead is deeply rooted in the hearts of all his genuine servants, sorrow often so overclouds their minds as to temporarily exclude from them all remembrance of his providence. From studying the complaints of Job, we can perceive that when the minds of the godly are preoccupied with sorrow, they do not immediately penetrate to consider the secret providence of God, which has previously been the subject of their careful meditation and the truth of which they bear engraved on their hearts.

Although the prophet, then, was convinced that the dead also are under Divine protection, yet in the first outburst of his grief, he spoke less carefully than he should have. For the light of faith was, as it were, extinguished in him, although, as we shall see, it soon after shone forth. It will be particularly useful to observe this, so that if we are ever weakened by temptation, we may still be kept from falling into despondency or despair.