John Gill Commentary Psalms 88

O Lord God of my salvation
The author both of temporal and spiritual salvation; see (Psalms 18:46) (24:5) from the experience the psalmist has 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 darkness and dejection he could look upon the Lord as his God, and the God of salvation to him; so our Lord Jesus Christ, when deserted by his Father, still called him his God, and believed that he would help him, (Psalms 22:1) (Isaiah 1:7–9) .

I have cried day and night before you ,
or "in the day I have cried, and in the night before you"; that is, as the Targum paraphrases it, 'in the night my prayer was before you.' The expression 'prayer being expressed by crying' shows the person is in distress, denotes its earnestness, and shows it is vocal; and its being both in the day and in the night means it was without ceasing.

The same is said by Christ, (Psalms 22:2) and is true of him, who in the days of his flesh was frequent in prayer, and especially in the night season, (Luke 6:12) (21:37) and particularly his praying in the garden the night he was betrayed may be here referred to, (Matthew 26:38Matthew 26:39) .

Let my prayer come before you
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 8:3Revelation 8:4) ,

incline your ear unto my cry ;
hearken to it, receive it, and give an answer to it; Christ's prayers were attended with strong crying, and were always received and heard, (Hebrews 5:7) (John 11:41John 11:42) .

For my soul is full of troubles Or "satiated or glutted"

innumerable evils compassed him about , (Psalms 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 draws near 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, (Psalms 88:5Psalms 88:15) , 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 ^F8 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 (Jonah 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.

FOOTNOTES:

• F8: (lwavl) "ad orcum", Cocceius; "inferno", Gejerus; "ad infernum", Michaelis; so Ainsworth.
• F5: (hebv) "saturata", Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius; "satiata", Tigurine version.
• F6: (twerb) "in malis", Pagninus, Montanus; "malis", Junius & Tremellius
• F7: (yyx) "vitae meae", Montanus, Michaelis.

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 out Crucify him; and they did crucify him between two malefactors; and so he was numbered or counted with transgressors, and as one of them, (Isaiah 53:3Isaiah 53:4Isaiah 53:12) .

I am as a man that has no strength ;
for his "strength" was "dried up like a potsherd", (Psalms 22:15) , though he was the mighty God, and, as man, was made strong by the Lord for himself.

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 thought himself quite neglected, of whom there was no more care and notice taken than of a dead man:

like the slain that lie in the grave, whom you remember no more ;
in a providential way, as in life, to clothe them, and feed them, and protect and preserve them; in which sense God is said to be mindful of men, (Psalms 8:4) , who when dead have no need to be minded, and remembered in such a manner; otherwise God does remember the dead, and takes care of their dust, and will raise them again; and especially he remembers his own people, those that sleep in Jesus, who will be thought of in the resurrection morn, and will be raised first, and brought with Christ; see (Job 14:13Job 14:14) ,

and they are cut off from your hand ;
that is, the slain that lie in the grave, the dead that are buried there; these are cut off from the hand of Providence, they needing no supplies from thence as in the time of life. The Targum is,

FOOTNOTES:

• F9: (Kdym) "manu tua", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Amama.