Tap any verse number for what that verse means.
1O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee:
2Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry;
3For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.
4I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:
5Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.
6Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.
7Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.
8Thou 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.
9Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: LORD, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.
10Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.
11Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?
12Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
13But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.
14LORD, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?
15I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.
16Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.
17They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together.
18Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.
Understand This
Psalm 88, explained
What Psalm 88 is saying
The darkest psalm in the Psalter, Psalm 88 is unique in that it contains no resolution, no turn toward praise, no expression of hope. The psalmist has suffered from youth, is on the brink of death, and feels utterly abandoned by God—cast among the dead, in the lowest pit, overwhelmed by God's wrath. The final word is 'darkness' (machshak). It is the only psalm that ends without a single ray of light.
The background behind it
Attributed to Heman the Ezrahite, a figure associated with temple worship and wisdom (1 Kings 4:31; 1 Chronicles 6:33). The psalm's inclusion in the canon despite its unrelieved darkness testifies to Israel's radical honesty about the experience of suffering and the legitimacy of expressing it in worship.
Themes running underneath
The psalm pushes the theology of lament to its absolute limit. God is addressed as both savior and cause of suffering—His wrath overwhelms, His terrors destroy, He has removed the psalmist from all human relationship. The questions to God about Sheol—'Do the dead praise you?'—challenge divine purposes in death. The psalm's canonical inclusion validates unresolving grief as authentic faith expression.
Why it still matters
Psalm 88 is Scripture's permission slip for those in unrelieved darkness. Its presence in the Bible says that faith is not invalidated by suffering that finds no resolution, and that addressing God from the pit—even without receiving an answer—is itself an act of faith.
Scripture text: King James Version — public domain.