properly · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person common plural
grave
לִשְׁא֥וֹלlish.'ol
H7585
Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean re… · preposition + noun, common both genders singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 107:18 Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death.
Lamentations 3:15-19 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
Mark 14:33-34 And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;
Job 6:2-4 Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
Job 33:22 Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.
Psalms 69:17-21 And hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.
Psalms 77:2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.
Psalms 88:14-15 LORD, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 88:1-9
It should seem, by the titles of this and the following psalm, that Heman was the penman of the one and Ethan of the other. There were two, of these names, who were sons of Zerah the son of Judah, Ch1 2:4, Ch1 2:6. There were two others famed for wisdom, Kg1 4:31, where, to magnify Solomon's wisdom, he is said to be wiser than Heman and Ethan. Whether the Heman and Ethan who were Levites and precentors in the songs of Zion were the same we are not sure, nor which of these, nor whether any of these, were the penmen of these psalms. There was a Heman that was one of the chief singers, who is called the king's seer, or prophet, in the words of God (Ch1 25:5); it is probable that this also was a…
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", Matthew 26:38, he was a man of sorrows all his days, but…
Psalm 88:1-5
1. O Jehovah! God of my salvation! I cry day and night before thee. 2. Let my prayer come into thy presence: incline thy ear to my cry; 3. For my soul is filled with troubles; and my life is drawing near to the grave. 4. I am numbered with them that go down to the pit: I have been as a man who hath no strength: 5. Free among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more, and who are cut off from thy hand.
1 O Jehovah! God of my salvation! Let me call upon you particularly to notice what I have just now stated, that although the prophet simply, and without hyperbole, recites the agony which he suffered from the greatness of his sorrows, yet his pu…
The Church Fathers
"For my soul is filled with evils." I bear the sins of many, therefore I grieve for all. "My soul is filled with evils." I bear evils, that I may lay them down upon the cross. "And my life hath drawn near to hell." Beautifully he said "hath drawn near": for He was not held fast by hell, but for our sake He drew near into hell. Finally, in another psalm it is said in the person of the Lord, "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption."
"For my soul is filled with evils, and my life draws near unto hell" [Psalm 88:3]. Dare we speak of the Soul of Christ as "filled with evils," when the passion had strength as far as it had any, only over the body?...The soul therefore may feel pain without the body: but without the soul the body cannot. Why therefore should we not say that the Soul of Christ was full of the evils of humanity, though not of human sins? Another Prophet says of Him, that He grieved for us: [Isaiah 53:4] and the Evangelist says, "And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy:" and our Lord Himself says unto them of Himself, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." [Matthew 26:37-38] The Prophet who composed this Psalm, foreseeing that this would happen, introduces Him saying, "My soul is full of evils, and My life draws near unto hell." For the very same sense is here expressed in other words, as when He said, "My soul is sorrowful, even unto death." The words, "My soul is sorrowful," are like these, "My soul is full of evils:" and what follows, "even unto death," like, "my life draws near unto hell." These feelings of human infirmity our Lord took upon Him, as He did the flesh of human infirmity, and the death of human flesh, not by the necessity of His condition, but by the free will of His mercy, that He might transfigure into Himself His own body, which is the Church (the head of which He deigned to be), that is, His members in His holy and faithful disciples: that if amid human temptations any one among them happened to be in sorrow and pain, he might not therefore think that he was separated from His favour: that the body, like the chorus following its leader, might learn from its Head, that these sorrows were not sin, but proofs of human weakness. We read of the Apostle Paul, a chief member in this body, and we hear him confessing that his soul was full of such evils, when he says, that he feels "great heaviness and continual sorrow in heart for his brethren according to the flesh, who are Israelites." And if we say that our Lord was sorrowful for them also at the approach of His Passion, in which they would incur the most atrocious guilt, I think we shall not speak amiss.
Dictionary and topics
Ezrahite — A title given to Ethan (1 Kings 4:31; Ps. 89, title) and Heman (Ps. 88, title). They were both sons of Zerah (1 Chr. 2:6).
Job, Book of — A great diversity of opinion exists as to the authorship of this book. From internal evidence, such as the similarity of sentiment and language to those in the Psalms and Proverbs (see Ps. 88 and…
Leannoth — For answering; i.e., in singing, occurs in the title to Ps. 88. The title “Mahalath (q.v.) Leannoth” may be rendered “concerning sickness, to be sung” i.e., perhaps, to be sung in sickness.
Mahalath — A lute; lyre. (1.) The daughter of Ishmael, and third wife of Esau (Gen. 28:9); called also Bashemath (Gen. 36:3). (2.) The daughter of Jerimoth, who was one of David’s sons. She was one of…
Mahalath Leannoth Maschil — This word leannoth seems to point to some kind of instrument unknown (Ps. 88, title). The whole phrase has by others been rendered, “On the sickness of affliction: a lesson;” or, “Concerning…
Hell · “Sheol” is translated “grave” in A. V. in — “Sheol” is translated “grave” in A. V. in
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The poet finds himself in the midst of circumstances gloomy in the extreme, but he does not despair; he still turns towards Jahve with his complaints, and calls Him the God of his salvation. This actus directus of fleeing in prayer to the God of salvation, which urges its way through all that is dark and gloomy, is the fundamental characteristic of all true faith. Psa 88:2 is not to be rendered, as a clause of itself: "by day I cry unto Thee, in the night before Thee" (lxx and Targum), which ought to have been יומם, but (as it is also pointed, especially in Baer's text): by day, i.e., in the time (Psa 56:4; Psa 78:42, cf. Psa 18:1), when I cry before Thee in the night, let my prayer come...…
Ps 88 In this lament, the psalmist sees himself as cast out from God’s presence. At first, he calls on the Lord. When he finds no relief from his suffering, he presents three charges against God (88:6-7, 8-12, 13-17).
88:title Heman the Ezrahite might be a sage from Solomon’s time (1 Kgs 4:31), a descendant of Judah (1 Chr 2:6), or a member of the Levitical family charged with singing at the Temple (1 Chr 15:17; 2 Chr 5:12).
88:1-5 The psalmist calls on the Lord for salvation.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 88:3
For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.
For my soul is full of troubles. I am satiated and nauseated with them. Like a vessel full to the brim with vinegar, my heart is filled up with adversity till it can hold no more. He had his house full and his hands full of sorrow; but, worse than that, he had his heart full of it. Trouble in the soul is the soul of trouble. A little soul trouble is pitiful; what must it be to be sated with it? And how much worse still to have your prayers return empty when your soul remains full of grief. And my life draweth nigh unto the grave. He felt as if he must die, indeed he thought himself half dead already. All his life was…
