From the Darkness of the Grave

88:1–18 Premature death is the subject of this prayer psalm of the individual. Like other psalms of sickness (Pss. 38; 41), it complains of social alienation (vv. 8, 18). As a psalm of the individual, the primary tradition on which it is based is that Yahweh should answer with deliverance when called upon, as summarized in the opening address, the God who saves me. Though the distress is extreme and prolonged—all day long the terrors of death surround me (vv. 16–17)—it has not muted the speaker’s prayers. In fact, the psalm’s tripartite structure (vv. 1–9a, 9b–12, 13–18) is determined by the three references to persistent prayer: day and night I cry out before you (vv. 1–2), I call to you, O LORD, every day (v. 9b), and in the morning my prayer comes before yo…