Psalms 88

How this passage is read within its own context.

The critical reading identifies Psalm 88 as an individual lament over chronic illness and social isolation, distinctive as the one lament in the Psalter that never turns to hope or thanksgiving and closes in darkness. It observes that no verse corresponds to a specific detail of the crucifixion, so mapping the whole psalm onto the whole Passion narrative rests on a shared mood of suffering and abandonment rather than on textual particulars. Since suffering and divine abandonment are the defining subject matter of the lament genre, critics see the correspondence as impressionistic. They add that the psalm's lack of resolution makes it an unlikely predictive template for a narrative that culminates in resurrection.

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

The fulfillment reading takes Psalm 88 as a whole to foreshadow the suffering and reproach of the crucifixion, reading its unrelieved darkness as the depth of Christ's identification with human anguish and God-forsakenness. Proponents associate the psalm's imagery with the darkness reported at the crucifixion and the moment of abandonment on the cross. They regard the psalm's refusal to resolve in hope as theologically fitting, representing the reality of death before resurrection. On this view the psalm captures the nadir of messianic suffering that the resurrection later reverses.