You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness.
Parallel Translations
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You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness.
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Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.
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(88-19) Friend and companion hast Thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.
Cross-references (4)
Passages linked to Psalms 88:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 88:8 You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape.
- Psalms 38:11 My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my plague. My kinsmen stand far away.
- Job 19:12-15 His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent. “He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me. Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.
- Psalms 31:11 Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (13 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Hebrew, were in darkness.
Hebrew, were in darkness.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 88:18 Lover and friend hast thou put far…
Psa 88:18 Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, [and] mine acquaintance into darkness.
Ver. 18. Lover and friend, &c.] See Psa 88:8, and mark how mournfully he concludeth; as doth also the Church, Lam 5:22.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain See Poole "Psa 88:8".
See Poole "Psa 88:8".
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Lover and friend hast thou put far from me,....…
Lover and friend hast thou put far from me,.... This is mentioned in Psa 88:8, and is here repeated; and the account is closed with it, to show that this was a most aggravating circumstance of his affliction, and which bore exceeding hard upon him; and this must be a very uncomfortable case, to be in distress, whether of body or mind, and to have no kind friend near to yield the least help, relief, and comfort; so Christ's lovers and friends, his disciples, who loved him and he loved them, and reckoned them as his friends, and was a friend to them, when he was taken by his enemies, they all forsook him, and fled, Mat 26:56,
and mine acquaintance into darkness; either by death into the dark grave, which Job calls the land of darkness and shadow of death, Job 10:21, or being removed from him, so that he could not see them, it was all one to him as if they had been put into darkness, into some dark dungeon, or into the grave itself: or the words may be rendered, mine acquaintance are darkness (i): this was the case of Christ, when on the cross; he had none near him, no acquaintance about him, but darkness; and darkness was over all the land for the space of three hours; and a darkness was on his soul, being forsaken by his Father; and the prince of darkness, with all the fiends of hell, were throwing their fiery darts at him, Mat 27:45. Thus ends this sorrowful and mournful song; a joyful one follows.
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(i) "noti mei sunt tenebrae", Cocceius, Schmidt, Michaelis; "amici mei sunt caligo", Gejerus.
Next: Psalms Chapter 89
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 18. Lover and friend] I have no comfort,…
Verse 18. Lover and friend] I have no comfort, and neither friend nor neighbour to sympathize with me.
Mine acquaintance into darkness.] All have forsaken me; or מידעי מחשך meyuddai machsach, "Darkness is my companion." Perhaps he may refer to the death of his acquaintances; all were gone; there was none left to console him! That man has a dismal lot who has outlived all his old friends and acquaintances; well may such complain. In the removal of their friends they see little else than the triumphs of death. Khosroo, an eminent Persian poet, handles this painful subject with great delicacy and beauty in the following lines: -
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[---Persic---]
[---Persic---]
[---Persic---]
[---Persic---]
Ruftem sauee khuteereh bekerestem bezar
Az Hijereh Doostan ke aseer fana shudend:
Guftem Eeshah Kuja shudend? ve Khatyr
Dad az sada jouab Eeshan Kuja!
"Weeping, I passed the place where lay my friends
Captured by death; in accents wild I cried,
Where are they? And stern Fate, by Echoes voice,
Returned in solemn sound the sad Where are they?"
J. B. C.
ANALYSIS OF THE EIGHTY-EIGHTH PSALM
There are four parts in this Psalm: -
I. A petition, Ps 88:1-2.
II. The cause of this petition, his misery, which he describes, Ps 88:3-9.
III. The effects produced by this miserable condition: 1. A special prayer, Ps 88:10-12; 2. An expostulation with God for deliverance, Ps 88:10-12.
IV. A grievous complaint, Ps 88:14-18.
The psalmist offers his petition; but before he begins, he lays down four arguments why it should be admitted, -
1. His confidence and reliance on God: "O Lord God of my salvation."
2. His earnestness to prevail: "I have cried."
3. His assiduity: "Day and night."
4. His sincerity: "I have cried before thee."
And then he tenders his request for audience: "Let my prayer come before thee, incline thine ear unto my cry."
II. And then next he sets forth the pitiful condition he was in, that hereby he might move God to take compassion, which he amplifies several ways: -
1. From the weight and variety of his troubles; many they were, and pressed him to death. "For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh to the grave."
2. From the danger of death in which he was.
Which is illustrated by three degrees: -
1. That he was moribundus, dying, no hope of life in him even by the estimate of all men: "I am counted with them that go down to the pit; I am as a man that hath no strength."
2. That he was plane mortuus, nearly dead; but as a dead man, "free among the dead;" freed from all the business of this life; as far separate from them as a dead man.
3. Yea, dead and buried: "Like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberedst no more;" i.e., to care for in this life; and "they are cut off from thy hand," i.e., thy providence, thy custody, as touching matter of this life.
And yet he farther amplifies his sad condition by two similitudes: -
1. Of a man in some deep dark dungeon: "Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps;" as was Jeremiah, Jer 37:15-16; Jer 38:6.
2. Of a man in a wreck at sea, that is compassed with the waves, to which he compares God's anger: "Thy wrath lieth hard upon me. and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves." One wave impels another. The recurrence of his troubles was perpetual; one no sooner gone but another succeeded.
And, to add to this his sorrow, his friends, whose visits in extremity used to alleviate the grief of a troubled soul, even these proved perfidious, and came not to him; he had no comfort with them; which was also God's doing, and thus augmented his grief.
The auxesis or augmentation is here very elegant:
1. "Thou hast put away mine acquaintance from me." THOU.
2. "Thou hast made me an abomination to them." No less; an abomination.
3. "I am shut up, I cannot come forth." As a man in prison, I cannot come at them, and they will not come to me.
III. The effect of which grievous affliction was threefold: 1. An internal grief and wasting of the body; 2. An ardent affection in God; and 3. An expostulation with God.
1. "My eye mourns by reason of affliction." An evidence that I am troubled and grieved to the heart, that my eye droops and fails; for when the animal and vital spirits suffer a decay, the eye will quickly, by her dimness, deadness, and dulness, discover it.
2. It produced an ardent affection, a continuance and assiduity in prayer, which is here made evident by the adjuncts.
1. His voice: "I have called daily upon thee." It was, 1. A cry; 2. It was continual.
2. By the extension of his hands: "I have stretched out my hands to thee." Men used to do so when they expected help; when they looked to receive; whence we sometimes say Lend me thy hand.
3. The third effect was, an expostulation with God, in which he presseth to spare his life from the inconvenience that might thereby happen, viz., that he should be disabled to praise God and celebrate his name, as he was bound and desired to do, among the living: an argument used before, Ps 6:3. This argument, though it savours too much of human frailty, yet he thought by it to move God, who above all things is jealous of his own glory, which by his death he imagines will suffer loss; and therefore he asks, -
1. "Wilt thou show wonders among the dead?" That is, thy desire is to set forth thy honour, which cannot be done if I go to the grave, except by some miracle I should be raised from thence.
2. "Shall the dead arise again and praise thee?" It is the living that shall show forth thy praise, thy power, and goodness; thy fidelity in keeping thy promises to the sons of men. The dead, as dead, cannot do this; and they return not from the grave, except by miracle.
3. "Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction? shall thy wonders be known in the dark, or thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?' Such is the grave, a place of oblivion; for Abraham is ignorant of us. The goodness and faithfulness of God, which he makes known to us in this life, are not known nor can be declared by the dead: the living see them; they have experience of them; and therefore he desires that his life may be spared to that end, lest if he die now that faculty should be taken from him; he should no longer be able to resound the praise of God, which is the end for which men ought to desire life.
IV. He returns to his complaint; and again repeats what he had said before, and almost in the same words, and gives three instances: -
1. In his prayer: "But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee." He prayed earnestly, early, not drowsily; for he did prevent God: he prayed, and would continue in prayer; and yet all in vain.
2. For God seems to be inexorable, of which he complains: "Lord, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?" Even the best of God's servants have sometimes been brought to that strait, that they have not had a clear sense of God's favour, but conceived themselves neglected and deserted by him, and discountenanced.
His second instance is, his present affliction, mentioned before, Ps 88:4-7: "I am afflicted and ready to die," which he here exaggerates: -
1. From the time and continuance of it; for he had borne it "even from his youth up."
2. From the cause. It did not proceed from any outward or human cause; that might have been borne and helped: but it was an affliction sent from God: "Thy terrors have I suffered;" it came from a sense of God's wrath.
3. From an uncomfortable effect. It wrought in this soul amazement, unrest, a perpetual trouble and astonishment: "Thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind: "I am distracted with them."
He amplifies this wrath by the former similes, Ps 88:7; waves and water.
1. "Thy fierce wrath goes over me;" as waves over a man's head at sea. "Thy terrors have cut me off," as a weaver's thrum.
2. "They came round about me like water; daily like water."
3. "They compassed me about together," as if they conspired my ruin: "all thy waves," Ps 88:7.
His third instance, which is the same, Ps 88:8. The perfidiousness and desertion of friends: a loving friend is some comfort in distress; but this he found not: "Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness." They appear no more to me to give me any counsel, help, or comfort, than if they were hidden in perpetual darkness. His case, therefore, was most deplorable.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Lover and friend hast thou put far from me…
Lover and friend hast thou put far from me - That is, Thou hast so afflicted me that they have forsaken me. Those who professed to love me, and whom I loved - those whom I regarded as my friends, and who seemed to be my friends - are now wholly turned away from me, and I am left to suffer alone. See the notes at Psa 88:8.
And mine acquaintance into darkness - The Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate render this, “my acquaintance from my misery.” Luther, “Thou hast caused my friends and neighbors, and my kindred, to separate themselves far from me, on account of such misery.” The literal rendering would be, my acquaintances are darkness. This may mean either that they had so turned away that he could not see them, as if they were in the dark; or, that his familiars now - his companions - were dark and dismal objects - gloomy thoughts - sad forebodings. Perhaps the whole might be translated, “Far away from me hast thou put lover and friend - my acquaintances! All is darkness!” That is, When I think of any of them, all is darkness, sadness. My friends are not to be seen. They have vanished. I see no friends; I see only darkness and gloom. All have gone, leaving me alone in this condition of unpitied sorrow! This completes the picture of the suffering man; a man to whom all was dark, and who could find no consolation anywhere - in God; in his friends; in the grave; in the prospect of the future. There are such cases; and it was well that there was one such description in the sacred Scriptures of a good man thus suffering - to show us that when we thus feel, it should not be regarded as proof that we have no piety. Beneath all this, there may be true love to God; beyond all this, there may be a bright world to which the sufferer will come, and where he will forever dwell.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 18. Lover and friend—The removal of these may well…
18. Lover and friend—The removal of these may well form the climax of his misery. All lost; not even the sympathy of friendship left to alleviate the horror of his despair.
Mine acquaintance into darkness—Hebrew, My acquaintances… darkness. “Into,” is not in the text. The idea is, not that God had put his acquaintances (plural) “into” darkness, but that with darkness, henceforth, should be his intimate and only companionship. The complaint has now reached its climax, as in Job_17:14 : “I called to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister.” Such complaints, like Ecclesiastes, seem designed to suggest what human sorrow is, and must be, apart from the hope of divine favour and eternal life. See Psa_143:3; Lam_3:6.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 18. Cp. Psa_88:8; Psa_38:11; Job_19:13.
18. Cp. Psa_88:8; Psa_38:11; Job_19:13.
and mine acquaintance into darkness] A difficult phrase. Another possible rendering is, my familiar friends are darkness: darkness takes the place of friends: cp. Job_17:14.
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We take leave of this sad singer with his riddle unsolved, with no ray of light piercing the gloom; yet believing in the fact of God’s love though he can only see the signs of His wrath, appealing, like Job, to God, though God seems utterly hostile to him; assured that if he has any hope at all, it is in God alone. His faith has met its reward.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (18) And mine acquaintance into darkness.—This is an erroneous…
(18) And mine acquaintance into darkness.—This is an erroneous rendering. Rather, My acquaintance is darkness, or, darkness is my friend, having taken the place of those removed. The feeling resembles Job_17:14; or we may illustrate by Tennyson’s lines:—
“O sorrow, wilt thou live with me,
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No casual mistress, but a wife,
My bosom friend, and half my life?
As I confess it needs must be.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Lover and friend hast thou put far from me.…
Lover and friend hast thou put far from me. (comp. ver. 8 and Job_19:13) And mine acquaintance into darkness; literally, and my intimates are darkness; i.e. "when I look for a friend or an acquaintance, my eye meets nothing but darkness," or "dark space."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 18. Lover and friend: hast thou put far…
Ver. 18. Lover and friend: hast thou put far from me. Even when they are near me bodily, they are so unable to swim with me in such deep waters, that they stand like men far away on the shore while I am buffeted with the billows; but, alas, they shun me, the dearest lover of all is afraid of such a distracted one, and those who took counsel with me avoid me now! The Lord Jesus knew the meaning of this in all its wormwood and gall when in his passion. In dreadful loneliness he trod the wine press, and all his garments were distained with the red blood of those sour grapes. Lonely sorrow falls to the lot of not a few; let them not repine, but enter herein into close communion with that dearest lover and friend who is never far from his tried ones.
And mine acquaintance into darkness, or better still, my acquaintance is darkness. I am familiar only with sadness, all else has vanished. I am a child crying alone in the dark. Will the heavenly Father leave his child there? Here he breaks off, and anything more from us would only spoil the abruptness of the unexpected FINIS.
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(We have not attempted to interpret this Psalm concerning our Lord, but we fully believe that where the members are, the Head is to be seen preeminently. To have given a double exposition under each verse would have been difficult and confusing; we have therefore left the Messianic references to be pointed out in the Notes, where, if God the Holy Ghost be pleased to illustrate the page, we have gathered up more than enough to lead each devout reader to behold Jesus, the man of sorrows and the acquaintance of grief.)
Ver. 18. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, etc. Next to the joys of religion, those of friendship are most rational, sublime, and satisfactory. But they, like all other earthly joys, have their mixtures and alloys, and are very precarious. We are often called to weep with our friends, and sometimes to weep over them. Grief and tears for their death are the sad tribute we pay for loving and being beloved, and living long in this world. This seems to have been the case with the author of this melancholy Psalm, where our text is. He was exercised with great afflictions of body, and deep distress of mind. "His soul was full of troubles, and his life drew nigh to the grave. He was shut up and confined by weakness and pain, and could not go forth", to his business or pleasure, to the social or solemn assembly, Ps 88:3-8. He adds, that "he had been afflicted and read to die from his youth" in Ps 88:15; which seems to intimate that he was now an old man. Some of his acquaintance and friends had deserted him, and he was "become an abomination to them", Ps 88:8. They would not assist him, nor afford him the comfort of a friendly visit, and the cheap kindness of a soft, compassionate word. Others of them, who would have been faithful and kind to him in his distress, were taken out of the world; and this at a time when, through age and infirmities, he peculiarly needed their company and assistance. To this he refers in the text; and with this he concludes the Psalm, as the heaviest stroke of all, "Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance late darkness." This is a common case; and frequently the case of the aged. It is no unusual thing for old people to outlive their nearest relations; the companions of their lives; their children, and sometimes their grandchildren too; and they are, as the Psalmist expresses it, "like a sparrow alone upon the house top." ...
What chiefly afflicted the Psalmist, and will afflict every generous heart, was, that his friends and lovers were removed into "darkness"; that is, to the grave, which is called in Scripture, "the land of darkness and the shadow of death, without any order or succession; and where the light is as darkness." Job 10:21-22. They were put so far from him, that he could see them no more; were dead and buried out of his sight; neither would one of their friends on earth any more behold them. Thus are our friends put into darkness. The eyes that used to sparkle with pleasure, when we met after a long absence, are closed in death. The voice that used to delight and edify us is sealed up in everlasting silence. There is no conversing with them personally nor by letters. Not lands and seas divide us from them, but regions of vast, unknown space, which we cannot yet pass over; and which they cannot and indeed would not tread back, as much as they loved us. We have no way of conveying intelligence to them or receiving it from them. Perhaps they were put far away from us in their youth, or in the midst of their days and usefulness; when we promised ourselves many years of pleasure in their friendship and converse, and expected many years of service from them, for their families, for the church, and the world. Alas! one awful, fatal stroke hath broken down all the pleasing fabric of love and happiness.
But these are reflections which must not be dwelt upon. When they begin to grow very painful, as they soon will, it is time to turn our thoughts to that which is the second thing observable in the text; namely, the Psalmist's devout acknowledgment of the hand of God in this affliction. "Thou hast put them far from me." This good man, through the whole Psalm, ascribes all his afflictions, and particularly the death of his friends, to the hand of God. He takes no notice of their diseases; he neither blames them for imprudence and delay, nor those who attended them for neglect or misapplication; but looks beyond all second causes to the great Lord of all; owns him as the supreme sovereign of every life, and disposer of every event. And we shall do well to make this idea of the blessed God familiar to our minds, as it is at once most instructive and most comfortable.
The holy Scriptures confirm the dictates of reason upon this subject; assuring us that God "maketh peace and createth evil"; that "out of the mouth of the Lord proceedeth evil and good"; that the most casual events are under his direction, so that "not a sparrow falleth to", nor lighteth on, "the ground without him; "much less do his rational creatures and children die without his notice and appointment. By whatever disease or casualties they die, it is God who "taketh away their breath, changeth their countenance, and sendeth them into darkness." With awful majesty God claims this as his prerogative; "I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." (De 32:39.) He removeth our friends who hath a right to do it. They were our friends, but they are his creatures; and may he not do what he will with his own? He gave them life of his free goodness, and he hath a right to demand it when he pleaseth. Dear as they were to us, we must acknowledge they were sinners; and, as such, had forfeited their lives to the justice of God: and shall not he determine when to take them away? They were our friends; but do we not hope and believe that, by repentance, faith in Christ, and sanctifying grace, they were become his friends too; dear to him by many indissoluble ties? Hath he not then a superior claim to them, and a greater interest in them? Is it not fit that he should be served first? May he not call home his friends when he pleaseth? Shall he wait for, or ask, our consent first? He doth it, whom we cannot, dare not, gainsay. "Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, what doest thou?" (Job 9:12.) He doth it, who is infinitely good and wise; and doth everything in the best time and manner. His knowledge is perfect and unerring; his goodness boundless and never failing. Though his judgments are a great deep, and his schemes utterly unsearchable by us; yet we may reasonably believe that he consulteth the happiness of his servants in what is most mysterious and most grievous; and his word giveth us the strongest assurance of it. So that whether we exercise the faith of Christians, or the reason of men, we must acknowledge the hand of God, yea, his wisdom and goodness, in removing our acquaintance into darkness. Job Orton, 1717-1783.
Ver. 18. Mine acquaintance late darkness. Rather, my acquaintanceship is darkness, that is, darkness is all I have to converse with; my circle of acquaintance is comprised in blank darkness. Ernest Hawkins.
Ver. 18. To be discountenanced or coldly treated by Christian friends, is often a consequence of a believer's having forfeited his spiritual comfort. When the Lord is angry with his rebellious child, and is chastening him, he not only giveth Satan leave to trouble him, but permits some of the saints who are acquainted with him, to discountenance him, and by their cold treatment of him, to add to his grief. When the father of a family resolves the more effectually to correct his obstinate child, he will say to the rest of the household, "Do not be familiar with him; shew him no countenance; put him to shame." In like manner, when the Lord is smiting, especially with spiritual trouble, his disobedient child, he, as it were, saith to others of his children, "Have for a season no familiarity with him; treat him with coldness and neglect; in order that he may be ashamed, and humbled for his iniquity." Job, under his grievous affliction, complained thus, "He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me", & c. (Job 19:13-19). And likewise Heman, "Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness" When the favour of God to the soul is clouded, the comfort of Christian society is also obscured. When He frowns on one, his children commonly appear to frown likewise; and when he makes himself strange to one, so for the most part do they. If a holy man, then, under trouble of spirit, begins to be treated with disregard, and even with contempt, by some of his Christian brethren, he ought not to be surprised; neither should he take occasion to be angry, or to quarrel with them; but he should look above them, and take the afflictive dispensation, only out of the hand of the Lord, as a necessary part of the chastisement intended for him. He ought to say with respect to them, as David concerning Shimei, "The Lord hath bidden them; "or, as Heman did, "THOU hast put away my acquaintance far from me." John Colquhoun.
Ver. 18. The very rhythm of the last line shows that the piece is not complete. The ear remains in suspense; until the majestic Ps 89:1-52 shall burst upon it like a bright Resurrection morning. William Kay.
Ver. 18. The loss of friends intended to remind us of our own mortality, to wean us from earth, to lead us to more complete trust in the Lord, to chasten us for sin, and to draw us away to the great meeting place.
Ver. 18. The words of our text will lead us to remark that,
1. The happiness of life greatly depends on intimate friendships.
2. The trial of parting with intimate friends is exceedingly painful.
3. In this, as indeed in every affliction, the best consolation is drawn from a belief in, and meditation upon, God's governing providence. Joseph Lathrop, 1845.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Lover and friend hast Thou put far from me,…
Psa_88:18
Lover and friend hast Thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.
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On sorrow for the death of friends
I. The sorrow which we naturally feel when we are bereaved of dear and worthy friends, and the bounds within which it ought to be restrained. If Christianity pronounces it the height of profligacy to be without natural affections, the tears which flow from such affections, Christianity cannot forbid. What nature hath implanted the religion of Jesus means not to extirpate, but to moderate and direct. Shall it not calm the soul tossed with tempests, and if not dry up, at least diminish, the flowing tears, that a voice from heaven, the voice of the spirit of truth, declares: Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord? They see God as He is. They are satisfied with His likeness.
II. The practical lessons which we ought to receive from the death of our Christian friends.
1. It should impress on our minds a deep and lasting sense of our own mortality.
2. It should teach us the vanity and nothingness of this world.
3. It demonstrates the worth and excellency of religion.
4. It teaches us how important it is to discharge our duty to friends who yet survive.
5. It should kindle Within us a longing desire for a blessed eternity. We naturally wish to be with those whom we love. When Jacob hears that his son Joseph is yet alive, and advanced to great honour in Egypt, he cannot rest till he goes down there to see him. And when our friends have left that land in which we are yet strangers and pilgrims, our affections should be more weaned from it, and our desires inflamed to get to that better land, whither they have gone before us. (John Erskine, D. D.)
The hand of God in removing our friends and acquaintances far from us
I. The heavy affliction with which the psalmist was visited. In the removal of his friends and relatives he had lost--
1. Their company.
2. Their counsel and advice.
3. The sight of their good works and examples.
4. Their prayers.
II. The psalmists devout acknowledgment of the hand of God in this affliction.
1. He removeth our friends, who hath a right to do it.
(1) They were our friends, but they are His creatures; and may He not do what He will with His own?
(2) They were our friends; but do we not hope and believe that, by repentance, faith in Christ, and sanctifying grace, they were become His friends too? dear to Him by many indissoluble ties? Hath He not then a superior claim to them, and a greater interest in them? Is it not fit that He should be served first? His knowledge is perfect and unerring: His goodness boundless and never-failing. Application
1. The cause here described is a very pitiable one. Let us weep with them that weep, and pray for them.
2. Let us bless God for the friends we have had, and all the comfort we enjoyed in them.
3. Let us humbly submit to the will of God when He putteth our friends far from us.
4. Let us be careful and diligent to make a due improvement of such afflictions.
(1) Let our departed friends still live in our memory, honour and affection.
(2) Let us carefully recollect and consider what was excellent and praiseworthy in them, as every good man hath some peculiar, distinguishing excellencies, and let us imitate them.
(3) Let us follow them in the path of Christian duty, obedience and zeal; endeavour to supply their lack of service, and be quickened to do so much the more good, because their time and opportunity are ended.
(4) Let us particularly learn from their removal to be dead to this world.
5. Let us be thankful for our friends yet living, and faithfully perform our duty to them.
6. Let us make sure of a friend who will never leave us: even the almighty and everlasting God. (Job Orton, D. D.)
The loss of connections deplored and improved
I. The connections which give a charm to life.
1. Lover. As this is distinguished from friend and acquaintance, it stands for the tender relative. The husband, the wife, the father, the mother, the child, the brother, the sister, and other dear ties of flesh and blood.
2. Friend. This is a sacred name, which many usurp, and few deserve. It cannot be applied to the confederate in sin; or to the mercenary, selfish wretch, that loves you because he wants to make use of you, as a builder values a ladder, or a passenger a boat. Friendship is founded in a community of heart. It supposes some strong congeniality, yet admits of great diversity.
3. Acquaintances are distinguished from friends. The former may be numerous; the latter must be limited. The one is for the parlour, the other is for the closet. We give the hand to the one, we reserve the bosom for the other.
II. Two ways by which we may be deprived of our connections.
1. By desertion. The highest degree of this crime is the want of natural affection. Perfidy is a vile thing, but not a very rare one. How many kiss in order to betray; and gain your confidence, to sting when you are lulled to sleep.
2. By bereavement. This is principally, if not exclusively here intended. Several things add poignancy to the loss.
(1) In some cases the bereaved are deprived of worldly support.
(2) We are deprived of their company.
(3) We can have no intercourse or correspondence with them.
(4) They cannot promote our welfare where they now are.
III. The agency of God in their removal. He has done it--
1. Who is almighty and irresistible (Job_9:12).
2. Who had a right to do it. If they were your friends, they were His creatures and servants; and was He obliged to ask your permission to do what He would with His own?
3. Who was too wise to err, and too kind to injure in doing it.
IV. Application. Improve such dispensations in a way of--
1. Sympathy.
2. Gratitude.
3. Precaution.
4. Resignation. (W. Jay.)
A loss bewailed
It is an extreme distress that is portrayed in this psalm.
I. The threefold loss.
1. There are, or ought to be, three circles round every man like the belts or rings round a planet,--love, friendship, and acquaintanceship.
(1) Love is the nearest, while, at the same time, it lends its value to the other two. Friendship and acquaintanceship have no real pith, or substance, or value in them, except as they are permeated by the spirit of the nearest circle. It is love that receives and nurtures us; it is love that knits the closest and tenderest bonds; it is love that is the sunshine and the strength of life; it is love by which we do good, by which we get good. Men learn to love by loving intensely a few. The heart is not a vessel of quantity which has only a certain amount to give. The more it gives, the more it has to give. It is filled by the effort to empty itself.
(2) Friendship comes next, and implies certain sympathies. Happy is the man who has right true-hearted friends to sustain him in good principles, to reflect and stimulate noble feelings, and to cheer him in sorrow. Many are the blessings of friendship, but the chief is a genial brotherliness, a certain unexplained understanding, an undefined sympathy, an easy, unconstrained, general harmony.
(3) Outside the circle of friendship is the larger but vague circle of acquaintance shading and thinning gradually off into the general world of humanity. Acquaintanceship broadens a man. It is some sort of bond between those who can have no close relation. It tends to cement and sweeten human society.
2. There is a period in life when ties are formed, but there comes a time when the breaking of ties is more frequent. That is a great part of the sadness of life, that, as one wears on in his journey, the friends of his early days drop off. Oh, strange life! It is a contradiction to our nature and to right, an enigma insoluble but for the light of another world, that we should be encouraged and impelled to throw our affections round men only to have the ties rudely snapt. Oh, strange; if there is nothing beyond this, that it should be our duty, our elevation, and our noblest impulse, to love strongly, to love as if we were never to part, all the while that parting lies but a little way before us.
II. Reflections.
1. Thinking of departed friends will help us to realize our own death. We need to realize death in order to be sober, in order to intensify all that is good, and to drive off vain thoughts. Yea, we need to realize death in order to conquer death, and live while we live.
2. Thinking of our departed will help to take away the bitterness of death. Death gets identified with the thought of father, or mother, or sister, or brother, or husband, or wife, or child, or friend, and we feel that we dare not, and cannot, shrink from going to them.
3. Thinking of the departed will enable us to realize immortality. Can you think of that friend, knowing all that was in him; and entertain the thought, even for a moment, that he has ceased to be? Is it not treachery and insult to his memory?
4. Thinking of the departed cannot but fill us with regret and penitence. To remember angry words or selfishness towards the departed is a bitter thing. It is good to be ashamed and blush before God for hardness, meanness, or selfishness. It is good to be brought to this lowly, contrite mood, though it be over the grave of the departed. That place of death may be the birthplace of eternal life. (J. Leckie, D. D.)
Our threefold relationship to Christ
1. Acquaintance--knowing about Him only;--His birth, His life, His words familiar, but Himself unknown. Familiar with His circumstances, but ignorant of His true life--that heart of love.
2. Friend how much nearer is this! Here is trust; here is fellowship; here is love. His claim is admitted and is responded to, and His company is welcomed with delight.
3. But there is another relationship, infinitely more tender and more complete, which we may venture to claim as ours--lover: to love Him with a love that possesses us, that masters us, that subdues and compels all that we are and all that we have for His service and pleasure: a love which finds its highest heaven in His joy, its deepest hell in His grief: a love which has and holds Him for its own, for ever and for ever. This He seeks as His solace; this He offers to us as our high privilege and joy. (M. G. Pearse.)
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Psa_89:1-52
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 88:18 The psalmist restates his second and first charges.
88:18 The psalmist restates his second and first charges.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.