Chapter Eighty-Seven

“Song. Psalm” – indicates the musical and vocal performance of “the sons of Korah.” “The teaching of Heman the Ezrahite” points to the writer Heman, a Levite of the family of Korah, contemporary of David and leader of the choir. He is called an Ezrahite because he dwelt for a long time among the descendants of Zerah from the tribe of Judah. – “Teaching” – this work represents meditation on the events being experienced. “On Mahalath” – this word, having lost its original meaning, is left untranslated. It is supposed that this word began some folk song, and therefore the inscription indicates the character of the melody – according to the pattern of a song beginning with this word.

This given psalm is the saddest and most comfortless in the Psalter by the degree of sorrow and heavy feeling depicted here by the writer. It is difficult to indicate the time and occasion of its composition. Since the writer was Heman, a contemporary of David, devoted to him and sharing with him the vicissitudes of his life, one may suppose that it was written on the occasion of some grave misfortune experienced by David, perhaps the persecution from Absalom, which is confirmed by the content of the psalm, where David is depicted as abandoned by friends, despised by them, he is in misfortunes from which he sees no escape; all this accords with David’s situation in the times of Absalom’s rebellion. The psalm is full of complaint about the hopelessness of the writer’s situation, about the nearness of destruction from enemies, and about consciousness of complete helplessness.

Hear my prayer, O Lord, for I am covered with sorrows and misfortunes, threatening me with death (1–7). You pour out Your wrath upon me: You have separated from me my friends; I am worn out from waiting for Your help (8–10). If I die, how can I praise You in Sheol? (11–13). I constantly call upon You, for Your misfortunes have crushed me, I am abandoned even by my closest friends (14–19).

Psalm 87:2. O Lord, God of my salvation! I cry out day and night before You: “I cry out day and night before You” – constantly, without ceasing, the writer cried out to God for help in view of his grave and hopeless situation.

Psalm 87:4. for my soul is sated with misfortunes, and my life has drawn near to the underworld. “For my soul is sated with misfortunes, and my life has drawn near to the underworld” – I am full of sufferings both spiritual and physical. By “spiritual” sufferings one can understand either the internal torment of David for his transgression with Bathsheba, which was the cause of disorder in his family life in the person of the rebellious Absalom, or, what is more probable (since the writer was Heman, not guilty of this sin), in general the spiritual, oppressed state from the misfortunes he experienced. By “physical” – the external, physical misfortunes of David, first and foremost his illness.

Psalm 87:5. I am reckoned with those who go down into the grave; I have become like a man without strength, Psalm 87:6. abandoned among the dead, – like the slain lying in the grave, whom You no longer remember and who are rejected from Your hand. “I am reckoned with those who go down into the grave” – I appear to be destined to share the fate of those who approach death, Sheol. I am helpless “abandoned among the dead” – hopelessly forsaken, condemned to death. You have abandoned me “like the slain lying in the grave,” whom You have abandoned and do not visit with Your mercy. Dwelling and life in Sheol is, by this conception, dwelling outside God’s mercy; those who are there He does not protect and leaves outside His care.

Psalm 87:7. You have placed me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the abyss. Psalm 87:8. Your wrath weighs heavily on me, and You have struck me with all Your waves [of trouble]. Psalm 87:9. You have separated me from my acquaintances, made me abhorrent to them; I am shut in, and cannot go out. Psalm 87:10. My eye is worn out from sorrow: I cry to You all day long, O Lord, I stretch out my hands to You. You, O Lord, have sentenced me to death, abundantly pour out Your wrath upon me (“wrath... and... waves”) in my many sufferings; I have become lonely, abandoned even by friends (“separated from my acquaintances”). They consider association with me as defilement (“made me abhorrent to them”), which probably indicates some grave illness of David, considered by others as contagious and abominable, like leprosy. Probably this is the same illness David spoke of in Psalm 37 (Ps 37:6-9), and therefore the psalm can be considered written at the same time, i.e., during the beginning of Absalom’s rebellion. I am shut in by these misfortunes and see no way out. – “My eye is worn out from sorrow” – my eyes have weakened from misfortunes and suffering, either in the sense that vision has physically dulled from David’s tears over his situation, or figuratively – in that his sufferings have lasted so long that his vision has dulled from waiting and watching for help from God.

Psalm 87:11. Will You do wonders for the dead? Will the dead rise up and praise You? Psalm 87:12. Or will Your mercy be proclaimed in the grave, and Your truth – in the place of decay? Psalm 87:13. Will Your wonders be known in darkness, and Your justice in the land of forgetfulness? The writer’s prayer for deliverance from misfortunes takes on a different character here. If a man has died, he has vanished irrecoverably from earthly existence, has gone to that world where the Lord no longer performs wonders. The dead cannot be healed by medical skill so he might live and praise God; in Sheol (“in darkness... in the land of forgetfulness” – i.e., deprived of physical light and as if forgotten by God) no one can know of the wonders accomplished by God and the deeds of His great justice. This means that one who dies untimely, not a natural death, as the writer of the psalm fears for himself, cannot achieve the purpose of man’s designation on earth – to sing the deeds of the Lord and reverently honor His name.

Psalm 87:14. But I cry to You, O Lord, and my prayer comes before You in the early morning. Psalm 87:15. Why, O Lord, do You reject my soul, do You hide Your face from me? The consciousness that the Lord will not allow a man to die without letting him accomplish his purpose encourages the writer and gives him strength to ask God again for mercy and to ask God – why do You, O Lord, “reject my soul” – why do You not fulfill the desires of my soul, my prayer for Your help?

Psalm 87:16. I am miserable and wasting away from youth; I endure Your terrors and am overcome. “I am miserable and wasting away from youth” – I have suffered from youth. This can be understood in relation to David during persecution by Saul, when he was young. These misfortunes do not leave him and now, in the persecutions from Absalom that he is experiencing. By indicating the degree and depth of his misfortunes, the writer concludes the psalm. This psalm is the fourth in the hexapsalm. Nighttime darkness reminds us of Hades, sleep of death. The purpose of this psalm in morning worship, before the approach of day, the Church reminds man of the necessity of efforts on his part to avoid rejection from God, which is possible only with the help of God and prayer to Him (5, 14), so as not to be subject to eternal night, eternal destruction.