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Commentary on Psalm 88
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COMMENTARY ON PSALM 88 A song. A psalm for the sons ofKorah. To the end. On Mahalath, for responding. Ofunderstanding, for Heman the Israelite. OR ON MAHALATH, on the other hand, Symmachus said "in a dance," and Aquila, "in dancing." Heman was leader of a choir of singers celebrating God. The "response" suggests the sections of the choirs responding to one another.1 So the inspired composition prophesies the Jews' misfortunes and servitude in Babylon, and teaches at the same time also the pangs consequent on sin of the whole human race together. The inspired composition of the psalm is expressed in the form of supplication offered to the loving God both by the former people and also by all in common, and the prayer is related to the more devout. (2) 0 Lord, God of my salvation, by day and night I cried in your presence. Let my prayer come in before you (w. 1-2): you, 0 Lord, I know to be Lord of my salvation; this is the reason, to be sure, I beg night and day for my appeal to be accepted. He says this in what follows: Incline your ear to my appeal. Why he asks he says also in what follows [1569]: Because my soul was filled with troubles , and my life came near to Hades (v. 3): I beg you to repel the multitude of troubles besetting me when you perceive them; I I. Theodoret in facing up to the elements in this title can hardly have escaped the impression that directions for liturgical recital are involved. He is right about Hernan's role in worship (cf. I Chron 16-41), though his LXX text, perhaps because of this reference, replaces Ezrahite (a term meaning native, or Canaanite) with Israelite (its opposite). Both LXX and alternative versions help him get to the roots of the puzzling Hebrew terms "On Mahalath Leannoth," possibly having to do with dance and refrain, respectively. As before, the genre of maskil is also taken back to its roots having to do with understanding. But Theodoret is wise enough not to delve deeper, and presses on. 81 82 THEODORET OF CYRUS am at the very doors of death, and in need of your help, bereft of it and enslaved to sin. This is what he goes on to say. (3) I am reckoned with those going down into the pit (v. 4): I encountered irresistible problems and found no solution, but instead I was like those falling into a pit, unable to get out.2 I was like a person devoid of help: I was deprived of all providence and care. Free among the dead (v. 5): though not yet enduring the end or falling under the slavery of death, I include myself among the numbers of the dead. Like wounded people sleeping in a tomb, who are not remembered and are in fact thrustfrom your hand. This is connected with I was like: I was like a person devoid of help, free among the dead, and not yet falling under the slavery of death. I was wounded like wounded in war, and consigned to a tomb. This, in fact, is the way Symmachus also said it: "Like the wounded lying in a tomb, who are no longer recalled, cut out of your hand": they are cut off from your providence, whereas your aid will intervene to prevent my falling foul of the same depths. (4) They put me in the depths ofa pit, in darkness and in a shadow ofdeath (v. 6). These words relate to those obliged to live in Babylon, and to the whole human race:s the former, in thrall to wicked people, lived a painful life, and all human beings were beset with manifold calamities after the sin-death, grief, tears, weeping and wailing, widows and orphans, penury, misfortunes and countless other problems defYing explanation and bringing darkness on even the living-all these came in the wake of the breaking of the commandment.4 See what a terrible evil disobedience is, the cause not only of separation from God but also of involvement in such great evils. Your anger against me is aggravated, and you have brought all your billows to bear against me (v. 7). Symmachus, on the other hand, put it this way, "Your anger burst out against me, and you maltreated me with your 2. The psalm expresses in many different ways the notion of Sheol, a topic in Old...