Perhaps the best way to approach this unique psalm¹ is simply to read it through first in order to get a general topical and emotional orientation. The Hebrew text, minus the heading (v. 1),² is displayed in paralleled poetic lines below and numbered according to the accompanying relatively literal English translation. Putative strophic and stanza breaks are also indicated by interposed spaces and structural designations. Selected phonological features of note in Hebrew will be discussed later. A number of significant text-critical issues confront the Hebrew analyst, but due to space restrictions, only the most important of these will be considered (in footnotes), along with selected translational comments:

The following chart summarises the major and minor structural divisions of Psalm 88 along with a functional (‘speech-act’) description of the poetic units (Box 1).

The distressed semantic surface of Psalm 88 disguises an underlying symmetrical topical and functional structure. Three ‘stanzas’ (major poetic units) are posited, each of which includes 2–3 ‘strophes’ (minor units; poetic ‘paragraphs’).²² The psalm divides into two halves of 20 lines each, with the initial and longest stanza I being balanced by stanzas II–III. Each stanza begins with a plaintive ‘appeal’, or ‘calling out’ to Yahweh (marked by a vocative) for help (vv. 1a, 9b, 13a).²³ The second and third strophes of stanza I consist of eight lines each, with the last verse of each strophe ending in a tetracolon. Strophe B (vv. 3–5) expresses a ‘descriptive lament’, with a predominance of first-person subject pronouns as the psalmist figuratively portrays his present plight. In strophe C (vv. 6–9a), second-person verbs take over as the lament turns more to an ‘accusation’ suggesting that Yahweh is persecuting the psalmist.²⁴

In the psalm’s second half, both stanzas manifest a similar two-part structure, but what follows the short initial ‘appeal’ differs significantly in each case. In strophe III-B we hear another ‘accusatory lament’ (vv. 14–18) which closely parallels that of I-C, except that it is intensified by length (10 vs. 8 lines), by more desperate imagery (see below), and by an initial critical rhetorical question: ‘Why, O LORD…’ (הָוהְ֭י הָ֣מָל, 14a). These structurally parallel strophes also conclude with similar allegations: ‘You have taken from me my closest friends’ (8a, NIV) – ‘You have taken my companions and loved ones from me’ (18a, NIV).²⁵

What is thematically and structurally distinctive in Psalm 88 is the series of six rhetorical questions that comprise the second strophe of stanza two (II-B).²⁶ Each one of the mock queries anticipates a negative response, e.g. ‘Do you show your wonders to the dead?’ (10a). However, these interrogations seem to have more significance than usually interpreted, that is, as being merely additional accusations against the injustice of God. Rather, this highly emotive sequence may be construed as lending prolonged ‘rhetorical support’ to the psalmist’s implicit faith (expressed already in v. 1), thus underscoring his passionate pleas as he overtly gesticulates with his hands towards the heavens in heartfelt prayer (9c). ‘All of the questions have the same point – Yes, YHWH is God of the living, and if YHWH wants to be taken seriously, then YHWH must keep the speaker among the living …’ (Brueggemann & Bellinger 2014:380). In this, ‘the bleakest of all the psalms’, at the very least there remains this ‘glimmer of light that the psalmist can still pray – he is still able to appeal to Yahweh’ (Johnston 2005:79).

But why should God answer him? It is simply, but significantly, because if God would allow the psalmist to pass down into Sheol and die (vv. 3–4), then the latter’s potential paean of praise (ךָוּ֬דוֹי, 10b) for Yahweh’s manifestations of covenantal ‘steadfast love’ (ךֶָּ֑דְסַח) and ‘faithfulness’ (֗ךְָתָנוּֽמֱ֝א) (v. 11) through ‘deliverance’ (יִ֑תָעוּשְׁי, v. 1a) will have been lost to the world and silenced within the community of the faithful (‘Zion’ of Ps 87; cf. Ps 89:1–2, where these same two divine attributes are lauded by the psalmist, twice in fact).²⁷ So what we arguably have here in strophe II-B are implied professions of trust on the part of the psalmist – that despite his precarious, near-death situation and his forceful protestations against God for allowing, even causing, this to happen, he nevertheless retains a foundational faith that it is not utterly too late for the Lord to resolve things by making his ‘wondrous works’ manifest (vv. 10a, 12a), this time on behalf of his benighted, bemused plaintiff (v. 18b).

What difference does an accurate discourse structure make? Obviously, it helps the specialist and lay-person alike to grasp the larger thematic organisation of a psalm, for example, and how the psalmist has arranged his prayer in order to make the greatest impression, from a human appellant’s point of view. As we see in the case of Psalm 88, the larger structure clearly reveals the threefold division into stanzas, each leading off with an appeal to the Lord for help and with the first and last stanzas ending in parallel with an accusatory lament (I-C, III-B). The second part of the middle stanza is conspicuously different by way of contrast, thus making it stand out for the observant reader (listener), being vocally marked by means of the dramatic series of rhetorical questions, which one might view as the psalm’s emotive and thematic peak.

However, there is by no means complete scholarly consensus regarding this psalm’s larger structural organisation. Tanner, for example, does not recognise verses 9b–c and 13 as parallel ‘appeals’ that essentially reiterate the prayer’s aperture (vv. 1–2). She further suggests that ‘vv. 1–2 and 9 provide an inclusio around this large section which suggests that [it] should not be separated into plea and complaint as individual sections’ (Tanner 2014:668). This proposal differs considerably from the structure outlined above, so readers will have to study the text and come to their own conclusion on the matter. My contention is that the concept of ‘inclusio’ (marking the beginning and ending of some unit) is overused in such compositional analyses and must be clearly distinguished from at least two other macro-demarcative devices in Hebrew poetry, namely, ‘anaphora’ (distinct unit beginnings) and ‘epiphora’ (distinct unit endings) (Wendland 2004:123–130).

These structural issues are not of interest and importance only to scholars, but they have invariably been ‘translated’ into the published formats of the various versions that all believers access on a regular basis, whether during public worship or in private devotions. So what are people to make of the diversity that confronts them in their Bibles? For example, the following popular English translations indicate internal breaks in the printed text by means of a line space before the verses indicated in the listing below (my segmentation is given last for comparison):

So should the attentive reader conclude that these divisions do not really make all that much difference – to each his own, as it were? On the contrary, such partitions will naturally affect one’s mental and oral reading of the psalm, for example, in making brief pauses where such breaks occur in the text, and through onset or ending intonational patterns (in English). Certain pause-points are well established in these versions, such as the one occurring before v. 13. Others are suspect, like the New Living Bible’s breaks at both selahs (8, 15), which do not correspond with a justifiable structural shift. These differences in formatting the text on the printed page further illustrate the literary principle that ‘form has meaning’, especially where poetry is concerned.

The ‘rhetoric’ of a literary text is concerned with its ‘persuasiveness’ – with how the author has utilised various artistic and rhetorical features to support the text’s structural contours, to highlight its main theme and subpoints, and to create global as well as local points of impact and appeal within the composition (Wendland 2004:ch.6). Considering Psalm 88 as a whole, we notice how the subject of illness, death, and the grave has been foregrounded throughout by varied images, figurative terms, and associated references that are familiar to most students of the Hebrew Bible (following the NET translation). Indeed, the darkness of ‘death is so near and so real that it becomes the subject of the lament’ (Mays 1994:282):

Sheol (3) – grave (4) – the dead (5) – corpses lying in the grave (5) – whom you remember no more (5) – cut off (5) – the lowest regions of the pit (6) – in the dark places (6) – in the watery depths (6) – overwhelm…with all your waves (7) – me, an appalling sight (8) – I am trapped (8) – the dead (10) – the departed spirits (10) – the grave (11) – the place of the dead (11) – the dark region (12) – the land of oblivion (12) – on the verge of death (15) – numb with pain (15) – your terrors destroy me (16) – they surround me like water (17) – leave me alone in the darkness (18).

These melancholy words and phrases act as a cohesive backbone running from beginning to end that allows the psalmist both to express his deeply-felt emotions and also to fervently empower his petitions to a God who is hearing, but presently not overtly responding to his appeals (vv. 1–2, 14).

Therefore, one might argue that the author’s emotive state is not simply a continuous slide in this psalm, moving progressively downwards towards the ‘deep darkness’ (ךְָֽׁשְחַמ) at the very end (18b). If there were no hope at all, why would he persevere in praying to the Lord for help, as reiterated prominently at the head of each stanza (vv. 1–2, 9, 13)? Indeed, as noted, why begin by addressing Yahweh as ‘the God of my salvation’ (יִ֑תָעוּשְׁי יֵ֣הלֱֹא) if he did not mean it?²⁸ Thus, the notion of a ‘God (who is able to) save me’ acts as a thematic frame of reference that guides one’s subsequent interpretation throughout the entire text. Furthermore, as suggested above, we encounter that prominent string of rhetorical questions right in the middle of the prayer (stanza II, vv. 10–12), which I construe as the psalmist’s residual argument of resistance – his bold verbal effort to swim out in faith against the stream, as it were, of the rushing waters of adversity that are flowing all around him (vv. 7, 17).²⁹ In literary structural terms then, what we have is a common A – B – A’ ‘ring’ tectonic arrangement in which stanza III (A’) reiterates the basic complaint of stanza I (A), but with renewed rhetorical vigour that pleads the psalmist’s desperate plight before the Lord. The real message of the prayer, however, lies in the middle in stanza II (B), where the psalmist’s enduring trust in Yahweh’s covenantal attributes of ‘steadfast love’ (ךֶָּ֑דְסַח) and ‘faithfulness’ (ךְָתָנוּֽמֱ֝א) rise to the occasion (v. 11) and reflect a ray of hope that God will yet intervene in ‘righteousness’ (ךְָתָקְדִצ) to save the day (12b).

In the remainder of this section I will overview a number of the other rhetorical features to be found in Psalm 88 that function to highlight as well as to reinforce selected aspects of the psalmist’s lament to the Lord. This listing summarises the most significant phonological and morphological devices that serve to distinguish the dramatic rhythmic Hebrew soundscape of Psalm 88:

Throughout this poetic text, then, a diverse assortment of rhetorical devices periodically punctuates the psalmist’s prayer in a manner that augments the oral–aural impression of his sustained progression of pleas and laments and also directs the listener’s attention to some of the crucial aspects of his passionate precatory argument with the Lord. In Psalm 88 ‘the rhetoric builds to match the intensity of the speaker’s situation’ (Brueggemann 1995:56) – growing ever darker as the discourse develops, but not to the point where his faith is totally defeated.

As the hermeneutical approach of ‘canonical criticism’ has suggested, the individual psalms of the Psalter must not be interpreted in isolation, but rather in conjunction with one another – all the more so in the case of obvious smaller collections or groupings within the five ‘books’. An early description of this method asserts that ‘the move beyond form criticism [may] be made by directing attention to the final form of the Psalter in order to determine how the meaning of individual Psalms may be affected by their titles and by their placement in the canonical form of the Psalter’ (McCann 1993:18). ‘“The juxtaposition of a psalm with another portion of scripture [pre-eminently another psalm] creates a new context for a communal response which is different in kind from free association.” On the other hand, the limit of 150 psalms defines parameters in the interpretive possibilities’ (VanGemeren 2013:31, citing Childs 1979:523).³² It is clear that Psalm 88 belongs to a psalmic subsection within the Psalter, as designated in its heading ‘of the Sons of Korah’.³³ Twelve psalms are ascribed to this group, situated in strategic structural positions within the Psalter: Psalm 42–49 to begin Book II and Psalm 84–89 to conclude Book III.³⁴ So what possible influence might the two psalms that surround Psalm 88 have on its interpretation?

The most obvious effect can be heard in the first two verses of Psalm 89 (NIV) – in dramatic contrast to the ‘darkness’ of isolation and death that ends Psalm 88: ‘I will sing of the LORD’s great love (יֵ֣דְסַֽח) forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness (֣ךְָתָנוּמֱא) known through all generations. I will declare that your love (דֶסֶ֣ח) stands firm forever; that you established your faithfulness (֣ךְָתָנוּמֱא) in heaven itself’.

As noted earlier, the exact same covenantal correlates of ‘steadfast love’ and ‘faithfulness’ appear in the midst of Psalm 88 (v. 11). Can such close co-occurrence be a mere coincidence? In another nearby psalm attributed to the Sons of Korah, a very similar conjunction of these concepts is expressed: ‘Love and faithfulness (תֶ֥מֱאֶו־דֶסֶֽח) meet together…’ (85:10). Both Psalms 85 and 89 bemoan the Lord’s punitive anger (85:4–5, 89:38), which has resulted in disastrous loss – for the nation as a whole in the former case (85:6–7), for the anointed king and his dynasty in the latter (89:39, 51). But each of these psalms also professes bright visions of hope and a trusting reliance on God’s future intervention on behalf of his faithful people – more strongly in Psalm 85 (vv. 1–3, 8–13), but clearly audible in the majority of Psalm 89 as well (vv. 1–37).³⁵ These intertextual correspondences are significant ‘contextual clues’ from a canon-critical perspective that Psalm 88 must not be understood in isolation, but rather within the reflected hermeneutical import of the psalms that surround it, including the universally optimistic ‘Zion song’ celebrated in Psalm 87.³⁶

In this approach, even more distant echoes, if resonant enough semantically and contextually, should not be ignored, for example, the collective answer to the pivotal series of rhetorical questions in Psalm 88:10–12, left implicit there, but responded to most positively in the case of similar queries found in Psalm 30:8 – ‘You turned my wailing into dancing…’ (30:11). Similarly, the final blessed outcome to Job’s period of severe crisis and sharp verbal reaction to Yahweh’s apparent neglect would undoubtedly be recalled by supplicants when uttering a passage from Psalm 88 that closely parallels words in Job, for example: ‘You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them; I am confined and cannot escape!’ (v. 8) – ‘He [God] has alienated my brothers from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden – whom God has hedged in?’ (Job 19:13; 3:23).³⁷ Could Psalm 88 then be another instance of where scripture is required to interpret itself? Thus, a reassuring response to Heman the Ezrahite’s lament (and that of all believers in a similar position) comes not within the psalm itself (as in the case of Ps 85:8–13) but from those prayers that surround it and similar familiar texts found in their common sacred canon.