Text -- Psalms 88:12-18 (NET)

88:12 Are your amazing deeds experienced in the dark region, or your deliverance in the land of oblivion? 88:13 As for me, I cry out to you, O Lord; in the morning my prayer confronts you. 88:14 O Lord, why do you reject me, and pay no attention to me? 88:15 I am oppressed and have been on the verge of death since my youth. I have been subjected to your horrors and am numb with pain. 88:16 Your anger overwhelms me; your terrors destroy me. 88:17 They surround me like water all day long; they join forces and encircle me. 88:18 You cause my friends and neighbors to keep their distance; those who know me leave me alone in the darkness.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 88:12

¹ tn Heb “known.”

² tn Heb “darkness,” here a title for Sheol.

³ tn Heb “forgetfulness.” The noun, which occurs only here in the OT, is derived from a verbal root meaning “to forget.”

sn The rhetorical questions in vv. 10-12 expect the answer, “Of course not!”

NET Notes: Psa 88:14

¹ tn Heb “[why] do you hide your face from me?”

NET Notes: Psa 88:15

¹ tn Heb “and am dying from youth.”

² tn Heb “I carry your horrors [?].” The meaning of the Hebrew form אָפוּנָה (’afunah), which occurs only here in the OT, is unclear. It may be an adverb meaning “very much” (BDB 67 s.v.), though some prefer to emend the text to אָפוּגָה (’afugah, “I am numb”) from the verb פוּג (pug; see Pss 38:8; 77:2).

NET Notes: Psa 88:16

¹ tn Heb “passes over me.”

NET Notes: Psa 88:17

¹ tn Heb “they encircle me together.”

NET Notes: Psa 88:18

¹ tn Heb “you cause to be far from me friend and neighbor.”

² tn Heb “those known by me, darkness.”