Psalm 88:13

But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) But unto Thee . . .—Better, But as for me, I, &c. The pronoun is emphatic. The speaker has not gone down to the land where all is silent and forgotten, and can therefore still cry to God, and send his prayer to meet (prevent, i.e. go to meet; see Psalm 17:13) the Divine Being who still has an interest in him. And this makes the expostulation of the next verses still stronger. Why, since the sufferer is still alive, is he forsaken, or seemingly forsaken, by the God of that covenant in which he still abides?

Benson Commentary

Psalm 88:13-18. In the morning shall my prayer prevent thee — That is, shall be offered to thee early, before the ordinary time of morning prayer, or before the dawning of the day, or the rising of the sun. The sense is, Though I have hitherto got no answer to my prayers, yet I will not give over praying and hoping for an answer. Why hidest thou thy face from me? — This proceeding seems not to agree with the benignity of thy nature, nor with the manner of thy dealing with thy people. I am ready to die from my youth up — My whole life hath been filled with a succession of deadly calamities. O Lord, take some pity upon me, and let me have a little breathing space before I die. While I suffer thy terrors — Upon my mind and conscience, which accompany and aggravate my outward miseries, I am distracted — I am so astonished, that I know not what to do with myself. They came about me like water — As the waters of the sea encompass him who is in the midst, and at the bottom of it.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

88:10-18 Departed souls may declare God's faithfulness, justice, and lovingkindness; but deceased bodies can neither receive God's favours in comfort, nor return them in praise. The psalmist resolved to continue in prayer, and the more so, because deliverance did not come speedily. Though our prayers are not soon answered, yet we must not give over praying. The greater our troubles, the more earnest and serious we should be in prayer. Nothing grieves a child of God so much as losing sight of him; nor is there any thing he so much dreads as God's casting off his soul. If the sun be clouded, that darkens the earth; but if the sun should leave the earth, what a dungeon would it be! Even those designed for God's favours, may for a time suffer his terrors. See how deep those terrors wounded the psalmist. If friends are put far from us by providences, or death, we have reason to look upon it as affliction. Such was the calamitous state of a good man. But the pleas here used were peculiarly suited to Christ. And we are not to think that the holy Jesus suffered for us only at Gethsemane and on Calvary. His whole life was labour and sorrow; he was afflicted as never man was, from his youth up. He was prepared for that death of which he tasted through life. No man could share in the sufferings by which other men were to be redeemed. All forsook him, and fled. Oftentimes, blessed Jesus, do we forsake thee; but do not forsake us, O take not thy Holy Spirit from us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But unto thee have I cried, O Lord - I have earnestly prayed; I have sought thy gracious interposition.

And in the morning - That is, each morning; every day. My first business in the morning shall be prayer.

Shall my prayer prevent thee - Anticipate thee; go before thee: that is, it shall be early; so to speak even before thou dost awake to the employments of the day. The language is that which would be applicable to a case where one made an appeal to another for aid before he had arisen from his bed, or who came to him even while he was asleep - and who thus, with an earnest petition, anticipated his rising. Compare the notes at Job 3:12; compare Psalm 21:3; Psalm 59:10; Psalm 79:8; Psalm 119:148; Matthew 17:25; 1 Thessalonians 4:15.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13. prevent—meet—that is, he will diligently come before God for help (Ps 18:41).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. Early, come to thee, before the ordinary time of morning prayer, or before the dawning of the day, or the rising of the sun. The sense is, Though I have hitherto got no answer to my prayers, yet I will not give over praying nor hoping for an answer.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But unto thee have I cried, O Lord,.... Formerly, and had been heard, answered, and relieved, and which was an encouragement to cry again to him in his distress; Christ was always heard, John 11:42, or, now, in his present case, yet was not heard, at least not immediately answered; which was the case of the Messiah, when forsaken by his God and Father, Psalm 22:1, yet still determines to continue praying, as follows:

and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee; not before the Lord is awake, and can hear; for he neither slumbers nor sleeps, and he always hears: but the meaning is, that he would pray before he entered upon another business; this should be the first thing in the morning he would do, and this he would do before others did, or he himself used to do; before the usual time of morning prayer; signifying, he would pray to him very early, which is expressive of his vehemency, fervency, and importunity and earnestness, and what a sense he had of his case, and of his need of divine help: so Christ rose early in the morning, a great while before day, to pray, Mark 1:35. See Gill on Psalm 5:4.

Geneva Study Bible

But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. But as for me, unto thee, Jehovah, have I cried for help,

And in the morning shall my prayer come before thee.

He contrasts himself with the dead, whose covenant relation with God is at an end. He at least can still pray, and in spite of all discouragement will not cease to pray.

Prevent = ‘go to meet,’ as in Psalm 59:10; Psalm 79:8. The first thought of each day shall be prayer. Cp. Psalm 5:3; Psalm 55:17.

13–18. Death brings no hope. Will not God then listen to his prayer and grant him some relief in his extremity of suffering and solitude?

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; literally, but as for me, to thee have I cried. The psalmist returns from the somewhat vague speculations of vers. 10-12 to fact and to himself. He is not yet a mere shade, an inhabitant of Sheol; he is in the flesh, upon the earth; he can still cry, and does still cry, to Jehovah. There is thus still a faint gleam of hope for him. And in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee. The psalmist will draw out God's mercy, as it were, before its time, by importuning him with early and continual prayer (comp. vers. 1, 9). Psalm 88:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

He who complains thus without knowing any comfort, and yet without despairing, gathers himself up afresh for prayer. With ואני he contrasts himself with the dead who are separated from God's manifestation of love. Being still in life, although under wrath that apparently has no end, he strains every nerve to struggle through in prayer until he shall reach God's love. His complaints are petitions, for they are complaints that are poured forth before God. The destiny under which for a long time he has been more like one dying than living, reaches back even into his youth. מנּער (since נער is everywhere undeclined) is equivalent to מנּערי. The ἐξηπορήθην of the lxx is the right indicator for the understanding of the ἅπαξ λ.ε.γ. אפוּנה. Aben-Ezra and Kimchi derive it from פּן, like עלה from על,

(Note: The derivation is not contrary to the genius of the language; the supplementing productive force of the language displayed in the liturgical poetry of the synagogue, also changes particles into verbs: vid., Zunz, Die synagogaie Poesie des Mittelalters, S. 421.)

and assign to it the signification of dubitare. But it may be more safely explained after the Arabic words Arab. afana, afina, ma'fûn (root 'f, to urge forwards, push), in which the fundamental notion of driving back, narrowing and exhausting, is transferred to a weakening or weakness of the intellect. We might also compare פּנה, Arab. faniya, "to disappear, vanish, pass away;" but the ἐξηπορήθην of the lxx favours the kinship with that Arab. afina, infirma mente et consilii inops fuit,

(Note: Abulwald also explains אפוּנה after the Arabic, but in a way that cannot be accepted, viz., "for a long time onwards," from the Arabic iffân (ibbân, iff, afaf, ifâf, taiffah), time, period - time conceived of in the onward rush, the constant succession of its moments.)

which has been already compared by Castell. The aorist of the lxx, however, is just as erroneous in this instance as in Psalm 42:5; Psalm 55:3; Psalm 57:5. In all these instances the cohortative denotes the inward result following from an outward compulsion, as they say in Hebrew: I lay hold of trembling (Isaiah 13:8; Job 18:20; Job 21:6) or joy (Isaiah 35:10; Isaiah 51:11), when the force of circumstances drive one into such states of mind. Labouring under the burden of divine dispensations of a terrifying character, he finds himself in a state of mental weakness and exhaustion, or of insensible (senseless) fright; over him as their destined goal before many others go God's burnings of wrath (plur. only in this instance), His terrible decrees (vid., concerning בעת on Psalm 18:5) have almost annihilated him. צמּתתוּני is not an impossible form (Olshausen, 251, a), but an intensive form of צמּתוּ, the last part of the already inflected verb being repeated, as in עהבוּ הבוּ, Hosea 4:18 (cf. in the department of the noun, פּיפיּות, edge-edges equals many edges, Psalm 149:6), perhaps under the influence of the derivative.

(Note: Heidenheim interprets: Thy terrors are become to me as צמתת (Leviticus 25:23), i.e., inalienably my own.)

The corrections צמתּתני (from צמתת) or צמּתתני (from צמּת) are simple enough; but it is more prudent to let tradition judge of that which is possible in the usage of the language. In Psalm 88:18 the burnings become floods; the wrath of God can be compared to every destroying and overthrowing element. The billows threaten to swallow him up, without any helping hand being stretched out to him on the part of any of his lovers and friends. In v. 19a to be now explained according to Job 16:14, viz., My familiar friends are gloomy darkness; i.e., instead of those who were hitherto my familiars (Job 19:14), darkness is become my familiar friend? One would have thought that it ought then to have been מידּעי (Schnurrer), or, according to Proverbs 7:4, מודעי, and that, in connection with this sense of the noun, מחשׁך ought as subject to have the precedence, that consequently מידּעי is subject and מחשׁך predicate: my familiar friends have lost themselves in darkness, are become absolutely invisible (Hitzig at last). But the regular position of the words is kept to if it is interpreted: my familiar friends are reduced to gloomy darkness as my familiar friend, and the plural is justified by Job 19:14 : Mother and sister (do I call) the worm. With this complaint the harp falls from the poet's hands. He is silent, and waits on God, that He may solve this riddle of affliction. From the Book of Job we might infer that He also actually appeared to him. He is more faithful than men. No soul that in the midst of wrath lays hold upon His love, whether with a firm or with a trembling hand, is suffered to be lost.