Psalm 88 is the 88th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "O God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee". In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translations of the Bible, this psalm is Psalm 87. In Latin, it is known as "Domine Deus salutis meae". According to the title, it is a "psalm of the sons of Korah" as well as a "maskil of Heman the Ezrahite". The psalm forms a regular part of Jewish and Catholic liturgies as well as a part of Protestant psalmody. It has been set to music, for example by Baroque composers Heinrich Schütz in German and by Marc-Antoine Charpentier in Latin. In the 20th century, Christoph Staude and Jörg Duda set the psalm for choir or solo voice.

Text

Hebrew

The following table shows the Hebrew text of the Psalm with vowels alongside an English translation based upon the JPS 1917 translation (now in the public domain).

King James Version

Commentary

It is often assumed that the Psalm is a sick Psalm. The disease which laid low the psalmist could have been leprosy or some other unclean illness. Others see rather than a specific disease, a more general calamity. By contrast, Hermann Gunkel contends that this psalm involves accusations against the Psalmist, regarding his sins mentioned. Neale and Littledale find it "stands alone in all the Psalter for the unrelieved gloom, the hopeless sorrow of its tone. Even the very saddest of the others, and the Lamentations themselves, admit some variations of key, some strains of hopefulness; here only all is darkness to the close."

Description

It is described Psalm for the sons of Korah, a prayer for mercy and deliverance, and a Maschil. According to Martin Marty, a professor of church history at the University of Chicago, Psalm 88 is "a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness". Psalm 88 ends by saying: Indeed, in Hebrew, the last word of the psalm is "darkness".

Uses

Judaism

Psalm 88 is recited on Hoshana Rabbah.

Eastern Orthodox Church and Catholic Church

Book of Common Prayer

In the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer, Psalm 88 is appointed to be read on the morning of the seventeenth day of the month, as well as at Evensong on Good Friday.

The Scottish Psalter

The Presbyterian Scottish Psalter of 1650 rewords the psalm in a metrical form that can be sung to a tune set to the common meter.

Musical settings

Heinrich Schütz set the psalm in a metred version in German, "Herr Gott, mein Heiland, Nacht und Tag", SWV 185, as part of the Becker Psalter, first published in 1628. Marc-Antoine Charpentier compose around 1690 Domine Deus salutis meae, H.207, for soloists, chorus, flutes, strings, and continuo. Verse 10 is used in a recitative of Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah. Peter Cornelius wrote a choral setting in German as the first of Drei Psalmlieder, Op. 13. In 1986, Christoph Staude set the psalm for three-part mixed choir and orchestra. Jörg Duda set the psalm as Exaltion III, Op. 31/3, for bass-baritone, horn, bass clarinet, cello and organ.