Fathers

Psalms 88

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O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee: Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry; For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength: Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah. Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth. Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: LORD, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee. Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah. Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee. LORD, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 88:9

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

"My eyes became weak from want" [Psalm 88:9]. For what eyes are we to understand? If the eyes of the flesh in which He suffered, we do not read that His eyes became weak from want, that is, from hunger, in His Passion, as is often the case; as He was betrayed after His Supper, and crucified on the same day: if the inner eyes, how were they weakened from want, in which there was a light that could never fail? …

Exposition on Psalm 88 ↗

Jerome

"I have cried to thee, O Lord." Not only with the voice, but with the heart: for thus indeed we cry to the Father. "Crying in our hearts, Abba, Father." "All the day I stretched out my hands to thee." This is the testimony which the apostle in the Epistle to the Romans applied in the person of the Savior. You see that we do no violence to the psalm, but follow the authority of the apostle. For if he applied the testimony of a single verse in the person of the Lord, why should we not wish to expound the whole psalm in this way? …

Homily 65, on Psalm 87 (Alternate Series) ↗