Ps. 88.10-12 (Pt. 1; the shattering)

Do you do wonders / for the dead?
Do even the Rephaim / rise up and praise you?
Is your loyal-love / declared in the grave?
You faithfulness / in Abaddon?
Are your wonders known / in the darkness?
Your righteousness / in the Land of Forgetfulness? 

It is tempting to not take the questions as rhetorical. Meaning: to see these as genuine questions from the psalmist as he regards himself as already an inhabitant of the ‘land of forgetfulness’, hoping that, nonetheless, Yhwh will perform a ‘wonder’ for him and redeem him. It is tempting, though, not because of a desire to see this Yhwh’s redemption cross the dividing line and descend into Sheol (as much as that may be the case) but because it has a certain thematic coherence to it. Let me explain—we have pointed out the unique nature of the psalm and how it has a very dark atmosphere to it. That ‘cloud’ that hangs over the psalm comes from the way the psalm ends. The final word is ‘darkness’. Unlike almost every other psalm like it there is no sense from the psalmist that he will be heard. It is as if the psalm was the final gasp as he descends into Sheol, with the psalm itself partaking of the inevitability of the Sheol’s grasp. This final note is very much the ‘vapor of Sheol’, what it would be like to dwell in Sheol. For a moment, the chasm opens and speaks through the psalmist. And this is why I wonder how rhetorical this question is. When Sheol is described in other psalms, along similar lines, it is clearly rhetorical. The psalmist is attempting to coax Yhwh to redeem him so that he can continue to dwell in the ‘land of the living’ and offer Yhwh praise. There, the petition will end on a ‘high note’ of hope, however. By contrast, here the psalmist is much closer to Sheol. And it is this closeness, this sense of almost despair, that makes me wonder whether what usually is a rhetorical question has in fact become a deeply personal one—whether the ‘distance’ of a rhetorical question has closed, making the question genuine. Simply put, it ‘feels’ less like a rhetorical question in this psalm. It seems to hover between the two poles (rhetorical and genuine), not one but not the other. 

This ‘hovering’ makes the questions much darker than otherwise. The psalmist is much more certain of his departure to Sheol than in other psalms as he suspects Yhwh is likely not going to work a wonder on his behalf while living. But he is also as certain that wonders aren’t worked in Sheol. The psalmist is essentially caught. He cannot escape from the dilemma. We need to play this out some. When a psalmist asks this question rhetorically he is not really asking the question. He is using the question for some other purpose (to move Yhwh to his salvation). This is the ‘distance’ of the rhetorical question. Its force, as a question of use, comes from the clear and unalterable answer: No, Yhwh does not work or is even remembered in Sheol. In other words, it is precisely because the answer is so clear-cut that the question can be used for the psalmist’s purpose. But that is not the case here—here, the psalmist suspects that the question cannot be used because it will not move Yhwh to his aid. As such, he is inhabiting and asking what is an essentially impossible question. He knows the answer is ‘No’ but he can’t refrain from asking it nonetheless. What we see in this psalmist then is something we have traced throughout—he inhabits a realm that is at odds with itself and irreconcilable. He oscillates, disturbingly, between images of frightening openness and terrifying proximity. He is utterly alone and yet heading toward a ‘community of the dead’. Here—he is genuinely asking a rhetorical question (itself a type of contradiction).This is the voice of man pulled to the breaking point. This psalm is a type of ‘shattering’, the splintering of the psalmist’s voice into various and irreconcilable directions.