Ps. 88.15-18 (a perfectly dark arrow)

I have been afflicted / and nearly dead / since boyhood
having borne your terrors / I despair of life.
Your wrath / has swept over me
your terrors / have annihilated me.
They swirl around me / all day like water;
they close in on me / from all sides.
You have caused lover and companion / to stay away from me
caused to stay away from me / my close friends 
Darkness. 

These lines largely recapitulate verses 6-8, following the same progression of oppression by Yhwh, the swirling of waters, the entrapment and then social ostracizing. One element that is new is the image of his entire life having been lived in affliction: “nearly dead since boyhood”. It is coherent thematically—everything in this psalm points to an experience of totality, from the ‘perfection of God’s wrath’ toward him to, now, the sense of temporal totality. He has been ‘filled up’ with Yhwh’s wrath, “all day your terrors swirl around me”, even though he has been pouring himself out in the same totality, “in the morning” his prayer is before him (vs. 13), “daily” he cries out to him (vs.1) and “nightly I am before you.” (vs. 1). Everything is pushed to its complete extremity. This is further seen in the psalm’s concluding in a repetition (a litany) of death-ending-in-darkness: “nearly dead”, “despair of life”, “you have annihilated me”, “darkness”. The imagery is also seen in the sense of entrapment and suffocation: “swept over me”, “swirl around me”, “close in on all sides”. This conflicts, immediately, however, with the reverse movement of exile: “lover and companion stay away”. As surrounded as he is with terror is he isolated from companions. This totalizing is that of ‘darkness’, the final word of the psalm, and of silence. There is no ‘promise to fulfill a vow’, no promise to ‘proclaim your works in the assembly’; indeed the act of praise or thanksgiving is only mentioned as a question and, even then, is placed within the realm of the Pit. It is a very loud silence on the psalmist’s part, as if he can recite the creed regarding death’s finality, but is unable to speak the corresponding glory of life (praise and thanksgiving). This silence is the atmosphere of the psalm and absence is felt everywhere. In this, I think what we see is the psalmist’s attempt to completely bracket out the light so as to fashion a petition that is utter darkness. Petition being the operative word. This is not a description. It is intended to have an effect and, as such, is a perfectly dark arrow aimed at Yhwh’s heart.