Ps. 88.6-7 (no matter the medium)

You have put me / at the bottom of the Pit
down in the utter darkness / of the depths.
Your wrath / has come down on me
you have squashed me / with all your waves. 

In our previous reflection we noted how the psalmist’s complaint is a complete inversion of goodness. As he approaches Sheol everything he lacks on earth is being provided him, but in complete mockery: he is alone on earth, but heading toward a community of the dead; he is empty on earth, but ‘sated’ as he heads toward Sheol; he is ‘closed in and can’t get out’ on earth, but “set free” in the land of death. Here, there emerges a similar, profoundly disturbing reversal: God is here portrayed as the agent of the psalmist’s destruction seven times, five in verses 6-8 and two in verse 16. We therefore have a carefully constructed ‘perfection of wrath’. The psalmist is haunted by this perfection, this sense of God’s being utterly against him. Here, the images congregate around images of ‘descent’ and ‘crushing’. He is not being simply ‘reduced to the dust of the earth’ nor is he only being ‘put in Sheol’ or ‘in darkness’, but put “at the bottom of the Pit”, and “in utter darkness”. His descent is not partial; it is total (the bottom, utter darkness). The perfection of wrath ( x 7 ) is matched by the totality of the psalmist’s destruction (the form is matched by the substance). The succeeding image seems to indicate a type of progression. First, the psalmist is put ‘in a (the) Pit’ and then God’s water-wrath inundates him. The drama moves from one of a terrifying absence (utter darkness, as if in some cavern) to being completely (and suffocatingly) surrounded. Again, we find this traumatic oscillation between images of terrifying totality. No matter what medium he is in (air or water), it is a medium-of-fear, and it is a fear that is from Yhwh.