In current research when one thinks of the situational context, or Sitz im Leben, to which a psalm refers, one normally thinks of the institutional or cultic context. While this interest is legitimate and has contributed to our understanding, it has overshadowed a more direct reference of the lament psalms themselves, namely the distresses from which the psalmists seek release. By the ‘distress’ of a psalm I simply mean that particular hardship which a lament psalm laments, or one may say, that particular