Psalm 88 is perhaps the most tragic psalm in all Scripture—no psalm is sadder. As one commentator writes, “This psalm is full of the dread of death as the psalmist laments his condition as one who is doomed to die.”1 Or as Matthew Henry has noted, This psalm is a lamentation, one of the most melancholy of all the psalms; and it does not conclude, as usually the melancholy psalms do, with the least intimation of comfort or joy, but, from first to last, it is mourning and woe.2 Historically, Christians