Psalm 88:10

Psalm 88:10

The place of the departed

What a curious verse? Two questions are directed here to the Lord God and it’s a job to know if the one who seeks answers is being serious or sarcastic! 

Psalm 6:5 states, “Among the dead no one proclaims Your name. Who praises you from the grave?” And Psalm 115:17 says, “It is not the dead who praise the Lord, those who go down to the place of silence.” I think that the Psalm writer who wrote today’s verse is simply stating fact; the realm of the dead is a place of darkness and emptiness. There is no direct light there. There is no sound there. There is no experience of life and energy, and the created beauty of earth is unseen and unknown. No spirits rise up. No lips utter praise, no heart beats with joy and wonder, no soul reaches out to its creator. The place of the departed spirits is dull, monotonous, gloomy, completely without life, it is lonely and silent. No one would ever wish to go there, and no one will ever return.

Jesus visited that place. He experienced its horrors. He saw the effect on countless souls, and He was unable to help them. That was part of the terror of death, that He must go to the place of the departed ones and experience their empty existence as they await the judgement of God. No spirit will ever rise up from that place to praise the Lord and no man or woman who is entrapped there will ever return to the joyful wonders of this earth or witness the glories of heaven. Only one man was able to rise up from Sheol, to leave it and return to earth and then go on to His heavenly inheritance with God. It is through Him and in Him that we are saved from those horrors and are able to anticipate the joys that lie before us. Hallelujah

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