Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar and Nevim Arith Hayomim:

Psalms 88:1 (verse 1 in the Hebrew text) “A song or Psalm for the sons of Korah, to the chief Musician upon Mahalath Leannoth, Maschil of Herman the Ezrahite.”

I often challenge my Hebrew students to pick out any passage in the Old Testament, no matter how unlikely it would be that you could find some spiritual value in it and I guarantee by the end of the class you find a deep hidden spiritual truth.  Almost everyone in reading the Psalms will wonder about the strange words in the heading of some of the Psalms and shrug it off as some musical connotations and move on.  But any self respecting Yamon Ki Yesepar is going to say, “Wait a minute, this is the Word of God, every letter, word and sentence comes from God for a reason, there must be a reason for this.

Ever see the old saying on a package: “Do not open until Christmas?”   Well Psalms 88 is such a package: “Do not open until you are really in despair.”   As I said earlier, I write under the assumption that no one reads these devotionals and I am hoping and praying no one reads this one as I am going to be very very candid.  I would not even put this out on the web if it were not for such a stirring in my spirit to do so.  So if you do read this, I am praying you will understand that this is coming from deep within my spirit as I reach out to touch the heart of God and unless you are walking the same road as I am on my spiritual journey, you may not understand how I draw such comfort from this.  But, what the heck, here goes.

I was in such deep despair this morning over the spiritual warfare I have been going through.  I told God I was tired of being the good soldier, tired of trying to move forward, tired of fasting,  spending hours in the Word and in prayer and getting very little results. I was just going to my office and crawl under yon rock from whence I came and not do any study.   Suddenly I felt compelled to sit at my desk in front of that one eyed monster computer monitor and I think I actually heard the numbers 19, 8,8.  19 is the number of faith, 8 represents salvation and it also represents new beginnings.  Start a new beginning in my salvation?   Where is yon rock?    The Book of Psalms is the 19^th book in the Bible and Psalms 88 is, well you can read it for yourself.

One wonders just what spiritual value there is to this Psalm, it is filled with despair, suffering and disappointment.  It is written by a man who cries out to God and hears no answer and it ends with: “Lover and friend, hast thou put far from me, and my acquaintance into darkness.”  Not a happy note to end with.  I heard some preacher say that every Psalm may begin with despair but it ends in joy.  Not this Psalm.  What is it doing in the Bible in the first place?  It offers no hope, no encouragement.  It is the cry of man who has spent a life time praying and never hearing an answer to that prayer.

The heading of this Psalms seems to provide the answer, and in our English Bible it is not even given the dignity of being called verse one.   In the Hebrew Bible it is verse 1.  First we learn this is a song and a Psalm.  The word “or” as given in the KJV is not in there.  The word song is “sur”  which means song and the root word for Psalm is “zamar” which also means “song.”  Yet  “sur” is a song of peace, joy, and celebrating the power of God.  Zamar is a song of praise that comes when one is involved with God.   We find that this is written by Heman the Ezrahite.  We find in I Kings 4:31 that Heman was a man whose wisdom was on par with that of Solomon.  We learn from Jewish literature that Heman was a gifted musician and vocalist.  He was also a leper.  From this Psalm we learn he developed his leprosy as a young man such that he never knew the touch of a woman, the joy of playing with friends, the satisfaction of sharing his talents before a congregation.  Instead he was doomed to a life of solitude, living in poverty, shunned by all.  Yet, this Psalm was written as a praise to God.  It was given to the sons of Korah, who made up the temple choir and to the chief musician.  It was given “upon” Mahalath.  Some say “mahalath” is a musical instrument.  No translation is really given in the English for this word.  It is uncertain if the root word is “chalah” which means to be exhausted, diseased, weak, feeble and afflicted, or it comes from “kul” which means to be in pain, to tremble or shake.”  Either way it was given to the choir and it’s director in great distress.  The next word is leannoth which comes from the root word “’anah” which means to be humbled by affliction. This word is a piel infinitive, he has been humbled like no other man.  The next word is Maschil which comes from the root word “shacal’ which means to prosper, and to understand.  This word is in a Hiphil participle.  In other words it has caused him to understand.

Here is the picture, Heman is a diseased, broken, poverty stricken beggar, he has called out to God all his life to be healed, but he was never healed.  Yet, God did do a great healing in him, He healed his soul.  Although God gave him a beautiful voice, he was not allowed to sing in the temple because of his affliction, but he could sing on the street corner and if Jewish literature is correct, that is what he did.  He stood on the street corner a dying, broken, poverty stricken man, never knowing the love of a woman, the joy of having children, celebrating with friends, but He had God and to God he could share the deep hurt of his heart in complete humility and in sharing the deep hurt and pain in his heart to God, this purity in honesty, opened God’s heart to his so that he was caused to understand,  to understand that his suffering brought him to the point of humility so that he could know God’s heart.

Heman is still singing on that street corner today.  Do you hear him.  I do.  I hear him singing a joyful song of praise and worship.  I see him winking at me as saying: “You think you got it rough, check me out and yet I can praise and worship God. So what’s wrong with you?”    “Nothing, Heman, nothings wrong with me except I have neglected to worship and praise my God.”