"darkness is my only friend"
Ps. 88:19
Today’s psalm seems appropriate for this time on the Jewish calendar - midway through the Nine Days that lead into the Ninth of Av - the saddest day of the Jewish year.
Psalm 88, in the words of Martin Marty, a professor of church history at the University of Chicago, is “a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness”.
This dark psalm of despair is the only one authored by someone called Heyman the Ezrahite, identified by most scholars as one of David’s court musicians, possibly from the Korach clan of bards. Whoever this poet was - he does seem to be very happy. The chapter chronicles isolation and deep grief, with prayer being the only tool for the trauma to be somehow voiced, and maybe, somehow, held with care.
How many of us have been through these dark nights of the soul?
During these difficult days of ongoing war and so little hope on the horizon - how can we keep the candle of hope burning as the darkness threatens to drown out any ray of light?
This deep sadness is not a sentiment we often share with others or publicly display. What’s powerful in this psalm is the raw and relentless vulnerability. The poet does not soften any blows. Life is rough for him for reasons we don’t know, and from his perspective - he ends up alone in the darkness. After many verses of bitter bile the psalm ends with this enigmatic verse, and no happy end in sight:
הִרְחַ֣קְתָּ מִ֭מֶּנִּי אֹהֵ֣ב וָרֵ֑עַ מְֽיֻדָּעַ֥י מַחְשָֽׁךְ׃
Friend and companion you have placed far from me, my acquaintances are in darkness.
Ps. 88:19
What does it mean that one’s friends are in darkness? Other translations render this odd Hebrew words - “my loved ones are out of sight.”
Robert Alter’s version is also different, and even darker. He translated it as:
“You distanced lover and neighbor from me. My friends--utter darkness.”
Alter explains his choice to translate ‘utter darkness’ -
“Utter” is added in the translation for the sake of intelligibility. This abrupt statement, just two words in the Hebrew, closes the poem on the theme of darkness that has dominated it throughout. The sense is either that the speaker’s friends, because they have rejected him and withdrawn their presence from him, are nothing but darkness to him, or that now the only “friend” he has left is darkness.”
Sitting in the dark, feeling isolated, is a terrible feeling and tragically the fate of so many of us at some point or another in our lives.
How do we overcome this loneliness and help others do so? Can there be ways to reframe this pain as a heroic path towards growth and transformation?
Carson Weitnauer brings his Evangelical Christian perspective on his website Uncommon Pursuit as he imagines this psalm’s author as an unlikely hero - showing us the way into and out of the dark:
“Heman the Ezrahite is my hero.
He might be the most ignored contributor to the Bible. But his perspective is also one of the most courageous, honest, and essential.
..We like inspirational endings. Heman concludes his desperate prayer: "Darkness is my only friend."
..Others celebrate his persistence in prayer. But how plainly can he tell us that he sees no light at the end of the tunnel? His last words express defeat: "Darkness is my only friend." Have you ever heard a hungry dog barking through the night? The constant wailing for food isn't impressive; it's heartbreaking.
As I meditate on Psalm 88, it's hard to feel hope. The emotional tone of this prayer is angry, bitter, caustic, disappointed, exhausted, frustrated, grieving, and hopeless. From A to Z, Heman vomits his bile in God's face.
It's the prayer of a man covered in rubble, buried underground, gasping for air, writhing in pain, and waiting to die alone. Let's be candid: not everyone makes it out alive. Heman isn't sure there will ever be good times for him: not now, not ever.
Suffering is uncomfortable to witness. It's easier to run to good news. "Here, this will make it better." It's trying to fix a heart attack with a bandaid.
But sometimes, we need to sit in total darkness with Heman.
..I've had my journey into the valley. Heman helped me feel, in my gut, that I was not alone. And if God put Heman's prayer in the Bible, it gave me confidence that God would hear me, too.”
For those, like the poet of this psalm or the faithful readers who find solace even in the darkest valleys - there is the gift of God’s response as possible redemption. And for those of us on the God-optional side of life - can there be kindness in the dark in the form of friendly reminders that we are never alone, that even when it feels like there’s nobody there - we have agency, resilience, and the ability to find solace in our soul, and somehow, make our way through yet another night, with patience, and persistence. Light in on the way.
And there’s always the gift of music to help us rise: Hello darkness my old friend.
Hang in there, friends. Come what may, we’re somehow in this together.
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