“They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together.”
The last verse: "They surround me like a flood all day long; from all sides they close in on me." The image of surrounding floods continues the drowning metaphor. The lack of any hopeful conclusion leaves the psalm in deep darkness, unresolved.
Church Fathers on Psalms 88:17
1. The Title of this eighty-seventh Psalm contains a fresh subject for enquiry: the words occurring here, “for Melech to respond,” being nowhere else found. We have already given our opinion on the meaning of the titles Psalmus Cantici and Canticum Psalmi: and the words, “sons of Core,” are constantly repeated, and have often been explained: so also “to the end;” but what comes next in this title is peculiar. For “Melech” we may translate into Latin “for the chorus,” for…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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