“I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:”
The supplicant is counted among the dead: "I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help." The identification with the dying or dead emphasizes a state of living death: still alive physically but severed from vital relationship with God and community.
Church Fathers on Psalms 88:4
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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