“Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.”
The isolation is total: "I am set apart with the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand." The comparison to the slain and forgotten dead suggests that the supplicant has been abandoned. The phrase "cut off from your hand" indicates separation from divine protection.
Church Fathers on Psalms 88:5
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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