Summary:
“Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: Lord, I have called daily upon Thee, I have stretched out my hands unto Thee.” The psalm expresses the deep and prolonged spiritual depression of Heman the Ezrahite, a godly man experiencing inward affliction and a sense of God’s displeasure.
1. Who is the afflicted person?
Heman was a Levite, grandson of Samuel, wise and godly, blessed with a large family and high privilege as a temple singer. Despite his piety and blessings, he endured profound spiritual darkness. His case shows that even the most faithful believers may experience deep inward sorrow. God’s dealings with His people are sovereign and not according to human patterns — sometimes the most blessed are also the most afflicted, for their humbling and sanctification.
2. What was his affliction?
Heman’s distress was primarily internal and spiritual, not caused by outward losses or sin. He felt the withdrawal of God’s favor and the weight of divine displeasure, which tormented his soul like unrelenting waves. His anguish affected his body, isolated him from friends, and lasted from his youth. Others could not understand his grief, since it was hidden within — the pain of a godly soul deprived of God’s felt presence. Such experiences reveal the depth of spiritual sensitivity: those who have known God’s nearness feel His absence most keenly.
3. What did he do in affliction?
Despite his despair, Heman persisted in prayer, turning solely to “the Lord God of my salvation.” He cried to God day and night, refusing to seek comfort in earthly blessings or human sympathy. His faith held fast, believing that the God who once saved him could yet deliver him from this distress. He pleaded that God would restore him for the sake of His own glory — that others might see God’s faithfulness and mercy in his recovery.
Though the psalm ends without visible relief, its very existence proves that Heman was secretly upheld by God. His experience later became a song of comfort for the Church, showing that God sustains His people even when they cannot feel His presence.
Applications
• Believers should not despair if they pass through deep spiritual darkness; God remains their Saviour even when He hides Himself.
• Such passages equip Christians to comfort others in affliction.
• Persistent prayer and faith are the means of endurance.
• The Lord uses affliction to humble, sanctify, and ultimately glorify His people.
• Unbelievers are reminded that only those who know the Saviour have someone to turn to in true distress.
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Main theme:
Even the holiest saints may endure overwhelming spiritual depression, yet God remains faithful. The believer’s duty in darkness is to keep praying, trusting, and waiting for the God of salvation, whose mercy will in time turn sorrow into song.
Transcript:
Let us now return to the psalm that we read, Psalm 88. And as the Lord would be pleased to help us, we will consider verse 9. Psalm 88, verse 9. Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction. Lord, I have called daily upon Thee.
I have stretched out my hands unto Thee. Here we have a man in deep distress. And it appears a man that was in a state of prolonged depression.
No doubt this experience here in the psalm is unusual. We are not to think that every child of God goes through something like this in their lifetime. But it does show the depths into which God’s children may be plunged at times.
He is overwhelmed with sorrow. Sometimes the Lord’s people fall into deep sadness and trouble and distress because of sin. They fall into great sin and therefore they fall into great sorrow.
But others may be kept from falling and yet still fall into great sorrow. Puritan Timothy Rogers wrote a book on spiritual melancholy. And he was a very godly and able minister in the 1600s.
But he fell into such darkness and depression that he was unable to preach for at least two years, if we remember correctly, when he was brought out of his depression. He preached from Psalm 30 where David says, O Lord, Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave. And he began his sermon with these words, You are looking at a man who has nearly come back from the dead.
That was how deep in distress he was. This case was known throughout England by the godly, many of them uniting in prayer that the Lord would raise up the man out of this darkness and depression. It appears that some of his family members had a similar condition.
Perhaps there was some bodily or mental infirmity that contributed to his trouble, which his family members had. But his trouble was especially spiritual, pressing him down very, very low. But the Lord brought good out of it, leading him to preach a series of sermons on spiritual melancholy and the darkness to which God’s people may go through in this world.
And it was a series of sermons that has proven to be very helpful to the Church. Now, as we said, we are not to think that God’s people, all of them, go through something of this nature. Indeed, the Bible instructs believers to be of good cheer, knowing that Christ has overcome the world.
They are to rejoice in the Lord always. And they are to be of good comfort. They have countless reasons to serve the Lord with gladness.
The Lord has covenanted with them that he will not turn away from them, to do them good. And he will work all things together for their good in conforming them to the image of his dear Son. So you might ask, then, why should we consider this? If it’s a rare experience, why should we devote a prayer meeting to consider spiritual depression? Well, one reason is the Bible tells us it is a profitable portion.
All Scripture is inspired of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. That means the Word of God, the whole Word of God, thoroughly equips you for every good work. And sometimes the people of God are called upon to counsel their brethren, to comfort their brethren when they are in distress and affliction and trouble.
And they learn how to counsel their afflicted brethren by considering portions like these. So even if you are not in this condition tonight, you should still ponder it, consider it, meditate upon it. You might need it yourself one day.
Or perhaps a loved one will be going through something like what Heman is going through here. And you’ll need the instruction of Heman to help that loved one or that Christian brother or Christian sister. And if you’re not one of the Lord’s people, well, you can at least take this away with you tonight.
Heman has someone to go to when he’s in an ocean of troubles and sorrows. You see, when someone in the world falls into this degree of depression or trouble, they don’t have anyone to go to. People around them don’t have any answers for them.
But if the godly fall into the depths like these in the psalm, they do have someone to go to. You see that with Heman here. He starts off his prayer saying, O Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before Thee.
We like to look in the first place at who is this afflicted person? That’s the first question we’d like to answer. Who is this afflicted person? And then secondly, what exactly is his affliction? That’s the second question we want to answer. What is his affliction? What is troubling him so much? And then thirdly and most importantly, what did he do in this deep sorrow and distress? What did he do? Well, firstly, let us look at the question, who is this afflicted person? Then secondly, what was his affliction? And thirdly, what did he do in this affliction? Well, firstly, let us consider, who is this afflicted person? We are told that his name is Heman the Ezraite, probably related to the author of the following psalm, written by Ethan the Ezraite.
And the various commentators point out that Heman was a grandson of Samuel. We find Heman’s genealogy in 1 Chronicles 6. And we read there that he is the son of Joel, who was the son of Shemuel, or Samuel, who was the son of Elkanah, Samuel’s father. So this man was the grandson of Samuel, though sadly his father Joel, the firstborn of Samuel, was not a godly man, at least not for much of his life, because we are told that Samuel’s sons did not walk in his ways.
They took bribes and perverted judgment. Perhaps Joel later on repented, we don’t know. But Heman was his son, and he is a Levite.
We know that from the genealogy again in 1 Chronicles 6. Samuel and Joel and Heman were Levites, but Heman was called an Ezraite because he lived amongst a family in Judah called the Zarhites, descendants of Zerah, one of Judah’s sons. And so Levites, since they were scattered all throughout Israel in order to teach the people, they would often become identified with a particular family within one of the tribes. And that is why Heman and Ethan were called Ezraites.
They lived amongst a family in Judah. Now this man was highly favored and privileged. He was a Levite, so it was his privilege to minister about the tabernacle, perhaps also to teach the people, and we’re told expressly that he was one of the singers, one of the lead singers at the temple.
And it was his unspeakable privilege to be leading the praises there at the temple in the place of public worship. And not only did he have this very favored position, we are told that he was blessed in his own household. We are told in another chapter in Chronicles that God gave him 14 sons and three daughters.
And so he was a very blessed man, highly favored man, and not only blessed with many children, but also blessed with great wisdom. Solomon is compared to Heman, the Ezraite, for wisdom. And it was Solomon’s glory that he excelled even the wisdom of Heman, the Ezraite.
So he was a man of great knowledge, especially knowledge in spiritual things. No doubt he had much of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. And so here we have, you might say, a deepening mystery.
It’s not just an ordinary believer here, but it’s not just a believer, a sincere believer, but we have here an extraordinary believer, one who is extraordinarily gifted, and we have every reason to believe was eminent in godliness. He was a holy man of God who spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, as the Apostle Peter says, of all the Old Testament writers. And we’re left in no doubt then about his spiritual state.
It’s not like he was a hypocrite, and that’s why he was in such distress, finding out that he had been deceiving himself his whole life, and that’s why he’s in distress. Far from it. We see faith alive and well in this psalm, which we will consider later on.
Nor are we given any reason to believe that he had fallen into great sin. As David fell into great sorrow after his sin, he spoke about all his bones being broken in Psalm 51, but we’re told there that it was written on occasion of his great sin and having been brought to repentance through the ministry of Nathan the prophet. But there’s no such inscription here, that Heman had done something sinful.
Nor are we given any reason to believe that Heman was hiding something, was hiding his sin. He wasn’t confessing a certain sin. That was the source of David’s grief in Psalm 32.
He says, his bones waxed old through his roaring all the day long, and when he concealed his sin, when he wasn’t confessing his sin. But we have nothing of the sort here. In fact, commentators do not even agree that it can be classified as a penitential psalm.
A penitential psalm is one expressing godly soil for sin or repentance, true gracious repentance, such as Psalm 25, Psalm 32, and Psalm 51. These are known as penitential psalms. They’re expressing their repentance.
But this is not the nature of Psalm 88. And when we look at all these things, then the mystery deepens about Heman. He’s not a hypocrite.
He’s not falling into great sin. He’s not concealing a sin. He’s an exercised man.
He’s a very godly man. And yet, here he is in great depths. Such a blessed man, so many children, privileged place in the temple, such a wise man, blessed with wisdom from above, and yet so afflicted.
Why is that? Well, one reason is the Lord is sovereign in the way that he deals with his children. He’s not bound himself to deal, as it were, by a formula. He will dole out so much mercy and affliction to people of this degree of godliness.
And if they have more godliness, then he’ll give them more mercy and less affliction. God has not tied himself to dealing with his children in that way. He is sovereign.
That’s what Job had to learn in his affliction, though he couldn’t turn to any of the other saints and see his case in them. He couldn’t point to any godly person alive in his time or before him who had been afflicted as much as him. And this was very perplexing to him.
But as the Lord made very clear by the end of the book of Job, God is absolutely sovereign over his creatures. He does not have to give an account of his dealings to any. And that does not mean that God is arbitrary and cruel.
God had a gracious and wise and holy and good purpose in afflicting both Heman and Job. But from one point of view, we can say that perhaps one reason Heman was so afflicted was because he was so blessed. He had such wisdom from above, such knowledge, so many children, so many blessings, that the Lord saw that to keep him humble, he had to go through this deep internal affliction.
And that was another thing that made his affliction so mysterious, that it was internal. We’ll speak more of that later. Just notice here, this very godly man, so deeply afflicted, brought down into the depths, saying, Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.
Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah. Now someone listening to this might be ready to say, Well, at least Heman had all those other blessings to balance out his sorrows.
I don’t even have that. I don’t have near the blessings that Heman had in his own life. I can relate somewhat to the sorrows of Heman, but I can’t relate at all to his blessings.
Well, if Heman were here today, what he would say to you is this, Yes, I had many, many blessings. So much so that my cup ran over with them. But I have to tell you this.
If the Lord puts into your cup just one drop of his displeasure, it dries up all those comforts. And you can’t take any comfort or encouragement from all those blessings when you have a sense of his wrath in your soul. We see here how the Lord has his own way of sanctifying and trying his people.
And now we come to the second question. What exactly was his affliction? What was his affliction in the second place? And it was unique in that it was so internal and so secret, so hidden. At least the core part of his affliction was all in his soul.
He says, My soul is full of troubles. Not that my soul has some troubles in it, but my soul is full of them. And this is what made it so difficult for people to sympathize with him.
They couldn’t understand what his problem was. If he had lost all his children, like Job, well then they could understand why he is in the depths. It’s no wonder you’re in the depths, Heman.
You’ve gone through what Job went through when he lost all his children. We can see from the Lord taking away all your dear children that this would be crushing to you. But that wasn’t the issue.
Or if he had lost his position as a Levite, if he had been falsely accused and removed from office, then the godly could have gathered around him and said, Well, Heman, be of good comfort. Reproach and persecution is something that many of God’s people have to go through. And the Lord will vindicate you at last.
Just wait patiently on him. We can understand why you are so distressed. False accusation laid against you.
No wonder you who love holiness and to be accused of great wickedness must be very, very distressing to your spirit. But that wasn’t the problem with Heman. Nor was it that he lost all his possessions, lost all his money.
That wasn’t the issue. If that had happened, again, he would have found sympathizers. We can readily understand why you are troubled, Heman.
We see the loss that you’ve experienced. It’s right there before our very eyes. But no, it was something altogether different.
It was spiritual trouble. Great, great spiritual trouble. And since they couldn’t enter into his soul, they couldn’t really diagnose the problem or really fully appreciate the distress that he was in.
No doubt some would be ready to tell him, Heman, you’re being unthankful. Look at all your blessings. You should not be like this at all.
You have all these children. You’re a Levite. You’re a singer.
You have all this wisdom. And you’re being very unthankful in the way you’re acting. But Heman would have to say, if only you could look into my soul.
If only you could have for just a minute of my experience of the Lord’s displeasure in my soul. And that’s what we have to remember as believers. We are to weep with them that weep, to rejoice with them that rejoice.
And sometimes we have to weep with those who are weeping over things that we cannot really understand. They have spiritual sorrows that we cannot really understand. We’ve never gone through anything like it.
It was an internal affliction. Someone who didn’t know Heman, looking on from a distance, would say, what a happy man, what a blessed man. He doesn’t have any of the trials I have.
I wish I had his life. Looking on from afar, many of the Lord’s people would be tempted to be envious of Heman. Ah, but not if they got a glimpse into his soul.
Then they would realize, no, he’s going through something I’ve never gone through. I could put all my troubles and distresses of my whole lifetime together, and it still wouldn’t weigh as heavily as the trouble and distress that Heman is in. It was also a very prolonged affliction, very, very prolonged distress or depression, because he says, I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up.
While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. Almost as if he could hardly think straight. He felt as if he was about to lose his mind.
He was in that kind of distress. And he says, this has been going on from my youth until now. It was an affliction that began to cost him his physical health.
His spiritual distress was so great it was taking a toll on his body. He says, I am counted with them that, rather, verse 3, my soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. As John Owen says, we’ve quoted it before, John Owen says, the body and soul grip each other so tightly that they leave impressions on each other.
When the soul is under great, great distress, it can affect the body. And in Heman’s case, it was affecting his body so greatly that he’s saying, I am counted with them that go down into the pit. People were visiting him or seeing him, and they were saying, he’ll never get out of this.
He’s going to die like this. We’ve never seen anyone sink so low and come back from it. He’s reached the end of his life.
And the affliction was a sense of God’s wrath, as we said. And it was as if he was being tossed violently by a sense of God’s wrath. He says, thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves.
We’ve likely all seen videos or clips of ships at sea during a heavy storm. Maybe we’ve been in a boat or a ferry or a ship when the waters were very rough, and you appreciate how much labor and skill is necessary for the captain to navigate the boat or the ferry when the waves are coming at the boat one after another. It’s like taking all their effort and all their concentration just to get over the next wave.
And that’s the figure or the metaphor that Heman is using to describe that sense of displeasure in his own soul. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. And we ought to point out here that this is actually a sign that Heman has grace.
The fact that he’s so affected by the absence of God’s favor that to him it’s like bearing the wrath of God, being hit with one wave after another. You see, sometimes when the Lord brings a soul so near to himself and reveals so much of his glory and beauty to the soul, it’s so sweet to the soul that when they lose that sweet presence, it’s agony. And we believe the reason why Heman so keenly felt an absence of God’s favor is because he enjoyed so much of God’s favor in the past.
If a lukewarm believer or believer who maybe had been following the Lord somewhat at a distance all his life, not knowing much of the Lord’s sweet presence, wouldn’t really feel so much the loss of his presence. And certainly a worldly person who just wants to forget God wouldn’t be able to relate to this experience at all. He puts God out of his thoughts.
He throws himself into earthly pleasures, earthly pursuits. He says, let me eat and drink, for tomorrow I die. Tomorrow shall be as this day and much more abundant.
I was eating and drinking and making merry and pursuing the pleasures of sin today. Oh, how much pleasure I had! And tomorrow will be like this day and much more abundant. They know nothing of a sense of God’s displeasure in their souls.
They’re so drunk with the pleasures of this world. And there was a distress that was so deep and so intense that all his acquaintances were removed and stood afar off from him. He mentions this twice.
Thou hast put away mine acquaintances far from me. Thou hast made me an abomination unto them. I am shut up and I cannot come forth.
People found this so mysterious that they didn’t even want to be near him. And he was in such distress that he says, I am shut up. I cannot go forth.
I cannot go out into the public. Lover and friend, hast thou put far from me and mine acquaintance into darkness. Now let us look thirdly at the question, what did he do in this affliction? What did he do? We see first and foremost that he turned to prayer.
And he looked to the Lord God alone in that prayer. He looked away from every other creature. He looked away from his wisdom.
He looked away from his family comforts. He looked away from the honors and privileges of his office. He says, I’m not going to seek relief from my spiritual distress by just immersing myself in family comforts, by thinking about how privileged and honored I am, by taking pride in the fact that I am wiser than most people.
I must look away from all that. That will only continue a sense of God’s displeasure if I look to any of these things. I must turn away from all these things.
And I must go to the Lord in prayer, saying, O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee. Here’s the faith. He’s looking to the Lord God of his salvation, the Lord God who has salvation, the Lord who has already saved him from the wrath to come, from the condemnation of the law.
And he’s saying, O Lord, thou hast saved me from the lowest hell already, and thou art also able to save me out of this deep distress. Thou hast delivered me from so great a death. Thou hast delivered me from so great an affliction as this one.
And he’s no doubt looking to the blood of Christ ultimately, when he says, O Lord God of my salvation, there is forgiveness with thee, there is salvation with thee. I can still lay hold upon thee and say, Lord God of my salvation, because even though thy wrath, it lies hard on me, and thou art afflicting me with all thy waves, yet in Christ I may still lay hold upon thee. In Christ I may still lay hold upon thy salvation.
I was unable to lay hold upon it when I was born again, and I will lay hold upon it now when I am in deep distress and affliction. And you see his persistence. I have cried day and night before thee, and again in verse 13, unto thee have I cried, O Lord, and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.
If thou wilt not hear me tonight and relieve me from my distress tonight, then in the morning, if I am spared, I will pray unto thee again. That has to be the resolve of the soul when it is in darkness. I will go to the Lord at the throne of grace tonight, and if he continues to hide his face from me, I will still go on seeking him, because he has promised they that seek shall find.
I said not unto the seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain. And while this hiding of his face has been going on for such a long time, to whom else shall I go? Who else can deliver me from this distress? My lover and friends, they’ve looked upon me in my distress. They find themselves so unable to help me that they stand far off from me.
To whom shall I go but to a God that is hiding himself, because it’s with him alone there is salvation. So you see here is faith and exercise, and this is often the effect of deep affliction and distress in the case of the child of God, maybe not as deep as this one. And they may try this thing and that thing to find relief in their afflictions.
They may turn aside to some hobby or some project or some lawful comfort. They may even try the forbidden pleasures of sin, seeking relief in these things. But it’s all useless, they find.
And eventually they say there’s no other person I can go to but to the Lord Jesus Christ. Though he’s hiding his face from me, though he seems to be turning a deaf ear to me, to whom shall I go? He has the words of eternal life. And then he begins to plead the glory of the Lord’s name.
And this is a very powerful plea and one that ought to be very encouraging to the child of God walking in darkness. He says, Lord, I have called daily upon thee. I have stretched out mine hands unto thee.
There is his persistence in prayer. But then he goes on to say, Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? He’s not saying that he’s going to go to the underworld. He’s going to go to a place where it’s the place of the dead and the soul is asleep and it’s not conscious of anything.
That’s not what he’s saying at all. He’s saying, shall the dead arise and praise thee on the earth? In other words, how would it be for thy glory if I went into eternity like this? If I even went to heaven like this? So low, so devoid of comfort, so afflicted, so distressed to such a degree that all my friends have fled from me. At the moment of death, my soul would immediately be filled with joy unspeakable.
All my troubles would flee away immediately. But nobody would see that. Nobody on earth, that is, would see that.
And it is my desire that the Lord would be glorified on the earth, glorified in my deliverance from this great affliction and distress and sorrow. When they see me lifted up and delivered completely out of this sadness and trouble and affliction, they will say, what mercy there is in God. What a comforting God he is.
Truly, he is the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. If he can comfort someone like Heman, he can comfort anyone, no matter how distressed or depressed or prolonged their trouble has been. They see Heman in the temple again, praising the Lord with joy.
They will get fresh evidence of the Lord’s faithfulness to his people. Ah, yes, he really is faithful to his covenant. When he said, I will not turn away from my people to do them good, we were starting to wonder if he does turn away from his people at times.
When we saw this godly man in such prolonged distress and trouble, so devoid of comfort for such a long time, we were beginning to wonder, has the Lord turned away from one of his people to do them good? But no, we see him here in the temple again. Yes, he is recovered to such an extent that he can put his whole experience on record for the comfort and the instruction of the church to the end of time. As David Dixon says in his commentary on this psalm, he says, in that Heman ends the psalm without any comfort for the time, it makes this psalm no less comfortable than any other psalm, because it shows he was supported insensibly for the time.
The fact that he survived to be able to write down his experience shows that he was being supported, though he wasn’t sensible of it. He was being supported in that deep ocean. And it shows also that he had comfort given to him thereafter, so much comfort as to make this sad complaint to be turned into a song, both to himself and to the church.
He could later sing about his experience in a way of praising the Lord. He could write it down by inspiration. He could look at it and say, though it’s the product of the Holy Spirit, it is also my own personal experience.
And now I can actually sing it in the temple. It doesn’t awaken any sad remembrances or recollections. No, I actually can sing about my experience with joy, because I found in that experience the Lord God really is a saving God, saving not just from the guilt and condemnation of the law, but saving the soul out of every distress and trouble.
Yes, he is this day the Lord God of my salvation. Well, then we certainly learn lessons for ourselves about seeking the Lord, whether we’re converted or not. You’re to seek the Lord until you find him.
You might say, I tried seeking the Lord some time ago and nothing happened. Well, there’s a sense in which Heman could relate to you. He could say, yes, from my youth up I felt like that, afflicted and ready to die from my youth up, but I went on seeking him and I found him.
And I found him as a father of mercies. I found him to be a God of all comfort. And you go on seeking him in Jesus Christ and you will find him and you will taste of the same comforts that I tasted after being brought out of my trouble.
And you will get a little taste of that joy that I’m having to an unspeakable degree now here in glory. Let us take up this prayer. Lord, I have called daily upon thee.
I have stretched out my hands unto thee. May the Lord bless his word to us.
Speaker: Rev Caleb J Hembd
Congregation Gisborne
Text: Psalm 88:9
Date: 23 July 2025
Series: