(16) Have cut me off.--Or, extinguished me. The form of the verb is very peculiar, and is variously explained. All that is certain is that it is intensive, expressing the hopeless and continued state of prostration of the sufferer. The LXX., "have frightened."

Verse 16. - Thy fierce wrath goeth over me. "Overwhelms me;" i.e. "like a fiery flood" (see above, ver. 7). Thy terrors have cut me off. A different word is used for "terrors" from that which occurs in ver. 15, and one elsewhere occurring only in Job 6:4. The verb also is one characteristic of Job (Job 6:17; 23:17), and means "extinguish," or "exterminate."

88:10-18 Departed souls may declare God's faithfulness, justice, and lovingkindness; but deceased bodies can neither receive God's favours in comfort, nor return them in praise. The psalmist resolved to continue in prayer, and the more so, because deliverance did not come speedily. Though our prayers are not soon answered, yet we must not give over praying. The greater our troubles, the more earnest and serious we should be in prayer. Nothing grieves a child of God so much as losing sight of him; nor is there any thing he so much dreads as God's casting off his soul. If the sun be clouded, that darkens the earth; but if the sun should leave the earth, what a dungeon would it be! Even those designed for God's favours, may for a time suffer his terrors. See how deep those terrors wounded the psalmist. If friends are put far from us by providences, or death, we have reason to look upon it as affliction. Such was the calamitous state of a good man. But the pleas here used were peculiarly suited to Christ. And we are not to think that the holy Jesus suffered for us only at Gethsemane and on Calvary. His whole life was labour and sorrow; he was afflicted as never man was, from his youth up. He was prepared for that death of which he tasted through life. No man could share in the sufferings by which other men were to be redeemed. All forsook him, and fled. Oftentimes, blessed Jesus, do we forsake thee; but do not forsake us, O take not thy Holy Spirit from us.Thy fierce wrath goeth over me,.... Or "wraths" (h), burning wrath; the whole of divine wrath, in all its fierceness, due to the sins of his people: these, like the mighty waves of the sea, passed over him, threatening to overwhelm him, Psalm 89:38,

thy terrors have cut me off; from the presence of God, and out of his sight; as sometimes the Lord's people are ready to imagine, when forsaken by him, Psalm 31:22 or from the land of the living, as the Messiah was, and in a judicial way, though not for any sin of his own, Isaiah 53:8.

(h) "irae tuae", Pagninus, Montanus; "furores tui", Musculus, Tigurine version.