Well, Heman’s last word may be "darkness,” but it does not have to be the last word for us. If we do not repent of sin and come to God through faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ, the darkness of death, hell and judgment is all we can anticipate. However, if we believe the gospel and receive Jesus as our Savior, not only is the future changed from darkness to brightness and from death to life, the past is changed.
Not only are the dead silent, since they are unable to rise up and make God's wonders known. God is also silent toward them, so far as the psalmist knows (vv. 13, 14). One reason why he feels so close to death, "as good as dead,” we might say, is that God is not speaking to him now. He tries to speak to God; he is praying. But God rejects him and seems to hide his face. Have you ever felt like that? I am sure you have. Most of us have times when the heavens seem made of brass and the prayers we throw upward fall back upon our heads unanswered. When that happens it is no wonder that we feel dead or almost dead spiritually. If "man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4; from Deut. 8:3), it is no surprise that we feel nearly dead when God is silent.
I used the word "darkness” to describe the tone of the last stanza, but the word actually occurs for the first time in verse 6, in a stanza that takes us even further into the abyss. What makes this darkness so dark and this stanza so depressing is that here God is thought of as having caused the psalmist's problems. In verse 1 the writer called God the one “who saves me.” In verses 3-5 he described his actual, present state. But here, in verses 6-9a, he says, contrary to his opening statement, that God is the cause of his misery.
The only hopeful line in this prayer is the first, which reads, "O LORD, the God who saves me.” This is not to be dismissed lightly, for no person who knows that God is his Savior can ever utterly despair. However, the line is used as a mere address, a designation, and the psalm immediately passes to the fact that the writer has been crying to God "day and night," that is, unrelentingly and (as becomes apparent very quickly) without an answer. The writer has also been calling to God for a very long time—he has been afflicted from his youth (v. 15)—but God has not removed the cause of his suffering.
The powerful, descriptive phrase "dark night of the soul" is not much used today, but it was in the Middle Ages where it is found in the writings of the European mystics. It is a translation of the title of a book by the Spanish monk St. John of the Cross, known in English as The Ascent of Mount Carmel (1578-1580). What is the dark night of the soul? It is a state of intense spiritual anguish in which the struggling, despairing believer feels he is abandoned by God. This is what Psalm 88 describes.
