Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 88:4

I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man [that hath] no strength:

4. He is regarded as a dying man. The pit is the grave or Sheol. Cp. Psa 28:1; Psa 143:7; Psa 22:29; Pro 1:12.

that hath no strength ] Like the feeble shadows of the dead. Or as R.V., that hath no help: cp. the cognate word in Psa 22:19, rendered in R.V., O thou my succour.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

I am counted with them that go down into the pit – I am so near to death that I may be reckoned already as among the dead. It is so manifest to others that I must die – that my disease is mortal – that they already speak of me as dead. The word pit here means the grave – the same as Sheol in the previous verse. It means properly

(1) a pit,

(2) a cistern, Gen 37:20,

(3) a prison or dungeon, Isa 24:22,

(4) the grave, Psa 28:1; Psa 30:4; Isa 38:18.

I am as a man that hath no strength – Who has no power to resist disease, no vigor of constitution remaining; who must die.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 4. I am counted with them, c.] I am as good as dead nearly destitute of life and hope.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

I am given up by my friends and acquaintance for a lost man.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

4. go . . . pitof destruction(Ps 28:1).

as a manliterally, “astout man,” whose strength is utterly gone.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

I am counted with them that go down into the pit,…. With the dead, with them that are worthy of death, with malefactors that are judicially put to death, and are not laid in a common grave, but put into a pit together: thus Christ was reckoned and accounted of by the Jews; the sanhedrim counted him worthy of death; and the common people cried out Crucify him; and they did crucify him between two malefactors; and so he was numbered or counted with transgressors, and as one of them, Isa 53:3.

I am as a man that hath no strength; for his “strength” was “dried up like a potsherd”, Ps 22:15, though he was the mighty God, and, as man, was made strong by the Lord for himself.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(4) As a man . . .Rather, like a hero whose strength is gone.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

4. I am counted I am already reckoned among the dead. The pit Another word for grave, and equal to sheol, Psa 88:3. See Psa 88:6.

As a man that hath no strength Literally, As a strong man, or warrior, without strength.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments