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Your fierce wrath has gone over me. Your terrors have cut me off.
Psalms 88:16 · World English Bible
Parallel translations
  • KJV Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.
  • BSB Your wrath has swept over me; Your terrors have destroyed me.
  • NKJV Your fierce wrath has gone over me; Your terrors have cut me off.
  • NASB Your burning anger has passed over me; Your terrors have destroyed me.
  • NLT Your fierce anger has overwhelmed me. Your terrors have paralyzed me.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Quick answer

God's fierce wrath has swept over him and His terrors have cut him off. He feels overwhelmed by divine judgment.

Overview

Heman again describes being engulfed by God's wrath and terrors, feeling severed from comfort. The relentless imagery conveys unrelieved distress. This experience of overwhelming wrath finds its ultimate answer in Christ, who absorbed the wrath that would otherwise cut off His people.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 11

  • Rev 6:17for the great day of his wrath has come; and who is able to stand?”
  • Dan 9:26After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One shall be cut off, and shall have nothing: and the people of the prince who shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and its end shall be with a flood, and even to the end shall be war; desolations are determined.
  • Gal 3:13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,”
  • Ps 90:7For we are consumed in your anger. We are troubled in your wrath.
  • Ps 89:46How long, Yahweh? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire?
  • Rom 8:32He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?
  • Ps 102:10Because of your indignation and your wrath, for you have taken me up, and thrown me away.
  • Ps 90:11Who knows the power of your anger, your wrath according to the fear that is due to you?
  • Isa 53:4–6Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
  • Isa 53:8He was taken away by oppression and judgment; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?
  • Ps 38:1–2A Psalm by David, for a memorial. Yahweh, don’t rebuke me in your wrath, neither chasten me in your hot displeasure.

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Psalms videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Psalms 88:16YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on PsalmsMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.

How Psalms 88:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Original language

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.