Limitless Word
Your wrath lies heavy upon me, And You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah
Psalms 88:7 · New King James Version
Parallel translations
  • WEB Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have afflicted me with all your waves. Selah.
  • KJV Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.
  • BSB Your wrath weighs heavily upon me; all Your waves have submerged me. Selah
  • NASB Your wrath has rested upon me, And You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah
  • NLT Your anger weighs me down; with wave after wave you have engulfed me. Interlude

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

He feels the weight of God's wrath and is afflicted by all His waves. He experiences his suffering as divine judgment.

Overview

Heman describes being overwhelmed as by crashing waves, feeling the heaviness of God's displeasure. The lament does not resolve the why, but holds it before God. This sense of wrath overwhelming the sufferer points ultimately to Christ, who bore the full waves of God's wrath so His people never will.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 12

  • Ps 42:7Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.
  • Job 6:4For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
  • Rom 2:5–9But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;
  • 1 Pet 2:24who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed.
  • Jonah 2:3For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me.
  • Rev 6:16–17They told the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb,
  • Ps 38:1A Psalm by David, for a memorial. Yahweh, don’t rebuke me in your wrath, neither chasten me in your hot displeasure.
  • Ps 102:10Because of your indignation and your wrath, for you have taken me up, and thrown me away.
  • John 3:36One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
  • Ps 32:4For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.
  • Ps 90:7For we are consumed in your anger. We are troubled in your wrath.
  • Job 10:16If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me.

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 88:7YouTube · 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 88:7 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.