Lover and friend have you put far from me, and my acquaintance into darkness.
Lover and friend have you put far from me, and my acquaintance into darkness.
Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, And mine acquaintance into darkness.
You have sent my friends and lovers far from me; I am gone from the memory of those who are dear to me.
Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and my acquaintance into darkness.
You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness. A contemplation by Ethan, the Ezrahite.
Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.
Lover and friend - I have no comfort, and neither friend nor neiphbour to sympathize with me.
Mine acquaintance into darkness - All have forsaken me; or מידעי מחשך meyuddai machsach, "Darkness is my companion." Perhaps he may refer to the death of his acquaintances; all were gone; there was none left to console him! That man has a dismal lot who has outlived all his old friends and acquaintances; well may such complain. In the removal of their friends they see little else than the triumphs of death. Khosroo, an eminent Persian poet, handles this painful subject with great delicacy and beauty in the following lines: -
Ruftem sauee khuteereh bekerestem bezar
Az Hijereh Doostan ke aseer fana shudend:
Guftem Eeshah Kuja shudend? ve Khatyr
Dad az sada jouab Eeshan Kuja!
"Weeping, I passed the place where lay my friends
Captured by death; in accents wild Icried,
Where are they? And stern Fate, by Echoes voice,
Returned in solemn sound the sad Where are they?"
J. B. C.
Lover and friend hast thou put far from me - That is, Thou hast so afflicted me that they have forsaken me. Those who professed to love me, and whom I loved - those whom I regarded as my friends, and who seemed to be my friends - are now wholly turned away from me, and I am left to suffer alone. See the notes at Psalm 88:8.
And mine acquaintance into darkness - The Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate render this, "my acquaintance from my misery." Luther, "Thou hast caused my friends and neighbors, and my kindred, to separate themselves far from me, on account of such misery." The literal rendering would be, my acquaintances are darkness. This may mean either that they had so turned away that he could not see them, as if they were in the dark; or, that his familiars now - his companions - were dark and dismal objects - gloomy thoughts - sad forebodings. Perhaps the whole might be translated, "Far away from me hast thou put lover and friend - my acquaintances! All is darkness!" That is, When I think of any of them, all is darkness, sadness. My friends are not to be seen. They have vanished. I see no friends; I see only darkness and gloom. All have gone, leaving me alone in this condition of unpitied sorrow! This completes the picture of the suffering man; a man to whom all was dark, and who could find no consolation anywhere - in God; in his friends; in the grave; in the prospect of the future. There are such cases; and it was well that there was one such description in the sacred Scriptures of a good man thus suffering - to show us that when we thus feel, it should not be regarded as proof that we have no piety. Beneath all this, there may be true love to God; beyond all this, there may be a bright world to which the sufferer will come, and where he will forever dwell.