Depression and despair

But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee. LORD, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.

The one psalm that ends in darkness. The writer prays every morning and gets nothing back, and the last word of the poem is darkness. There is no turn to praise at the end, and the book keeps it that way.

But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

Days after his greatest public victory Elijah walks into the desert and asks to die. What comes first is not an argument or a rebuke: he is allowed to sleep, then woken twice and fed, because the journey ahead is too long for him.

Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters. For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

Job's first speech after a week of sitting in silence. He asks why light is given to people in misery, says those who long for death dig for it harder than for buried treasure, and admits that the thing he most feared has arrived.

Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide; Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

A prophet curses the day he was born and says his mother's womb should have been his grave. It stands in the same chapter as a song of praise, and the book leaves both on the page without reconciling them.

How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.

Four short lines that ask how long four times over, addressed to a God the writer says has forgotten him and hidden his face. The complaint itself is the prayer, spoken before anything has changed.

I AM the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day. My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones. He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail. He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.

Written after Jerusalem fell. The speaker says God led him into darkness rather than light, wore out his flesh, broke his bones and set him in dark places among the long dead. The famous line about mercies being new comes twenty verses later.

Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.

A sleepless man asks whether the Lord has cast him off for good, whether the mercy is gone for ever, whether God has forgotten to be gracious. The questions are left standing. What the psalm reaches for next is old memory, not an answer.

For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:

Paul tells a church about trouble in Asia that pressed him beyond his strength until he despaired of life itself and carried a death sentence inside him. He never says what the trouble was, and he does not treat the despair as a failure.