Heman the Ezrahite (Hebrew:הֵימָן הָאֶזְרָחִיHēmān hā’Ezrāḥī) is the author ofPsalm 88 in theHebrew Bible, according to the Psalm's colophon.
B. Bava Batra connects the name Heman to thesemitic rootאמנ (ʔ-m-n) meaning "trusted",[1] whileCYDA speculates it is fromנתן (n-t-n) and means "given".[2] It is found sixteen times in theNew International Version of the Bible.[3] The ethnonym is sometimes understood to mean "ofZerah", with thealeph prosthetic,[4] to mean "of Ezrah", or alternatively "the native", who founded a tradition of bards.[5]
Heman the Ezrahite may be one of the threeLevites assigned by KingDavid to be ministers of music. This Heman was a grandson ofSamuel the prophet.[6] Henan is mentioned as "the king's seer in the words of God" and as father to fourteen sons and three daughters.[7]
Psalm 88 seems to have been written in a state of despair. According to Martin Marty, a professor of church history at the University of Chicago, Psalm 88 is “a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness”.
Nevertheless, the appeal to God in Psalm 88 begins with the following expression of faith: "O Yahweh, God of my salvation!" Three times (vss. 1, 9, and 13) the psalmist calls on the name of Yahweh. The psalmist accompanies each invocation with a reference to his perseverance in prayer. For example, in verse nine he declares, "I call on you, O Yahweh, every day".[8]
Madeleine L'Engle, in her collectionA Cry Like a Bell, wrote a poem called "Herman the Ezragite: Psalm 88:18".[9] In it, she imagines the feelings of Heman (Herman) that led him to write Psalm 88.
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