Are your wonderful deeds of any use to the dead? Do the dead rise up and praise you? Interlude
Parallel translations
- WEB Do you show wonders to the dead? Do the departed spirits rise up and praise you? Selah.
- KJV Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.
- BSB Do You work wonders for the dead? Do departed spirits rise up to praise You? Selah
- NKJV Will You work wonders for the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise You? Selah
- NASB ¶Will You perform wonders for the dead? Or will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah
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 asks whether God works wonders for the dead or whether the departed rise to praise Him. He pleads that God act before death silences his praise.
Overview
Heman reasons that the dead, in his limited Old Testament view of Sheol, cannot witness or proclaim God's wonders. He urges God to save him while he can still praise. The fuller answer comes in Christ, who indeed shows wonders to the dead by raising them, transforming Sheol's silence into resurrection praise.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ps 6:5For in death there is no memory of you. In Sheol, who shall give you thanks?
- Isa 26:19Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits.
- Ps 30:9“What profit is there in my destruction, if I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise you? Shall it declare your truth?
- Isa 38:18–19For Sheol can’t praise you. Death can’t celebrate you. Those who go down into the pit can’t hope for your truth.
- 1 Cor 15:52–57in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.
- Mark 5:35–36While he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue ruler’s house saying, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher any more?”
- Ps 118:17I will not die, but live, and declare Yah’s works.
- Ps 115:17The dead don’t praise Yah, neither any who go down into silence;
- Job 14:7–12“For there is hope for a tree, If it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease.
- Luke 7:12–16Now when he came near to the gate of the city, behold, one who was dead was carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Many people of the city were with her.
- Ezek 37:1–14Yahweh’s hand was on me, and he brought me out in Yahweh’s Spirit, and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 88:10 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
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