Psalms 88:12

Psa 88:12 Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

Ver. 12. In the land of forgetfulness] So the state and place of the dead is called; and why: {See Trapp on "Psa 88:5"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. (Psa 88:12) Shall thy wonders be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? These are varied metaphorical descriptions of the state of death, considered negatively as the privation or the opposite of life. Darkness is here opposed to the light of life or of the living, Psa 56:13). The land of forgetfulness, where men forget, Ecc 9:5-6; Ecc 9:10, and are forgotten, Psa 31:12.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, in the grave, where only the body lieth without all sense and remembrance.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 12. The land of forgetfulness?] The place of separate spirits, or the invisible world. The heathens had some notion of this state. They feigned a river in the invisible world, called Lethe, ληθη, which signifies oblivion, and that those who drank of it remembered no more any thing relative to their former state.

----------Animae, quibus altera fato

Corpora debentur, lethaei ad fluminis undam

Securos latices et longa oblivia potant.

VIRG. AEn. vi. 713.

To all those souls who round the river wait

New mortal bodies are decreed by fate;

To yon dark stream the gliding ghosts repair,

And quaff deep draughts of long oblivion there.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Nay, God’s wonders will not even be known in Darkness, nor His righteousness, His faithfulness to His covenant (Psa_71:2, and often), in the land of Oblivion: where men neither remember God (Psa_6:5) nor are remembered by Him (Psa_88:5); where thought feeling and action are at an end. See Ecc_9:5-6; Ecc_9:10; and even in Sir_17:27-28, Bar_2:17, we hear the echo of Isa_38:18 f.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Shall thy wonders be known in the dark?.... A description of the grave again; see Job 10:21, The sense may be, should he continue in the dark and silent grave, how would the wonders of the grace of God, of electing, redeeming, justifying, pardoning, and adopting grace, be made known; the wonders of Christ's person and offices, and the wondrous things, and doctrines of the Gospel, relating thereunto? as the glory of these would be eclipsed, there would be none to publish them:

and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? the grave, where the dead lie, who, having lost all sense of things, forget what were done in this world, and they themselves are quickly forgotten by the living; and had Christ continued in this state, and had not risen again to our justification, how would his justifying righteousness have been revealed, as it is from faith to faith in the Gospel, which is therefore called the word and ministration of righteousness?

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? - In the dark world; in “the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land of darkness, as darkness itself, and where the light is as darkness.” Job 10:21-22. “And thy righteousness.” The justice of thy character; or, the ways in which thou dost maintain and manifest thy righteous character.

In the land of forgetfulness - Of oblivion; where the memory has decayed, and where the remembrance of former things is blotted out. This is a part of the general description, illustrating the ideas then entertained of the state of the dead; that they would be weak and feeble; that they could see nothing; that even the memory would fail, and the recollection of former things pass from the mind. All these are images of the grave as it appears to man when he has not the clear and full light of revelation; and the grave is all this - a dark and cheerless abode - all abode of fearfulness and gloom - when the light of the great truths of the Gospel is not suffered to fall upon it. That the psalmist dreaded this is clear, for he had not yet the full light of revealed truth in regard to the grave, and it seemed to him to be a gloomy abode. That people without the Gospel ought to dread it, is clear, for when the grave is not illuminated with Christian truth and hope, it is a place from which man by nature shrinks back, and it is not wonderful that a wicked man dreads to die.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

In the dark; in the grave, which is called the land of darkness, Job 10:21,22.

In the land of forgetfulness; in the grave; so called, either, first, Actively, because there men forget and neglect all the concerns of this life, being indeed but dead carcasses without any sense or remembrance. Or rather, secondly, Passively, because there men are forgotten not only by men, as is noted, Job 24:20; Psa 31:12, but by God himself, as he complained, Psa 88:5.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 12. Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? If not here permitted to prove their goodness of Jehovah, how could the singer do so in the land of darkness and death shade? Could his tongue, when turned into a clod, alarm the dull cold ear of death? Is not a living dog better than a dead lion, and a living believer of more value to the cause of God on earth than all the departed put together?

And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? What shall be told concerning thee in the regions of oblivion? Where memory and love are lost, and men are alike unknowing and unknown, forgetful and forgotten, what witness to the divine holiness can be borne? The whole argument amounts to thisif the believer dies unblessed, how will God's honour be preserved? Who will bear witness to his truth and righteousness?

Ver. 12. Wilt thou show thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? where I have forgotten thee, where I turned aside from thee, where I have let slip out of my memory all thy previous dealings with meand shall thy righteousness be manifested even there? Wilt thou prove thine equity in showing forth mercy, because for me a sacrifice has been offered, thy righteousness running parallel with the atoning stream of Christ's blood? When I have forgotten thee and forsaken thee, and turned my back upon thee, can thy righteousness be there manifested? What! righteousness running side by side with mercy! and righteousness still preserving all its unbending strictness, because this very backsliding of heart, this very forgetfulness of soul, this very alienation of affection, this very turning my back upon thee, have all been atoned for; and righteousness can be still shown "in the land of forgetfulness", because all my sins committed in the land of forgetfulness have been atoned for by redeeming blood! J.C. Philpot.

Psalms 88:13*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. The dark—Same as “grave.” So αδης, hades, (answering everywhere to שׁאול, sheol,) is compounded of α, privative, (not,) and ειδω, (to see,) not to see, unseen, and means the world I do not see, the unseen world. The same is called darkness in the text.

Land of forgetfulness—So called because the dead, after a few generations, are generally forgotten from the records of the living. This is true to fact in all ages with the masses of mankind. And is not death, in its physical aspect, still viewed, under the Christian religion, in the same chilling and gloomy light? Even the Saviour said: “The night cometh, when no man can work.” Joh_9:4. To the instincts of our nature death must ever be saddening and abhorrent. Its terrors are swallowed up only through faith and hope in the infinite “beyond”—a moral victory over what is still, per se, an unchanged natural evil. “The psalter would be incomplete without expressions of the sadness which comes with the prospect of death.”—Bishop Alexander. Without this a great moral lesson would be lost, and the Bible would be untrue to itself and to nature.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? (compare above, ver. 10). And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? "The land of forgetfulness," or "of oblivion," is another name for Hades, or Sheol not that there are supposed to be no memories of the past in it, (Isa_14:16, Isa_14:17) but that all is faint and shadowy there, consciousness but a half-consciousness, remembrance but a half-remembrance.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Forgetfulness - In the grave, where men are forgotten by their nearest relations.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Will Your kindness be told in the grave if we die in the hands of our enemies, will we be able to recite Your praise in the grave?

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.