
Text -- Psalms 88:12 (NET)




Names, People and Places, Dictionary Themes and Topics



collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)
Wesley -> Psa 88:12
In the grave, where men are forgotten by their nearest relations.
JFB -> Psa 88:11-12
JFB: Psa 88:11-12 - -- Amplify the foregoing, the whole purport (as Psa 6:5) being to contrast death and life as seasons for praising God.
Amplify the foregoing, the whole purport (as Psa 6:5) being to contrast death and life as seasons for praising God.
Clarke -> Psa 88:12
Clarke: Psa 88:12 - -- 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...
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,
Animae, quibus altera fat
Corpora debentur, lethaei ad fluminis unda
Securos latices et longa oblivia potant
Virg. Aen. 6: 713
To all those souls who round the river wai
New mortal bodies are decreed by fate
To yon dark stream the gliding ghosts repair
And quaff deep draughts of long oblivion there.
TSK -> Psa 88:12

collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)
Barnes -> Psa 88:12
Barnes: Psa 88:12 - -- 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 ...
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.
Poole -> Psa 88:12
Poole: Psa 88:12 - -- 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, firs...
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 .
Gill -> Psa 88:12
Gill: Psa 88:12 - -- 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 sile...
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?

expand allCommentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

expand allCommentary -- Verse Range Notes
TSK Synopsis -> Psa 88:1-18
MHCC -> Psa 88:10-18
MHCC: Psa 88:10-18 - --Departed souls may declare God's faithfulness, justice, and lovingkindness; but deceased bodies can neither receive God's favours in comfort, nor retu...
Matthew Henry -> Psa 88:10-18
Matthew Henry: Psa 88:10-18 - -- In these verses, I. The psalmist expostulates with God concerning the present deplorable condition he was in (Psa 88:10-12): " Wilt thou do a miracu...
Keil-Delitzsch -> Psa 88:8-12
Keil-Delitzsch: Psa 88:8-12 - --
The octastichs are now followed by hexastichs which belong together in pairs. The complaint concerning the alienation of his nearest relations sound...
Constable: Psa 73:1--89:52 - --I. Book 3: chs 73--89
A man or men named Asaph wrote 17 of the psalms in this book (Pss. 73-83). Other writers w...

Constable: Psa 88:1-18 - --Psalm 88
This is one of the saddest of the psalms. It relates the prayer of a person who suffered intens...
