Bible Strands
Psalms 88:11
Can Your loving devotion be proclaimed in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses God directly from a state of profound isolation, questioning whether divine attributes can be voiced by those in the grave. This occurs within a lament where the speaker describes being cut off from the living and from communal praise.
The words — הַיְסֻפַּ֣ר (ha-yəsuppār) means "will it be recounted" and includes the interrogative prefix הַ (ha) that frames the line as a rhetorical question. חַסְדֶּךָ (chas-dekha) translates to "your covenant loyalty," paired in the text with אֱמוּנָתֶךָ ('e-mu-nat-kha) for "your faithfulness."
The thread — Job 26:6 and Proverbs 15:11 both state that Sheol and Abaddon lie open before God, emphasizing divine omniscience over the dead. The psalmist’s question contrasts with those statements by focusing on human inability to proclaim God’s character from that realm.
Why it lands — The text asserts that covenant loyalty and faithfulness cannot be proclaimed from the grave or Abaddon. It asks the reader to accept that praise and testimony require the living, not the departed.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?
Cross-references
- Proverbs 15:11 Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the LORD—how much more the hearts of men!
- Job 21:30 Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath.
- Job 26:6 Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering.
- Psalms 55:23 But You, O God, will bring them down to the Pit of destruction; men of bloodshed and deceit will not live out half their days. But I will trust in You.
- Psalms 73:18 Surely You set them on slick ground; You cast them down into ruin.
- Matthew 7:13 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
- Romans 9:22 What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction?
- 2 Peter 2:1 Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.