Isaiah 38:18

For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee,.... That is, they that are in the grave, and under the power of death, they cannot celebrate the praises of God with their bodily

The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness: -The prayer and thanksgiving song of Hezekiah is only given here, not in the parallel passages of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. Verse 9.

In this and the following verse, he declares God’ s design in delivering him, that he might praise him in his church, which if he had died he could not have done. The grave cannot praise thee; the dead are not capable of glorifying thy name among men upon earth; which I desire and determine to do. See the like expressions, 30:9 88:10, &c. The grave is put for the persons lodged in it by a metonymy. Cannot hope for thy truth; they cannot expect nor receive the accomplishment of thy promised goodness in the land of the living.

Isaiah 38:18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death can [not] celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.Ver. 18. For the grave cannot praise thee,] i.e., Palam et cum aliis, openly and exemplarily. See Psalms 6:5. David desires to live for no other end, and so Hezekiah, than to be glorifying of God. They that go down into the pit.] Of the grave; so of despair. It is a sin for any man to say, I am a reprobate, for it keeps him in sin, and cuts the sinews of endeavour.

(18) For the grave . . .—i.e., Sheol, or Hades. We return to the king’s thoughts of the dim shadow-world, Death and Sheol (joined together, as in Isaiah 28:15; Psalms 6:5). In that region of dimness there are no psalms of thanksgiving, no loud hallelujahs. The thought of spiritual energies developed and intensified after death is essentially one which belongs to the “illuminated” immortality (2 Timothy 1:10), of Christian thought. (Comp. Psalms 6:5; Psalms 30:9; Psalms 88:11-12; Psalms 115:17; Ecclesiastes 9:4-5; Ecclesiastes 9:10).

9–20. Hezekiah’s thanksgiving for his recovery. This poem, which is not given in the parallel narrative in 2 Kings, must have been inserted here from an independent source. An external mark of the insertion is found in the displacement of Isa 38:21-22 from their proper context. The superscription (Isaiah 38:9) resembles several of those in the book of Psalms, and was no doubt found in the document from which the poem was transcribed. The song, therefore, was in all probability traditionally ascribed to Hezekiah, but whether this judgment rests on historical authority, or merely on its inherent suitability to his circumstances, it is impossible to say. The linguistic evidence seems to point to a late date. The poem, like many of the Psalms, is a record of individual experience, but adapted for use in the Temple worship (Isaiah 38:20). The experience is that of a man who has been brought face to face with death, who has prayed for life, and has been “heard in that he feared”; but with the reticence which characterises the Psalmists all details of merely personal interest are suppressed with a view to the liturgical use of the poem. The psalm may be divided into two parts (both indicated in the superscription, Isaiah 38:9):— i. Isaiah 38:10-14. A description of the writer’s anguish and despair in the near prospect of death. ii. Isaiah 38:15-20. His joy and gratitude when assured of his recovery.

For the grave cannot praise thee - The Hebrew word here is sheol. It is put by metonymy here for those who are in the grave, that is, for the dead.

18. The grave cannot praise thee — The idea of sheol, above mentioned, is here recognised. See Psalms 6:5; Psalms 30:9; Psalms 88:11-12. The removal of this sad idea was effected only by the progressive history of salvation.