Isaiah 38:18
New International Version
For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.

New Living Translation
For the dead cannot praise you; they cannot raise their voices in praise. Those who go down to the grave can no longer hope in your faithfulness.

English Standard Version
For Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness.

Berean Standard Bible
For Sheol cannot thank You; Death cannot praise You. Those who descend to the Pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.

King James Bible
For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

New King James Version
For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth.

New American Standard Bible
“For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.

NASB 1995
“For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.

NASB 1977
“For Sheol cannot thank Thee, Death cannot praise Thee; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Thy faithfulness.

Legacy Standard Bible
For Sheol cannot thank You; Death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot keep watch for Your truth.

Amplified Bible
“For Sheol cannot praise or thank You, Death cannot praise You and rejoice in You; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.

Christian Standard Bible
For Sheol cannot thank you; Death cannot praise you. Those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
For Sheol cannot thank You; Death cannot praise You. Those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.

American Standard Version
For Sheol cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Because Sheol will not confess you, neither will death praise you, and those that descend into the pit will not hope for your truth

Brenton Septuagint Translation
For they that are in the grave shall not praise thee, neither shall the dead bless thee, neither shall they that are in Hades hope for thy mercy.

Contemporary English Version
No one in the world of the dead can thank you or praise you; none of those in the deep pit can hope for you to show them how faithful you are.

Douay-Rheims Bible
For hell shall not confess to thee, neither shall death praise thee: nor shall they that go down into the pit, look for thy truth.

English Revised Version
For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Sheol doesn't thank you! Death doesn't praise you! Those who go down to the pit cannot expect you to be faithful.

Good News Translation
No one in the world of the dead can praise you; The dead cannot trust in your faithfulness.

International Standard Version
For Sheol cannot thank you, death cannot sing your praise; and those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.

JPS Tanakh 1917
For the nether-world cannot praise Thee, Death cannot celebrate Thee; They that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth.

Literal Standard Version
For Sheol does not confess You, | Death does not praise You, | Those going down to the pit do not hope for Your truth.

Majority Standard Bible
For Sheol cannot thank You; Death cannot praise You. Those who descend to the Pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.

New American Bible
For it is not Sheol that gives you thanks, nor death that praises you; Neither do those who go down into the pit await your kindness.

NET Bible
Indeed Sheol does not give you thanks; death does not praise you. Those who descend into the pit do not anticipate your faithfulness.

New Revised Standard Version
For Sheol cannot thank you, death cannot praise you; those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.

New Heart English Bible
For Sheol can't praise you. And death can't celebrate you. And those who go down into the pit can't hope for your truth.

Webster's Bible Translation
For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

World English Bible
For Sheol can’t praise you. Death can’t celebrate you. Those who go down into the pit can’t hope for your truth.

Young's Literal Translation
For Sheol doth not confess Thee, Death doth not praise Thee, Those going down to the pit hope not for Thy truth.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Hezekiah's Song of Thanksgiving
17Surely for my own welfare I had such great anguish; but Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back. 18For Sheol cannot thank You; Death cannot praise You. Those who descend to the Pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. 19The living, only the living, can thank You, as I do today; fathers will tell their children about Your faithfulness.…

Cross References
Numbers 16:33
They went down alive into Sheol with all they owned. The earth closed over them, and they vanished from the assembly.

Psalm 6:5
For there is no mention of You in death; who can praise You from Sheol?

Psalm 28:1
To you, O LORD, I call; be not deaf to me, O my rock. For if You remain silent, I will be like those descending to the Pit.

Psalm 30:9
"What gain is there in my bloodshed, in my descent to the Pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it proclaim Your faithfulness?

Psalm 88:11
Can Your loving devotion be proclaimed in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon?

Psalm 115:17
It is not the dead who praise the LORD, nor any who descend into silence.

Ecclesiastes 9:10
Whatever you find to do with your hands, do it with all your might, for in Sheol, where you are going, there is no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.


Treasury of Scripture

For the grave cannot praise you, death can not celebrate you: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for your truth.

the grave

Psalm 6:5
For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?

Psalm 30:9
What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?

Psalm 88:11
Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?

they that

Numbers 16:33
They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.

Proverbs 14:32
The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.

Matthew 8:12
But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Able Celebrate Confess Death Faithfulness Gives Grave Honour Hope Nether-World Pit Praise Sheol Sing Thank Truth Underworld
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Able Celebrate Confess Death Faithfulness Gives Grave Honour Hope Nether-World Pit Praise Sheol Sing Thank Truth Underworld
Isaiah 38
1. Hezekiah, having received a message of death, by prayer has his life lengthened
8. The sun goes ten degrees backward, for a sign of that promise
9. His song of thanksgiving.














(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; Psalm 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 (2Timothy 1:10), of Christian thought. (Comp. Psalm 6:5; Psalm 30:9; Psalm 88:11-12; Psalm 115:17; Ecclesiastes 9:4-5; Ecclesiastes 9:10). . . . Verse 18. The grave cannot praise thee (cormpare the comment on ver. 11). It is avoiding the plain force of these passages to say that Hezekiah only means that those who go to Hades in a state of condemnation cannot be expected there to praise God (Kay). He speaks broadly and generally of all: "The living, the living, shall praise thee; Sheol cannot praise thee; Death cannot celebrate thee." Manifestly, though he believes in a future state, it is one in which there is either no energy at all, or at any rate no devotional energy. He may think, with Isaiah. that "the righteous man," when he is "taken away," will "enter into peace" (Isaiah 57:1, 2); but absolute "peace" precludes energy (see Arist., 'Eth. Nit.,' 1. 10. § 2). Hezekiah shrinks from losing all his activities, including his sense of personal communion with God. He does not, perhaps, "look on the condition of the faithful departed as one of comfortless gloom;" but he views it as one of deprivation, and is unwilling to enter into it. It was by the coming of Christ and the preaching of his gospel that "life and immortality" were first truly "brought to light" (2 Timothy 1:10).

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
For
כִּ֣י (kî)
Conjunction
Strong's 3588: A relative conjunction

Sheol
שְׁא֛וֹל (šə·’ō·wl)
Noun - common singular
Strong's 7585: Underworld (place to which people descend at death)

cannot
לֹ֥א (lō)
Adverb - Negative particle
Strong's 3808: Not, no

thank You;
תּוֹדֶ֖ךָּ (tō·w·ḏe·kā)
Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - third person feminine singular | second person masculine singular
Strong's 3034: To throw, at, away, to revere, worship, to bemoan

death
מָ֣וֶת (mā·weṯ)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 4194: Death, the dead, their place, state, pestilence, ruin

cannot praise You.
יְהַלְלֶ֑ךָּ (yə·hal·le·kā)
Verb - Piel - Imperfect - third person masculine singular | second person masculine singular
Strong's 1984: To shine

Those who go down
יֽוֹרְדֵי־ (yō·wr·ḏê-)
Verb - Qal - Participle - masculine plural construct
Strong's 3381: To come or go down, descend

to the Pit
ב֖וֹר (ḇō·wr)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 953: A pit, cistern, well

cannot
לֹֽא־ (lō-)
Adverb - Negative particle
Strong's 3808: Not, no

hope
יְשַׂבְּר֥וּ (yə·śab·bə·rū)
Verb - Piel - Imperfect - third person masculine plural
Strong's 7663: To scrutinize, to expect

for
אֶל־ (’el-)
Preposition
Strong's 413: Near, with, among, to

Your faithfulness.
אֲמִתֶּֽךָ׃ (’ă·mit·te·ḵā)
Noun - feminine singular construct | second person masculine singular
Strong's 571: Stability, certainty, truth, trustworthiness


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OT Prophets: Isaiah 38:18 For Sheol can't praise you (Isa Isi Is)
Isaiah 38:17
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