Psalms 88 · Verse 12

Psalms 88:12

Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
Psalms 88:12, King James Version

Psalms 88:12 in other translations

BSBWill Your wonders be known in the darkness, or Your righteousness in the land of oblivion?
WEBAre your wonders made known in the dark? Or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
ASVShall thy wonders be known in the dark? And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
YLTAre Thy wonders known in the darkness? And Thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
DARBYShall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
BBEMay there be knowledge of your wonders in the dark? or of your righteousness where memory is dead?
WebsterShall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

What does Psalms 88:12 mean?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Psalms 88:11-12

11-12. amplify the foregoing, the whole purport (as Psa 6:5) being to contrast death and life as seasons for praising God.

Read the full comment on Psalms 88:11-12 →

Adam Clarke's Commentary
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. 6: 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, 1831 · public domain

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on Psalms 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 return them in praise. The psalmist resolved to continue in prayer, and the more so, because deliverance did not come speedily. Though our prayers are not soon answered, yet we must not give over praying. The greater our troubles, the more earnest and serious we should be…

Read the full comment on Psalms 88:10-18 →

Psalms 88:12 in the original Hebrew

Word-by-word with transliteration, English gloss and Strong's number. Tap a number for the full definition and every place the word is used.

הֲיִוָּדַ֣עha.yi.va.Da'¿ will it be knownH3045
בַּחֹ֣שֶׁךְba.Cho.shekhin the darknessH2822
פִּלְאֶ֑ךָpil.'E.khawonder[s] yourH6382
וְ֝צִדְקָתְךָ֗ve.tzid.ka.te.chaand righteousness yourH6666
בְּאֶ֣רֶץbe.'E.retzin [the] land ofH776
נְשִׁיָּֽה\׃ne.shi.YahforgettingH5388

Source: STEPBible TAHOT/TAGNT (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0).

Cross references for Psalms 88:12

  • Ecclesiastes 9:5

    For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

  • Matthew 8:12

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

  • Job 10:21-22

    Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.

  • Ecclesiastes 2:16

    For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.

  • Isaiah 8:22

    And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.

  • Psalms 88:5

    Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

  • Jude 1:13

    Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

  • Psalms 31:12

    I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

  • Ecclesiastes 8:10

    And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.

  • Psalms 143:3

    For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.

Ranked by reader votes · OpenBible.info cross references (CC BY).

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
dark.
143:3; Job 10:21,22; Isa 8:22; Mt 8:12; Jude 1:13
in the land
5; 31:12; Ec 2:16; 8:10; 9:5

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (Samuel Bagster, c. 1836) · public domain

Context

  • Psalms 88:11

    Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?

  • Psalms 88:12

    Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

  • Psalms 88:13

    But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.

Read all of Psalms 88

Psalms 88:12 in other languages

Spanish
Reina-Valera 1909		¿Será conocida en las tinieblas tu maravilla, ni tu justicia en la tierra del olvido?
French
Bible J.N. Darby 1885		Racontera-t-on ta bonté dans le sépulcre, ta fidélité dans l’abîme?
German
Elberfelder 1871		Werden in der Finsternis bekannt werden deine Wunder, und deine Gerechtigkeit in dem Lande der Vergessenheit?
Latin
Clementine Vulgate		Tui sunt cæli, et tua est terra: orbem terræ, et plenitudinem ejus tu fundasti;