Psalm 115:17: Dead people can't praise God?

[Michael96]

The Psalmist wrote…

*Psalm 115:17: The dead cannot sing praises to the Lord, for they have gone into the silence of the grave. *

How do we reconcile this with the words of Christ to the thief on the cross?

*Luke 23:43: Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” *

 

[NotWorthy]

The dead were in Sheol. The gates of heaven were not opened yet.

Hence, the dead could not praise God.

Here’s what the NAB says about Sheol:

Sheol is the biblical term for the underworld where the insubstantial souls of dead human beings dwelt. It was similar to the Hades of Greek and Latin literature. In the second century B.C., biblical books begin to speak positively of life with God after death

 

[quasimodo]

Revelation was gradual. A clear idea of life after death was not revealed and present in Judaism. Indeed, it is not a basic tenet of Judaism as it is of Christianity. Consider the Sadducees… they clearly rejected any idea of life after bodily death. Many religious Jews reject it today.

That psalm is a clear reflection of the theology of the day, but we must not try to read too much theology in the psalms. They are much more concerned with expressing emotion than theology.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Here is how I see it: Scripture uses the “dead” to reference someone either spiritually or physically. The spiritually dead do not praise God, but curse Him (Rev 16:9).

 

[NotWorthy]

Here is how I see it: Scripture uses the “dead” to reference someone either spiritually or physically. The spiritually dead do not praise God, but curse Him (Rev 16:9).

I think you are using “Jesus-speak” or New Testament theology and applying it to the Old Testament.

Yes, all throughout the NT, if someone is dead and righteous, they are “sleeping”. For example, Lazarus, Jarius’ 12 year old daughter, and Stephen after his stoning.

If someone is spiritually dead, then they were often called “dead”, whether they were actually breathing or not. For example, “Let the dead bury their dead”.

But I’m not sure if you can “back-track” this to the Psalms.

 

[MarcoPolo]

I think you are using “Jesus-speak” or New Testament theology and applying it to the Old Testament.

Perhaps, but there are certainly OT examples of “death” being used spiritually and not physically.

For example off the top of my head, in Genesis 2:17, God tells Adam and Eve that the very day they eat of the tree they will die. Yet when they do eat from the tree, they do not die that day. Reason: because God meant a spiritual death.

 

[NotWorthy]

Perhaps, but there are certainly OT examples of “death” being used spiritually and not physically.

For example off the top of my head, in Genesis 2:17, God tells Adam and Eve that the very day they eat of the tree they will die. Yet when they do eat from the tree, they do not die that day. Reason: because God meant a spiritual death.

I think in the Original Hebrew, God said that Adam and Eve would “die the death” or “die to die”. That is the spiritual death you speak of. This was different from “dying”, which was a physical death.