Isaiah 38 · a question people ask
"For Sheol can’t praise you" (38:18). Is Hezekiah teaching what happens after death?
The writing gives these words as the reason Hezekiah praises now: "For Sheol can’t praise you. Death can’t celebrate you. Those who go down into the pit can’t hope for your truth" (38:18), and then, "The living, the living, he shall praise you, as I do today" (38:19) (tap praise). He wrote them "when he had been sick, and had recovered of his sickness" (38:9), and the verses set Sheol, death and the pit against the living who praise. The chapter doesn't set out what the dead know or do, and these notes build no teaching about life after death on it. Other passages speak of Sheol and of the dead in their own words, among them Psalm 88 and Ecclesiastes 9, and the notes on those chapters look at them.
The verses
“The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and had recovered of his sickness:”
“For Sheol can’t praise you. Death can’t celebrate you. Those who go down into the pit can’t hope for your truth. The living, the living, he shall praise you, as I do today. The father shall make known your truth to the children.”