"Do you show wonders to the dead? Do the departed spirits rise up and praise you?" (88:10). What is the psalmist saying about the dead?

He asks six questions in three verses, and answers none of them: "Do you show wonders to the dead? Do the departed spirits rise up and praise you?" (88:10) (tap departed spirits), "Is your loving kindness declared in the grave? Or your faithfulness in Destruction?" (88:11) (tap Destruction), and "Are your wonders made known in the dark? Or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" (88:12) (tap forgetfulness). Psalm 6 asks the same kind of question, "In Sheol, who shall give you thanks?" (Psalm 6:5), and so does Psalm 30, "Shall the dust praise you? Shall it declare your truth?" (Psalm 30:9). Psalm 6's honest question sets these side by side with Hezekiah's writing, and these notes don't repeat it. What Psalm 88 adds is what it asks about: God's wonders, his loving kindness, his faithfulness and his righteousness; and the words its questions use for where the dead are: the grave, Destruction, the dark, and the land of forgetfulness. Right after the questions he goes on praying: "But to you, LORD, I have cried" (88:13). The psalm says nothing more about the dead than these questions, and these notes don't add to them or answer them.