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In these verses we find mention made of four things on the part of God: "wonders," "lovingkindness, .... faithfulness," and "righteousness" — four attributes of the blessed Jehovah, which the eyes of Heman had been opened to see, and which the heart of Heman had been wrought upon to feel. But he comes, by Divine teaching, into a spot where these attributes seem to be completely lost to him;and yet (so mysterious are the ways of God!) the very place where those attributes were to be more powerfully displayed, and made more deeply and experimentally known to his soul.

1. "Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead?" He is speaking here of his own experience; he is that "dead" person, to whom those "wonders" are to be shown. And being in that state of experience, he considered that every act of mercy shown to him where he then was must be a "wonder." All God's people are brought by the Spirit's operations upon their souls, sooner or later, to be in that spot where Heman was. Paul was there, when he said (Romans 7:9). Then, surely, he was "dead"; that is, he had been killed in his feelings by the spirituality of God's law made known in his conscience — killed, as to all hopes of creature-righteousness, and killed as to any way of salvation which the creature could devise. But the word "dead" carries with it a still further meaning than this. It expresses a feeling of utter helplessness; not merely a feeling of guilt and condemnation, so as to be slain to all hopes of salvation in self, but also to feel perfectly helpless to deliver himself from the lowest hell. But if We look at the expression as it simply stands, it seems to be uttered by one who is passing under the sentence of death before the wonder is displayed. It does not run in the past tense, "Hast Thou shown wonders to the dead?" It is not couched in the present tense, "Art Thou showing wonders to the dead?" The language is not the language of praise for the past; nor of admiration for the present; but that of anxious inquiry for the future" "Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead?" Is it possible? Am I not too great a sinner? Is not my case too desperate?

2. "Shall Thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave?" We have come a step lower now. We had been communing with "the dead"; but now we must go a step lower. We must go to the sepulchre; we must accompany the corpse to the grave. Now, what is "the grave" but the place where corruption riots, where putrefaction reigns? Here, then, is a striking figure of what a living soul feels under the manifestations of the deep corruptions of his heart. All his good words, once so esteemed, and all his good works, once so prized, and all his prayers, and all his faith, and hope, and love, and all the imaginations of his heart, not merely paralyzed and dead, not merely reduced to a state of utter helplessness, but also in soul feeling turned into rottenness and corruption. Now, were you ever there? Did your prayers ever stink in your nostrils? And are all your good words, and all your good works, and all your good thoughts, once so esteemed, now nothing in your sight but filthy, polluted and unclean?

3. "Or Thy faithfulness in destruction?" What is this "faithfulness" of which Heman speaks? It is, I believe, in two different branches; faithfulness to the promises that God has made in His word of truth — and faithfulness to His own witness and His own work upon the souls of His children. The Lord has destroyed your false religion, your natural hopes, your imaginary piety, your mock holiness, and those things in you which were not of Himself, but which were of the earth earthy, and were drawing you aside from Him; and has made you poor, naked, empty before His eyes. But it is in these very acts of destruction that He has shown His faithfulness — His faithfulness to His covenant, His faithfulness to His written word, His faithfulness to those promises which He has dropped with power into your heart.

4. "Shall Thy wonders be known in the dark? and Thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" Here is another attribute of God about which Heman was exercised. His "righteousness," God's righteousness, I believe, here and elsewhere does not mean only Christ's righteousness, but also the righteous acts of God in dealing with the soul in a way consistent with His own equitable character. This land of forgetfulness seems to imply two things — our forgetfulness of God, and God's apparent forgetfulness of us.

(1) We often get into this sleepy land of forgetfulness toward God; we forget His universal presence, forget His heart-searching eyes, forget His former benefits, forget His past testimonies, forget the reverence which belongs to His holy name; which, above all things, we have desired most earnestly to remember. It is, then, in this land of forgetfulness, in this dull and heavy country, when, like the disciples in the garden, we sleep instead of watching, that God is still pleased to show forth His righteousness. God's righteousness runs parallel with Christ's atonement, for therein is His intrinsic righteousness manifested, that is, His strict compliance with equity and justice, because equity and justice have been strictly fulfilled by the propitiation of the Son of God.

(2) But the land of forgetfulness often means forgetfulness on God's part — God seems to forget His people (Isaiah 49:13). "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" Does it not seem, at times, as though the Lord had utterly forgotten us, would take no more notice of us, slights us, rejects us, and would not cast one look, or bestow one word upon us?

(J. C. Philpot.)

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KJV: Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.

WEB: Do you show wonders to the dead? Do the dead rise up and praise you? Selah.