Isaiah 38:18
For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
The verse belongs to Hezekiah's song of gratitude and thanksgiving after God healed him of life-threatening illness when all other hope had fled, delivering him from the pit and restoring him to life. When told he would die, Hezekiah prayed and God prolonged his life by fifteen years, granting him a new lease of life. His recovery involved applying a fig to the affected part, showing that trust in God's healing works together with practical remedies and natural means. His recovery was confirmed by the sign of turning the shadow back ten degrees on the sundial.
The verse means that the dead in the grave or pit, those who have gone down to the grave or pit, cannot praise God, celebrate Him, or hope in His truth, while praise, hope in God's truth, and telling of His truth belong to the living. Hezekiah gives the silence of the dead as the reason the living praise God for deliverance, contrasting the dead with the living who praise God and pass on His truth, with parents passing it to their children. The verse shows that the dead are unconscious in the grave and is evidence that the righteous dead are not conscious in heaven praising God, contradicting the idea that they are already conscious in heaven.
In the song Hezekiah extols the living God as the upholder of all created things and declares His favor to Hezekiah. Wise men in Babylon who gave much attention to astronomy noticed the turned-back shadow and marveled greatly, and when Merodach-baladan learned the miracle was a sign that God had healed the king of Judah, he sent ambassadors and seekers after truth from the plains of Chaldea to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery and to learn more of the God who could perform so great a wonder. The song was what Hezekiah was to tell those seekers so they might be led to acknowledge the supreme sovereignty of the living God, and faithful extolling of Him could have brought momentous transformations.