Psalms 6:4

"Return, O Jehovah, deliver my soul:

Save me for thy lovingkindness' sake.

For in death there is no remembrance of thee:

In Sheol who shall give thee thanks?"

"For thy lovingkindness' sake." All mortals must approach God, not upon the basis of their worth, their innocence, or their merit, but solely upon the basis of God's mercy, God's grace, and God's lovingkindness.

"In death there is no remembrance of thee." Radical critics have tried to use this statement to prove that, "Life beyond the grave is scarcely worthy of the name."[5]

Whatever this expression means, it cannot reflect upon David's conviction of life after death, as attested by Psalms 16:10. Furthermore, David was doubtless familiar with Job 19:25ff and other Old Testament passages that provide fleeting glimpses of life after death. Also, as Leupold said, "There is ample evidence of the Davidic authorship of Psalms 16, and that Isaiah 26 can be attributed to none other than Isaiah."[6] This, of course completely frustrates the device of critically late-dating such passages for the false purpose of establishing the alleged late "addition" of the doctrine of the resurrection and life after death to the Divine teaching God granted to the Covenant people. In the New Testament we learn that as far back as Abraham, that patriarch was positively certain of God's ability to restore life to the dead (Hebrews 11:19).

Despite the certainty of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead having been effectively mentioned in the Old Testament, as for example in Daniel 12:2-3, it nevertheless remained for the Lord Jesus Christ to bring the full revelation of it to mankind in the New Testament. "According to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal, but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Timothy 2:10).

David's reference here to the inability of the dead to praise God in all likelihood has no other significance than the fact that dead people cannot go to church and worship God.