Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageThe dead cannot praise Yahweh—none of those who sink down into the stillness of the grave.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GIt is not the dead who praise Yah, nor any who descend to the Silence.
KJV
King James VersionThe dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleIt is not the dead who praise the LORD, nor any who descend into silence.
Footnotes
*Dumah* (דוּמָה) means "silence" or "stillness"—used here as a poetic name for Sheol, the realm of the dead, where no breath rises and no praise is offered. It appears as a place name in Isaiah 21:11, but functions here as a vivid personification of the underworld. The Psalmist's point is not a systematic theology of the afterlife but an urgent argument for *now*: those who still breathe must praise, because the dead cannot (cf. Isa. 38:18–19; Ps. 6:5). FOG renders it "the Silence" (capitalised as a realm with its own gravity); FOG Message renders it as a descriptive state—"the stillness of the grave"—to draw out its emotional and existential weight.
