Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 88:12

"Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" — Psalms 88:12 (ASV)

Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? — In the dark world; in the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land of darkness, as darkness itself, and where the light is as darkness (Job 10:21–22). And thy righteousness. The justice of Your character, or the ways in which You do maintain and manifest Your righteous character.

In the land of forgetfulness — Of oblivion, where the memory has decayed, and where the remembrance of former things is blotted out. This is part of the general description, illustrating the ideas then entertained of the state of the dead: that they would be weak and feeble, that they could see nothing, that even the memory would fail, and the recollection of former things pass from the mind.

All these are images of the grave as it appears to man when he does not have the clear and full light of revelation; and the grave is all this—a dark and cheerless abode, an abode of fearfulness and gloom—when the light of the great truths of the Gospel is not allowed to fall upon it. That the psalmist dreaded this is clear, for he did not yet have the full light of revealed truth regarding the grave, and it seemed to him to be a gloomy abode. That people without the Gospel should dread it is also clear, for when the grave is not illuminated with Christian truth and hope, it is a place from which man by nature shrinks back, and it is not surprising that a wicked man dreads to die.