nPeace
Veteran Member
What I like about the questions you ask, apart from them being specific, is that you chose the appropriate forum, which gave these guidelines...What do jehovah's witness think of Psalms 30:3 and Isaiah 38:17?
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Reading the verses in context...
(Psalm 30:1-3) 1 I will exalt you, O Jehovah, for you have lifted me up; You did not let my enemies rejoice over me. 2 O Jehovah my God, I cried to you for help, and you healed me. 3 O Jehovah, you have lifted me up from the Grave. You kept me alive; you spared me from sinking into the pit.
(Isaiah 38:16-20) 16 ‘O Jehovah, by these things every man lives, And in them is the life of my spirit. You will restore me to health and preserve me alive. 17 Look! Instead of peace, I had great bitterness; But in your fondness for me, You preserved me from the pit of destruction. You have thrown all my sins behind your back. 18 For the Grave cannot glorify you, Death cannot praise you. Those who go down into the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness. 19 The living, the living can praise you, Just as I can this day. A father can give his sons knowledge about your faithfulness. 20 O Jehovah, save me, And we will play my songs on stringed instruments All the days of our life at the house of Jehovah.’”
Both texts apparently are talking about being rescued from death - preserved alive. So in other words, rescued from going into the pit, or grave.
Some teaching, and perhaps translations mislead people with the view that the pit is a furnace for cooking souls alive, but this is not what the Bible teaches.
God told Adam, "In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19)
Adam - the soul - died and went back to dust.
See Ezekiel 18:4