Will the dust praise you?

I've been reading Psalm 30 regularly for several months; a friend asked me to read it when I pray for him. Verse 9 has caught my attention:

What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? (Ps. 30:9, ESV)

At first glance, this verse could seem to indicate that the psalmist believes in a final death for the righteous. If the righteous die but go on to have eternal life with God, then certainly they will be praising God. So it might seem that the psalmist thinks even the righteous who die return to dust and have no eternal life, given that he's concerned that the dust cannot praise God.

But consider these words from the Lord's prayer:

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10, ESV)

Instead of being concerned that the dead cannot praise God at all, the psalmist is concerned that the dead cannot praise God here, or tell people here of God's faithfulness. The psalmist is appealing to God's desire for his own will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and arguing that God's continued blessing to keep the psalmist alive will enable him to do God's will here.

And, after all, those in heaven already know all about God's faithfulness. The psalmist wants to be a witness to God's faithfulness here on earth. And that isn't possible after death -- except by what we leave behind, such as this written psalm. The psalmist is now with God, praising God. And we're reading the psalm God put on his heart, so we can praise God and tell everyone of his faithfulness.