David and his son Solomon agreed on most things — but not on this one.
David, in the Psalms, cried out: "The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence" (Psalms 115:17). For David, the afterlife was a wordless place. The soul could still love God, but it could no longer sing in the voice of a living mouth. Therefore, David urged, praise Him now — while your tongue can form syllables and your breath can push them into the world.
But Solomon, when he came to write Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, set down the opposite. "I praise the dead," he said, "more than the living who are still alive" (Ecclesiastes 4:2). For Solomon, the dead had already crossed the river and could praise God without the distractions of appetite and fatigue that interrupt the living worshipper.
The sages place these two verses in conversation. They do not choose between them. Instead, they teach that father and son together draw the complete picture.
David is right: while you are alive, sing — because after death you cannot recover a missed Shabbat or a skipped Shema. And Solomon is right: the righteous dead enter a world of uninterrupted praise, a praise no living mouth can match in purity. Both the living voice and the silent soul are worshipping the same Name.
The lesson: do not postpone the song — but do not mourn the singer too harshly either, because where she has gone, the praise continues by other means.
(From The Exempla of the Rabbis, Moses Gaster, 1924, no. 280.)