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Psalm 49

The Folly of Trust in Riches

To the leader. Of the Korahites. A Psalm.

1

Hear this, all you peoples;

give ear, all inhabitants of the world,

2

both low and high,

rich and poor together.

3

My mouth shall speak wisdom;

the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.

4

I will incline my ear to a proverb;

I will solve my riddle to the music of the harp.

 

5

Why should I fear in times of trouble,

when the iniquity of my persecutors surrounds me,

6

those who trust in their wealth

and boast of the abundance of their riches?

7

Truly, no ransom avails for one’s life,

there is no price one can give to God for it.

8

For the ransom of life is costly,

and can never suffice,

9

that one should live on forever

and never see the grave.

 

10

When we look at the wise, they die;

fool and dolt perish together

and leave their wealth to others.

11

Their graves are their homes forever,

their dwelling places to all generations,

though they named lands their own.

12

Mortals cannot abide in their pomp;

they are like the animals that perish.

 

13

Such is the fate of the foolhardy,

the end of those who are pleased with their lot. Selah

14

Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol;

Death shall be their shepherd;

straight to the grave they descend,

and their form shall waste away;

Sheol shall be their home.

15

But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol,

for he will receive me. Selah

 

16

Do not be afraid when some become rich,

when the wealth of their houses increases.

17

For when they die they will carry nothing away;

their wealth will not go down after them.

18

Though in their lifetime they count themselves happy

—for you are praised when you do well for yourself—

19

they will go to the company of their ancestors,

who will never again see the light.

20

Mortals cannot abide in their pomp;

they are like the animals that perish.


6. They trust in their wealth. We are now furnished with the reason why the suffering children of God should dismiss their apprehensions, and keep themselves from despondency, even when reduced to extremity by the violence and treachery of their enemies. Any boasted power which they possess is fleeting and evanescent. The Psalmist would convince us that the fear of man is unwarrantable; that it argues ignorance of what man is even at his best; and that it were as reasonable to startle at a shadow or a spectre. They boast themselves, he adds, in the multitude of their riches, and this is an error into which we are disposed to fall, forgetting that the condition of man in this world is fluctuating and transitory. It is not merely from the intrinsic insufficiency of wealth, honors, or pleasures, to confer true happiness, that the Psalmist proves the misery of worldly men, but from their manifest and total incapacity of forming a correct judgment of such possessions. Happiness is connected with the state of mind of that man who enjoys it, and none would call those happy who are sunk in stupidity and security, and are destitute of understanding. The Psalmist satisfactorily proves the infatuation of the wicked from the confidence which they place in their power and wealth, and their disposition to boast of them. It is a convincing sign of folly when one cannot discern what is before his eyes. Not a day passes without forcing the plain fact upon their notice, that none can redeem the life of another; so that their conduct is nothing less than insanity. Some read, A man shall not be able to redeem his brother; which amounts to the same meaning, and the text admits of this translation. The Hebrew word אח, ach, which I have rendered brother, is by others translated one; but I do not approve, although I would not absolutely reject, this reading. The Psalmist adds, that none can give a price to God for the ransom of another, where he adverts to the truth that men’s lives are absolutely at the disposal of God, and that they never can be extended by any human arrangement one moment beyond the period which God has fixed.

He enforces the same lesson in the verse which follows, where he states that the redemption of their soul is precious, an expression not to be understood as implying merely that it is an event of rare occurrence, but that it never can take place, as 1 Samuel 3:1, where the word of the Lord is said to have been precious under the priesthood of Eli, when it is evidently meant that it had ceased altogether. The Psalmist would assert that no man can hope to purchase an immortality either for himself or others in this world. I have rendered the close of verse 8, And their continuance for ever; but others, who construe the Hebrew word חדל, chadal, as a verb, meaning to cease, read, And ceaseth for ever, as if the Psalmist meant that no price was sufficiently great to answer the purpose, and that it must therefore cease for ever, as what could never obtain the end desired. I consider that which I have given to be the real meaning of the word, having had occasion already to observe upon Psalm 39:5, that it signifies the fixed term of human life. The words in verse 9, That he should still live for ever, more fully express the truth, that it is not merely impossible to redeem the life of men when they are dead, but impossible while they are yet living, to extend the term of their existence. A definite limit has been assigned to every man’s life. This he cannot pass over, and the Psalmist would impress the fact upon us as one which stamps folly upon the conduct of the wicked, who will cherish their unfounded confidence even at the moment when they are upon the brink of the grave. In all this, it may strike the reader that he has not announced any thing which merits being called a dark saying, and has rather been treating a popular subject in a very plain style of language; but if he consider that David here condemns, as by a voice issuing from the awful judgment-seat of God, the stupidity of such as forget that they are men, he will not be disposed to reckon the expression inapplicable. Again, we have seen that he has opened his dark saying, it being the divine will that instruction should be delivered in a form adapted to the meanest capacity.


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