Hear this, all you peoples. Listen, all you inhabitants of the world,
both low and high, rich and poor together.
My mouth will speak words of wisdom. My heart will utter understanding.
I will incline my ear to a proverb. I will solve my riddle on the harp.
Why should I fear in the days of evil, when iniquity at my heels surrounds me?
Those who trust in their wealth, and boast in the multitude of their riches—
none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give God a ransom for him.
For the redemption of their life is costly, no payment is ever enough,
that he should live on forever, that he should not see corruption.
For he sees that wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless perish, and leave their wealth to others.
Their inward thought is that their houses will endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands after themselves.
But man, despite his riches, doesn’t endure. He is like the animals that perish.
This is the destiny of those who are foolish, and of those who approve their sayings.
They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion.
But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.
Don’t be afraid when a man is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased;
for when he dies he will carry nothing away. His glory won’t descend after him.
Though while he lived he blessed his soul— and men praise you when you do well for yourself—
he shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see the light.
A man who has riches without understanding, is like the animals that perish.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 1. Hear this, all ye people. Whoever may have…
1. Hear this, all ye people. Whoever may have been the penman of this psalm, it discusses one of the most important principles in divine philosophy, and there is a propriety in the elevated terms designed to awaken and secure attention, with which the Psalmist announces his purpose to discourse of things of a deep and momentous nature. To a superficial view, indeed, the subject might seem trite and common-place, treating, as he does, of the shortness of human life, and the vanity of those objects in which worldly men confide. But the real scope of the psalm is, to comfort the people of God under the sufferings to which they are exposed, by teaching them to expect a happy change in their condition, when God, in his own time, shall interpose to rectify the disorders of the present system. There is a higher lesson still inculcated by the Psalmist — that, as God’s providence of the world is not presently apparent, we must exercise patience, and rise superior to the suggestions of carnal sense in anticipating the favorable issue. That it is our duty to maintain a resolute struggle with our afflictions, however severe these may be, and that it were foolish to place happiness in the enjoyment of such fleeting possessions as the riches, honors, or pleasures of this world, may be precepts which even the heathen philosophers have enforced, but they have uniformly failed in setting before us the true source of consolation. However admirably they discourse of a happy life, they confine themselves entirely to commendations upon virtue, and do not bring prominently forward to our view that God, who governs the world, and to whom alone we can repair with confidence in the most desperate circumstances. But slender comfort can be derived upon this subject from the teaching of philosophy. If, therefore, the Holy Ghost in this psalm introduces to our notice truths which are sufficiently familiar to experience, it is that he may raise our minds from them to the higher truth of the divine government of the world, assuring us of the fact, that God sits supreme, even when the wicked are triumphing most in their success, or when the righteous are trampled under the foot of contumely, and that a day is coming when he will dash the cup of pleasure out of the hands of his enemies, and rejoice the hearts of his friends, by delivering them out of their severest distresses. This is the only consideration which can impart solid comfort under our afflictions. Formidable and terrible in themselves, they would overwhelm our souls, did not the Lord lift upon us the light of his countenance. Were we not assured that he watches over our safety, we could find no remedy from our evils, and no quarter to which we might resort under them.
The remarks which have been made may explain the manner in which the inspired writer introduces the psalm, soliciting our attention, as about to discourse on a theme unusually high and important. Two things are implied in this verse, that the subject upon which he proposes to enter is of universal application, and that we require to be admonished and aroused ere we are brought to a due measure of consideration. The words which I have translated, inhabitants of the world, are translated by others, inhabitants of time; but this is a harsh mode of expression, however much it may agree with the scope of the psalm. He calls upon all men indiscriminately, because all were equally concerned in the truths which he intended to announce. By sons of Adam, we may understand the meaner or lower class of mankind; and by sons of men, the high, the noble, or such as sustain any pre-eminence in life. Thus, in the outset, he states it to be his purpose to instruct high and low without exception; his subject being one in which the whole human family was interested, and in which every individual belonging to it required to be instructed.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20 He will entreat how God governeth the world by…
He will entreat how God governeth the world by his providence, which cannot be perceived by the judgment of the flesh.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–20 Psa 49:1 « To the chief Musician, A Psalm…
Psa 49:1 « To the chief Musician, A Psalm for the sons of Korah. » Hear this, all [ye] people; give ear, all [ye] inhabitants of the world:
Ver. 1. Hear this, all ye people] This that is of so great consequence and universal concernment, viz. that the saints should not be frighted nor perplexed at the present prosperity of graceless persons; but consider that death at utmost shall render them extremely miserable, and at the day of judgment men shall return and discern a manifest difference between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not, Mal 3:18.
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Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world] "Hear, and give ear; be not proud: for the Lord hath spoken it," Jer 13:15. The inhabitants of the world, Heb. of the transitory world, are like men in a mill, through hurry of business; or as one that is running a race, to whom, though never so good counsel be given, he cannot stay to hear it. Of such we use to say, that they hear with their harvest ears (harvest is a time of great pleasure, and great business), and hence it is that we have so ill a seedtime for the word. We had need to wish, as Harding once did, that we could cry out against sin as loud as the bells of Oseny; yea, as those catholic preachers, whose voice is heard in all speeches and languages, Psa 19:3.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 All ye people, Heb. all people; Jews or Gentiles;…
All ye people, Heb. all people; Jews or Gentiles; for all are concerned in this matter, as being apt to stumble and murmur at it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 15 This is the psalmist's preface to his discourse concerning…
This is the psalmist's preface to his discourse concerning the vanity of the world and its insufficiency to make us happy; and we seldom meet with an introduction more solemn than this is; for there is no truth of more undoubted certainty, nor of greater weight and importance, and the consideration of which will be of more advantage to us.
I. He demands the attention of others to that which he was about to say (Psa 49:1, Psa 49:2): Hear this, all you people; hear it and heed it, hear it and consider it; what is spoken once, hear twice. Hear and give ear, Psa 62:9, Psa 62:11. Not only, "Hear, all you Israelites, and give ear all the inhabitants of Canaan," but, Hear, all you people, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the world; for this doctrine is not peculiar to those that are blessed with divine revelation, but even the light of nature witnesses to it. All men may know, and therefore let all men consider, that their riches will not profit them in the day of death. Both low and high, both rich and poor, must come together, to hear the word of God; let both therefore hear this with application. Let those that are high and rich in the world hear of the vanity of their worldly possessions and not be proud of them, nor secure in the enjoyment of them, but lay them out in doing good, that with them they may make to themselves friends; let those that are poor and low hear this and be content with their little, and not envy those that have abundance. Poor people are as much in danger from an inordinate desire towards the wealth of the world as rich people from an inordinate delight in it. He gives a good reason why his discourse should be regarded (Psa 49:3): My mouth shall speak of wisdom; what he had to say, 1. Was true and good. It is wisdom and understanding; it will make those wise and intelligent that receive it and submit to it. It is not doubtful but certain, not trivial but weighty, not a matter of nice speculation but of admirable use to guide us in the right way to our great end. 2. It was what he had himself well digested. What his mouth spoke was the meditation of his heart (as Psa 19:14; Psa 45:1); it was what God put into his mind, what he had himself seriously considered, and was fully apprized of the meaning of and convinced of the truth of. That which ministers speak from their own hearts is most likely to reach the hearts of their hearers.
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II. He engages his own attention (Psa 49:4): I will incline my ear to a parable. It is called a parable, not because it is figurative and obscure, but because it is a wise discourse and very instructive. It is the same word that is used concerning Solomon's proverbs. The psalmist will himself incline his ear to it. This intimates, 1. That he was taught it by the Spirit of God and did not speak of himself. Those that undertake to teach others must first learn themselves. 2. That he thought himself nearly concerned in it, and was resolved not to venture his own soul upon that bottom which he dissuaded others from venturing theirs upon. 3. That he would not expect others should attend to that which he himself did not attend to as a matter of the greatest importance. Where God gives the tongue of the learned he first wakens the ear to hear as the learned, Isa 50:4.
III. He promises to make the matter as plain and as affecting as he could: I will open my dark saying upon the harp. What he learned for himself he would not conceal or confine to himself, but would communicate, for the benefit of others. 1. Some understood it not, it was a riddle to them; tell them of the vanity of the things that are seen, and of the reality and weight of invisible things, and they say, Ah Lord God! doth he not speak parables? For the sake of such, he would open this dark saying, and make it so plain that he that runs might read it. 2. Others understood it well enough, but they were not moved by it, it never affected them, and for their sake he would open it upon the harp, and try that expedient to work upon them, to win upon them. A verse may find him who a sermon flies. Herbert.
IV. He begins with the application of it to himself, and that is the right method in which to treat of divine things. We must first preach to ourselves before we undertake to admonish or instruct others. Before he comes to set down the folly of carnal security (Psa 49:6), he here lays down, from his own experience, the benefit and comfort of a holy gracious security, which those enjoy who trust in God, and not in their worldly wealth: Wherefore should I fear? he means, Wherefore should I fear their fear (Isa 8:12), the fears of worldly people. 1. "Wherefore should I be afraid of them? Wherefore should I fear in the days of trouble and persecution, when the iniquity of my heels, or of my supplanters that endeavour to trip up my heels, shall compass me about, and they shall surround me with their mischievous attempts? Why should I be afraid of those all whose power lies in their wealth, which will not enable them to redeem their friends? I will not fear their power, for it cannot enable them to ruin me." The great men of the world will not appear at all formidable when we consider what little stead their wealth will stand them in. We need not fear their casting us down from our excellency who cannot support themselves in their own excellency. 2. "Wherefore should I be afraid like them?" The days of old age and death are the days of evil, Ecc 12:1. In the day of judgment the iniquity of our heels (or of our steps, our past sins) will compass us about, will be set in order before us. Every work will be brought into judgment, with every secret thing; and every one of us must give account of himself. In these days worldly wicked people will be afraid; nothing more dreadful to those that have set their hearts upon the world than to think of leaving it; death to them is the king of terrors, because, after death, comes the judgment, when their sins will surround them as so many furies; but wherefore should a good man fear death, who has God with him? Psa 23:4. When his iniquities compass him about, he sees them all pardoned, his conscience is purified and pacified, and then even in the judgment-day, when the hearts of others fail them for fear, he can lift up his head with joy, Luk 21:26, Luk 21:28. Note, The children of God, though ever so poor, are in this truly happy, above the most prosperous of the children of this world, that they are well guarded against the terrors of death and the judgment to come.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–20 Hear this,.... Not the law, as some Jewish writers…
Hear this,.... Not the law, as some Jewish writers (l) interpret it, which was not desirable to be heard by those that did hear it; it being a voice of wrath and terror, a cursing law, and a ministration of condemnation and death; but rather , "this news", as the Targum; the good news of the Gospel; the word of "this" salvation; the voice from heaven; the word not spoken by angels, but by the Lord himself: or , "this wisdom", as Kimchi interprets it; which the psalmist was about to speak of, Psa 49:3; also the parable and dark saying he should attend unto and open, Psa 49:4; and indeed it may take in the whole subject matter of the psalm;
all ye people: not the people of Israel only, but all the people of the world, as appears from the following clause; whence it is evident that this psalm belongs to Gospel times; in which the middle wall of partition is broken down, and there is no difference of people; God is the God both of Jews and Gentiles; Christ is the Saviour and Redeemer of one as well as of the other; the Spirit of God has been poured out upon the latter; the Gospel has been sent into all the world, and all are called upon to hear it;
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give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world, or "of time"; so the word is rendered "age", the age of a man, Psa 39:5. The inhabitants of this world are but for a time; wherefore Ben Melech interprets the phrase by , "men of time", the inhabitants of time; it is peculiar to the most High to "inhabit eternity", Isa 57:15. Under the Gospel dispensation there is no distinction of places; the Gospel is not confined to the land of Judea; the sound of it is gone into all the world, and men may worship God, and offer incense to his name, in every place; and whoever fears him in any nation is accepted of him.
(l) Midrash Tillim in loc. Yalkut Simeoni, par. 2. fol. 106. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 The preface, ver. 1-4. We need not fear the…
The preface, ver. 1-4. We need not fear the wicked, ver. 5. They cannot by their riches save either their friends or themselves from death, ver. 6-10. They cannot secure happiness to themselves, either in this world or the world to come, ver. 11-14. He comforts good men against the fear of death, or of the prosperity of the wicked, ver. 15-20. To the chief musician, A psalm for the sons of Korah.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 All men are invited to attend to lessons of…
PSALM XLIX
All men are invited to attend to lessons of wisdom relative to
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the insufficiency of earthly good to save or prolong life; to
secure the resurrection frown the dead, 1-9.
Death is inevitable, 10.
The vain expectations of rich men, 11-13.
Death renders all alike, 14.
The psalmist encourages and fortifies himself against envying
the apparently prosperous state of the wicked, who are brutish,
and die like beasts, 15-20.
NOTES ON PSALM XLIX
The title, To the chief Musician, A Psalm for the sons of Korah, has nothing particular in it; and the Versions say little about it. One of the descendants of the children of Korah might have been the author of it; but when or on what occasion it was made, cannot now be discovered. The author aimed to be obscure, and has succeeded; for it is very difficult to make out his meaning. It is so much in the style of the Book of Job, that one might believe they had the same author; and that this Psalm might have made originally a part of that book. "It seems," says Dr. Dodd, "to be a meditation on the vanity of riches, and the usual haughtiness of those who possess them. As a remedy for this, he sets before them the near prospect of death, from which no riches can save, in which no riches can avail. The author considers the subject he is treating as a kind of wisdom concealed from the world; a mystery, an occult science with respect to the generality of mankind." Dr. Kennicott has given an excellent translation of this Psalm, which is very literal, simple, and elegant; and by it the reader will be convinced that a good translation of a difficult passage is often better than a comment.
Verse 1. Hear this, all ye people] The four first verses contain the author's exordium or introduction, delivered in a very pompous style and promising the deepest lessons of wisdom and instruction. But what was rare then is common-place now.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20 Psa 49:1-2. Hear this, all ye people — Hebrew,…
Psa 49:1-2. Hear this, all ye people — Hebrew, all people, Jews or Gentiles: for this doctrine is not peculiar to those that are blessed with divine revelation; but even the light of nature bears witness to it, and all the inhabitants of the world are concerned in it. All men may know, and therefore let all men consider, that their riches will not profit them in the day of death. Both low and high, rich and poor together — Whether you be men of obscure birth and meaner rank, or persons nobly descended, and in great authority; whether you abound in wealth, or are of the poorer class, you are all alike concerned to attend to my instruction.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–20 Hear this, all ye people - That is, What…
Hear this, all ye people - That is, What I am about; to utter is worthy of universal attention; it pertains equally to all mankind. The psalmist; therefore calls on all the nations to attend to what he is about to say. Compare the notes at Isa 1:2.
Give ear - Incline your ear; attend. Compare the notes at Psa 17:6. See also Isa 37:17; Isa 55:3; Dan 9:18; Pro 2:2.
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All ye inhabitants of the world - The truth to be declared does not pertain exclusively to any one nation, or any one class of people. All are interested in it. The term here rendered “world” - חלד cheled, - means properly “duration of life, lifetime;” then, “life, time, age;” and then it comes to denote the world, considered as made up of the living, or the passing generations.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 49
Psalms 49
To the chief Musician, A Psalm for the sons of Korah
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Hear this, all ye people;
Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world:
2 Both low and high,
Rich and poor, together.
3 My mouth shall speak of wisdom;
And the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.
4 I will incline mine ear to a parable:
I will open my dark saying upon the harp.
5 Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil,
When the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
6 They that trust in their wealth,
And boast themselves in the multitude of their riches
7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother.
Nor give to God a ransom for him;
8 (For the redemption of their soul is precious,
And it ceaseth for ever:)
9 That he should still live for ever,
And not see corruption.
10 For he seeth that wise men die,
Likewise the fool and the brutish person perish,
And leave their wealth to others.
11 Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever,
And their dwelling-places to all generations;
They call their lands after their own names.
12 Nevertheless man being in honor abideth not:
He is like the beasts that perish.
13 This their way is their folly:
Yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah.
14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them;
And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning;
And their beauty shall consume
In the grave from their dwelling
15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave:
For he shall receive me. Selah.
16 Be not thou afraid when one is made rich,
When the glory of his house is increased;
17 For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away:
His glory shall not descend after him.
18 Though while he lived he blessed his soul,
(And men will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself,)
19 He shall go to the generation of his fathers;
They shall never see light.
20 Man that is in honour, and understandeth not,
Is like the beasts that perish.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Contents and Exposition. The Psalmist in a solemn preface (Psa_49:1-4), addresses all persons without distinction of residence, race, or position in life. He calls upon them to attend to his voice—which is accompanied by his harp—because he means to teach them an important truth, salutary to all,—a truth, which he himself, a disciple of wisdom, has learned by revelation, and has received into his heart. This Maschal discusses the problem of temporal happiness, and the prosperity of the ungodly, and is therefore related to Psalms 27, 73. The fundamental idea is, that the pious have no ground to fear under such circumstances in this transitory world, because the rich man cannot with all his gold purchase exemption from death, but by his vanity and folly becomes more and more like mere brutes that perish, while the just man by God’s grace is delivered from the power of the grave. This thought is expressed in two strophes, each of which terminates with a verse in almost the same words. In these strophes the relations of the thought and the parts of the verses are so artistically interwoven that in the first strophe the Psalmist testifies to his own fearlessness, and in the middle of the second exhorts others to be equally courageous, while in each of the two places there is a sort of conclusion marked by Selah. His language is terse, pithy, and sometimes rough. The phrases are pointed, now and then bold, and in some places obscure, while the structure of the sentences is peculiar, having here and there a kind of artistic intricacy. There are great difficulties in some passages of the present text, which are nearly unintelligible, owing probably, to mistakes of transcribers. If so, however, they must be very ancient, since the oldest translators were evidently perplexed by them, and propose very senseless explanations.
Psa_49:1-4. Hear this.—A like solemn call occurs Deu_32:1; 1Ki_22:28; Mic_1:2; Job_34:2. The “world “—Cheled—(see Psa_17:1-4), is not heaven and earth or the world of space, but an existence—a something—which has its course in time. In Psa_49:3, the gradation of the ideas of wisdom and understanding is expressed in the plural form, as is often done in the Proverbs of Solomon.—“I will open,” Psa_49:4, refers not to the solution but the statement of the problem, since heart and mouth are opened. Psa_109:30; Amo_8:5; Proverbs 26 Such a combination of problem and maxim we also find in Psa_78:2; Pro_1:6.—Playing on the harp harmonizes with the soul’s vibrations, and the latter are both expressed and excited by it. 2Ki_3:15.
[Perowne: The world; the term here used is that which indicates its temporary, fleeting character.—Alexander: The word translated world means primarily duration or continued existence; then more specifically, human life, the present state of things; and by a natural transition, the world as the place where it is spent.—Perowne. Wisdom,—Understanding. In the Heb. these words are plural, but apparently not so used with any intensification of meaning.—In the second clause of the verse, I have supplied the copula “is,” for notwithstanding Hupfeld’s remark to the contrary, I cannot think it a natural construction, to repeat the verb from the first clause: “The meditation of my heart shall speak of understanding.”—J. F.].
Psa_49:5. The iniquity of my heels (or my sup- planters, or of those who have trodden on me). This explanation of the phrase (Syriac and most others) suggests the meaning of “evil days—days of adversity,” i. e. not adverse times simply, but those in which bad men abuse their power and wealth (Geier and others). This explanation agrees best with the “ fear” mentioned in Psa_49:5; Psa_49:16. The rendering (Sept., Chald., Symm., Jer., Rabb., and others), “guilt or sin of my heels,” is not only obscure (for what sin is meant), but ambiguous, for we would naturally think of his own sin, which does not accord with the meaning of the passage. At any rate “heels” cannot be taken for “steps “=missteps. If the “heels” be regarded as the object of the persecution and the waylaying (Calv., Hup., Ortenherg), the image used is unnatural, and many transpositions are necessary to bring out the sense,—when the iniquity upon my heels, i. e. on all sides, compass me about.
[Alexander: The iniquity of my oppressors (or supplanters). The word translated oppressors commonly means heels; but as this yields no good sense here, it may be taken as a verbal noun, meaning either traders, tramplers, oppressors or supplanters, traitors, in a sense akin to which the verbal root is used Gen_27:36; Hos_12:4. In either case, it is clearly a description of his enemies as practising fraud, or violence against him.—Perowne: When iniquity compasseth etc. Perhaps iniquity is supposed to be lying, like a serpent in his path, ready to fasten on the heel, as the most exposed and vulnerable part.—Barnes: The true idea is, when I am exposed to the crafts, the tricks of those who lie in wait for me; I am liable to be attacked suddenly, or to be taken at unawares; but what have Ito fear?—J. F.].
Psa_49:7—10. His brother. Instead of אָהִיו (his brother) which is generally used when related to Isch, we have simply אָח as an accusative before the emphatic negative, which also precedes the infinitive absolute. The stress laid upon the impossibility of redeeming a brother (i. e. a fellow-man) from death, instead of himself, becomes the more remarkable, because we might expect his own redemption to be mentioned. This, however can hardly be deduced from the suffix at the close of the following line=his redemption (Hengsten.); or redemption for himself (Hitzig), although in the following verse we have the comprehensive plural “their souls.” It is not necessary to adopt the reading in some editions אַךְ, (Ewald, Olsh., Böttcher,) and by changing the points in the verb that follows, to make it reflective, =surely no one can redeem himself. Nor can אַח be taken as a nominative, and subject of the sentence. (Luther and others). The true idea here is, not simply the solidarity of all men Godward (Hupfeld), but rather the impossibility of redemption of any one by the mutual assistance, or the united efforts of men; and thus we are prepared for the subsequent declaration that God is the Redeemer.—Most critics take Psa_49:8 as a parenthesis, but as this construction is harsh, it is better, not to strike it from the text, as a gloss, (Ortenberg), but to make Psa_49:9 dependent on it (Kimchi, Flamin., Hengsten., Hupfeld), though the connection between them is somewhat loose. (Baur). The translation “because so precious is the ransom price of the soul, that it is wanting forevermore“ (Ewald, Köster, Maurer), is admissible, (but needless), since the perfect חדל has this sense Psa_36:4, “he has desisted, ceased, removed himself.”—The idea that Psa_49:9, is a premise “though he still continue to live forever” (Luther, Geier, Hitz.), and Psa_49:10, a conclusion from it “he shall see,” cannot be reconciled with the strong expression of living forever.—Most interpreters take כִי (Psa_49:10), in a causative sense, as explaining why he ceaseth, i.e. because he sees that wise men die, (Isaki, Luther, J. H. Michaelis). Others take this verse as an antecedent (although he sees, etc.) to Psa_49:11, (it is still their delusion to dream of an eternal home). But in direct discourse this particle renders the contrast more emphatic. (Flamin. De Wette, and most critics). It would be both violent and unnecessary to strike out the words “for he seeth” (Olshausen). There is nothing to indicate that they are the remains of a mutilated verse. They only stand in the way of the transposition of Psa_49:9, before Psa_49:8, and to the exposition “and he (man) ceases (to be) forever.”
[Alexander: Psa_49:8. And costly is the ransom of their soul, etc. This obscure verse admits of several constructions. Their soul refers most probably to the rich man and his brother. The soul or life of both requires so much to ransom it, that neither can redeem the other. The verb in the last clause may mean ceases to live, perishes, and agrees with either or with each of the subjects previously mentioned. The ransom of their life is so costly, that neither can be saved. Or the verb may agree with ransom, as in the Eng. Bible; it is too costly to be paid, and therefore ceases, or remains unpaid, forever. The same sense substantially may be obtained by making cease mean cease (or fail) to pay, and construing it with one of the preceding nouns. The ransom is so costly that he fails to pay it, or ceases to attempt it forever. Upon any of these various suppositions, the essential idea is that the ransom of their life is too expensive to be paid.—Perowne: Soul, i.e. as is evident from the whole scope of the context here, “life.” It is much to be regretted that superficial readers of the Psalm so often give a totally false meaning to this and the preceding verse. The passage has been alleged to prove that our Lord, as the Redeemer of man, must be God as well as man. The doctrine is most true, but it is not in the Psalm, nor is there the remotest allusion to it. All that is here taught is, that no wealth can save a man from death, because the life of men is not in their own hands, or in that of their fellows, but only in the hand of God, who cannot be bribed. There is a kind of solemn irony in the idea of the richest man offering all his riches to God, to escape death.—J. F.]
Psa_49:11-12. Their inward thought, etc. The expression is obscure if the idea be that their hearts are deluded by the belief that their houses and descendants shall continue forever (Jerome, Isaki, Luth., Calv., and others). Still less can the meaning be that the “houses” themselves totally absorb their thoughts, as if the expression was parallel to that in Psa_45:9, “all her garments are myrrh” (Hupfeld), for this could not be reconciled with the word “forever.” But as the heart is within us, and as the two phrases “the heart” and “the inward thought”—קרב—are synonymous (Psa_64:7; 1Ki_3:28 : Exo_36:2), and as the word rendered “inward thought,” denotes both the organ and the seat of thought (Psa_5:10; Psa_62:5), it may here express not the product of mental activity, i.e. the delusion, but the essential activity of the organ as such by which their inward thought is filled. This activity here may be, not the thought, but the wish, (Hengsten., Del., Hitzig),—Nearly all the older versions give an entirely different sense, for they read קֶבֶר instead of קֶרֵב.—The meaning “their graves are their houses forever,” or ironically, and better still “their graves are their perpetual houses” (Ewald, Ols., Riehm), may be commended, since the grave is proverbially called “the perpetual house” Pro_12:5. [This is an error. There is no such expression in the place named. The reference must be to Ecc_12:5, “the long home (or house).”—J. F.]. But the conjectural reading on which this exposition is based, is not sustained by a single MSS. Nor does the closing sentence read “they who were highly praised everywhere” (Ewald); nor “their names are celebrated in their lands,” (Rosen., De Wette, Hitzig), but “they proclaim their names throughout the lands” i.e. they call them after their names. (The Old Trans., Rabbins, Sachs, Böttcher, Hupfeld, Kurtz, Del.). For אדמה signifies the cultivated earth, arable land, and the subject must not be needlessly changed, while the formula “to proclaim or call the name” may be employed in various relations.—In Psa_49:12, יָליִן should not be changed to יָבִין as in Psa_49:20, (Sept., Syr., Cappel, Ewald), nor should it be substituted for the latter word in Psa_49:20, (Ols.). Parallel verses are not always perfectly assonant; and here the change in a single consonant causes an ingenious play of words, (ohne Bestand, ohne Verstand),—without continuance, without intelligence. The special meaning “to continue for a night” (Aben Ezra, Stier, Hengsten.), may be proper in Psa_30:6, but not here, where ליִן is equivalent to “abide“ as in Pro_21:23.
[Alexander: Their inward thought, etc. The plural form at the end of the sentence occurs nowhere else, but corresponds to our word grounds, when applied to cultivated lands.—A possible though not a probable construction makes the last two mean upon earth, the form of the Hebrew noun being assimilated to that of this particle before it.—J. F.]
Psa_49:13. This their way, etc. There is no reason for transposing Psa_49:13; Psa_49:12 as Hupfeld suggests. We must not translate it “this their sentiment is their hope” (De Wette). “Way” here does not signify moral conduct, but the “way of faring” in the world, and this not in the sense of “faring well,” but of “faring ill.” Hence we must not render the verse “this their doing is their folly” (Aquil. Symm., Luth., Calv., and others; nor “becomes to them a folly,” i.e. a foolish security (Chald., Stier). The sense of “folly” has been derived from that of “assurance” (Ecc_7:25); but here the original meaning must be adhered to, which is “a stubborn disposition” (Böttcher), manifesting itself by “boasting” (Hitzig), and turning out to be “folly.”—There is no contrast in the following verse, “and, notwithstanding they follow them” (Hengsten.); it is better to take it as simply a continuation of the attributive sentence (Del.)—In the more precise statement, it is not said what will happen to them after death (Ewald); nor to their descendants (Older Comment.); but what may happen to those who imitate them.
[Perowne: This their way. Both the meaning and construction of this clause are doubtful. It may mean (1) This their way (i.e. manner of life, course of conduct) is their folly: or (2) This their prosperous condition is (or becomes) their infatuation (blind confidence); for kesel may mean “a stupid security,” or “presumptuous confidence,” as well as “folly.” As regards the construction, it may be as above, or the clause may consist of two independent sentences. “This is their way; they have confidence;” or finally, the latter part of it may be a relative sentence: “This is the way of those who are foolish.”—J. F.].
Psa_49:14-17. Like sheep, etc. This comparison indicates, on the one hand their want of will and incapacity to resist, and on the other hand, it suggests the idea that those who during their life-time have fed in rich pastures, are now driven into Sheol, like sheep into their fold at night, and have Death, the king of terrors (Job_18:14), as their Shepherd, i.e. their keeper and master. (Geier, Isaki). The meaning is not that death gnaws them (Vulg., Luther and others), nor that he devours them as food. Job_18:13, (J. H. Michaelis, Geier).—In the promise that “the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning,” it is easy to discover a reference to the morning of the resurrection, and the universal reign of the saints in union with Messiah, (Isaki, Kimchi, Geier, Mendelsohn); but this is not presented as a positive dogma, nor as an express prediction (Older Expos.), but as the result of that indefinite presentiment of the future that marked Old Testament times (Stier);—as a parable (Psa_49:4), exhibiting not the last great day (Delitzsch), but the certain triumph of the righteous over the ungodly. This is, however, expressed in terms not only which are applicable to the last judgment so clearly revealed in the New Testament, but the whole passage has a typical significance. It is, as Ewald says, a glimpse of the Messianic hope.—By “morning,” (the word in the original occurs in a sentence connected by a vav consec.), we are to understand not the morning of the resurrection, which shall come to all men after the night of death, but the morning that dawns upon the upright after the destruction of the ungodly. It is the morning of the future illuminated by the light of God’s gracious countenance (Kurtz) and not limited in duration, during which they shall live by the power of God, while the wicked are put beneath their feet, and given over to death. The rendering “to tread” (instead of “have dominion”) i.e. upon their proud graves or corpses, needlessly weakens the statement, which, though figurative, conveys more than the simple contrast between the night of adversity and the morning of deliverance, especially if “morning” be taken to mean that which will “very soon” occur, and the expression be connected with the following verse (Ewald, Hitzig), which would give a better sense, though not in eonformity with the accents. According to the present textual structure of the verse, only a tolerable meaning can be got out of it, by a forced and artificial exposition.” Literally it would be, “for their form (beauty) is to be devoured by Sheol, out of the dwelling which is theirs,” i e., they shall have no more a dwelling. If this obscure passage be understood to mean that the form of the deceased is devoured by Sheol, thus making an end of its bodily beauty and earthly glory with their former dwelling, (the Older Trans. and Commen., and more recently Claus, Stier, Del.), not only may it be asked why so simple an idea should be expressed in a way so odd and obscure, but the doubt might arise from this single text of Scripture, whether the decomposition of the human body that takes place in the grave, is not transferred to Sheol. This doubt becomes the stronger, since the explanation that there is here a confusion of ideas about the grave, decomposition, and the shadow life in Sheol (De Wette, Hup.) cannot be admitted on the standpoint of these expositors. Strictly speaking the idea would better accord with the sense of the first half of the sentence, that the form of the dead, elsewhere represented as shadowy, will at last be delivered over in Sheol to complete consumption, i. e. annihilation (Hupfeld). But with this, the seeond part of the sentence does not agree, and the admission would hardly be satisfactory, if a strange and illogical construction (Kurz),—the assurance that in Sheol the well known receptacle of the dead, the form of the deceased is consumed—is followed by another statement that in consequence of this consumption the form had no longer a dwelling, while, on the contrary, Sheol holds no longer any occupants. But if we hold that there is here a contrast between the time when they fancied they were building houses to last forever, and that future period when they shall exist without property, without bodies, and therefore in empty space, the first half of the sentence must be understood to refer not to a consumption by, but of Sheol, i.e. its destruction. (Isaki, Hofmann). This passage however, is too weak a ground for such an idea, which is nowhere else found in the Old Testament. Equally pointless are the attempts to explain the passage, by giving to עוּר (Keri), the sense of “help” (Sept., Vulg.); “defiance” (Luther), or “rock.” By referring the word in its last named sense to Christ as the “rock” of the righteous, who will destroy the reign of Death by depriving him of his place of abode (De Dieu and others), they endeavor to get out of it a comforting eschatologic idea. If we make a slight change in the points and accents (and on the whole this seems to be the best solution) we get a simple and natural meaning, viz. that their form is wasting away, and that Sheol is their abode. (Ewald, Hitzig). For עִירIsa_45:16, or עוּרח=עוּרEze_43:11, means “that which is made,” “the structure,” and בִּלָּה denotes the gradual but sure wasting of the body, Job_13:23. Instead of מִוְּבֻל, some Codices omit the Dagesch, and therefore lean to the explanation by the preposition מִן—. There is no allusion in Psa_49:15, to God’s protection against an early death (De Wette, Kurtz); nor to his delivery from some great danger that imperilled life. (Hengs., Hitzig), although it is proper to regard the statement as contrasting the condition of the godly and the ungodly, and as affirming that redemption by man is impossible (Psa_49:7). The certainty of redemption by God, from the hand or the power of Sheol means deliverance from that dominion of Sheol to which all men are liable. (Calvin, Geier, J. H. Mich., Clauss, Stier, Hoffman). But it is not presented here as a truth of which they were then conscious, but rather as a glimpse and hope obtained by a bold flight of faith. Nor is there any definite indication of the ransom price, nor of the way and manner of this deliverance. Still there is an allusion to the “taking up” of Enoch, Gen_5:24, and of Elijah, 2Ki_2:3, in the use of the word לקח which, generally denotes, not “to take under one’s protection,” but “to take,” i.e. “take away” (Aben Ezra, Kimchi), “take along,” Psa_49:18, “take to oneself” (Isaki) Ps. 73:24; 79:49; Hos_13:14. As this word in the imperf. follows a fut. imperf. it cannot be regarded as a Preterite=“for he has taken me.” (Luther). It must be taken in an absolute sense in a line which is all the more comprehensive because of its brevity (Böttcher). For these reasons we cannot approve the otherwise possible rendering “if” (Hitzig) or better still “when” (Ewald) “it (viz. the hand of Sheol) takes hold on me.”
[Perowne: Psa_49:14-15. We have in this passage the strong hope of eternal life with God, if not the hope of a resurrection. In the very midst of the gloomy picture which he draws of the end of the ungodly, there breaks forth one morning ray of light, the bright anticipation of the final triumph of the good over the evil. This is the inextinguishable hope which animates the Church of the Old Testament, as well as that of the New. Righteousness shall eventually, must in its very nature, reign on earth. The wicked shall find their end in Sheol (Psa_9:17-18), and the righteous shall trample on their graves. This, and not more than this, seems to have been the meaning originally of the Psalmist, in the words, “And the righteous shall have dominion over them in the morning.” But now that he comes to speak of himself, and his own personal relation to God, he rises into a higher strain. He who knows and loves God has the life of God, and can never perish. That life must survive the shock of death.” “God,” says the Psalmist, “shall redeem my soul from the hand of Hades, for He shall take me,” as He took Enoch, and as He took Elijah to Himself. We are not, of course, to suppose that the Sacred Poet himself expected to be taken up alive to heaven; but those great facts of former ages were God’s witnesses to man of his immortality, and of the reality of a life with Him beyond this world. It is a hope based on facts like these which here shines forth. It is a hope, not a revealed certainty. It rests on no distinct promise; it has not assumed the definite form of a doctrine. But it was enough to raise, to cheer, to encourage those who saw ungodliness prospering in the world. The end of the wicked was, after all, a thick darkness which had never been penetrated; the end of the righteous, life with God.—J. F.].
Psa_49:18-20. Though (or, it may be that) he blessed his soul,etc. Many interpreters take כִי in the sense of “because” (Syr., Flamin.,Calv., Heng., Hup.) as indicating the reason why such a termination must take place, still though the sense of “yea when” or “even though” Isa_1:15, (Del. and others), as granting something (Ewald, Gram. 362), yet we prefer to understand it in a hypothetic sense (as in Psa_49:16), as presenting a possible case=“it may be that,” 2Sa_16:10. (Hitzig)—To “bless his soul” is hardly=to “bless himself in his heart” Deu_31:19 “to take his ease,” (Syr., Flamin., and most others), with the positive enjoyments, of eating and drinking, (Hitzig).—In Psa_49:19, דּוּר must be understood, not as in the Arabic, in the rare sense of “habitations,” i.e. Sheol, Isa_38:12, (De Wette), but in the usual one of “generations,” because it is more natural to make “the soul” the subject of this sentence (Aben Ezra, Kimchi, J. H. Mich., Sachs, Olshaus., Hoffman, Kurtz, Ewald, Del.,) than to suppose a direct address to the rich, (Geier, Rosen., De Wette, Hengsten., Hitzig); or to change תָּבוֹא into יָבוא (Old Trans., Hupfeld).—To “see the light” is a common expression for “to live” Psa_58:9; Job_3:16; Ecc_6:5, but the “light” is not necessarily that of the sun, (Hupfeld), unless it be the sun of eternal life.—The common saying that men must perish like the beasts, is changed into the more elevated one, that only those who have not a right understanding of life shall perish like the beasts. (Hofmann). There is no reason for giving the conditional clause “if he understand not,” a positive sense as in Psa_94:7, “and he regards it not.” (Hitzig).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. It is one of the mysteries of the Divine government, that worldly men, often and for a long time, enjoy so great prosperity that they never think of the end, and are intent only to increase their wealth, careless of God and His will. This mystery may disturb even a gracious soul, may fill it with fear and doubt, and lead it astray, especially when it sees the godly suffer in days of adversity, from the malice of the worldly-minded, to such an extent that they hardly know what to do. In such cases we want an explanation that will satisfy all men; and it is a thought full of comfort that God has furnished such a solution of the mystery, by the mouth of those who have formerly inclined to Him their ear.
2. To the godly—and to them alone—the contents of this revelation are more comforting than the form of it. For death puts an end to the worldly man himself, and to all the things of which he boasts,—an end from which all the wealth of earth cannot ransom him;—an end full of shame, because he has made himself like the irrational brutes, and he has no other prospect before him than that of going down to Sheol. The godly man shares, indeed, the universal lot of mortals, but in his personal life, he is intimately united to God, and has a treasure far more precious than perishable and deceitful riches. If redemption from the power of Sheol be possible, God only can effect it. And well may the pious man rejoice that it is not merely death that lays hands upon him, but God Himself, who will guide him in such a way that through the night he shall come to the light, and the morning of triumph.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
If we are led by God’s word and held by His hand, we need fear neither the world, nor sin, nor death.—God conducts His own people into the light, through the night of suffering, doubt, and death.—Riches without God are not only an uncertain but a deceitful good.—The world’s folly, and the wisdom from God.—The false security of the children of this world, and the needless fear of the godly.—The vanity of wealth acquired and enjoyed without God.—Poverty cannot disgrace, and misfortune cannot harm, if we find and hold fast to God.—The vanity of the worldly-minded man in his purposes and life.—He will not listen to God, will learn nothing salutary either in the world or from the world.
Starke: Many wise sayings have been uttered; Oh, that the many would diligently hear and act according to them !—A Christian needs heavenly wisdom to guide him in seeking his salvation; he needs an illuminated understanding in order that he may flee from all that can injure his soul.—The proper use of music is to further devotion and the honor of God.—How great must be the Lord, who can gather all nations before Him! in whose presence the meanest beggar is of as much account as the richest man on earth !—The fear of man is the first step towards apostacy from the known truth of God; for this reason, a Christian, especially a teacher, should not allow himself to be seduced by it, but should contend against it with faith and prayer.—Ungodly men are called oppressors, because they act in an oppressive way, but hereafter they shall be so dealt with themselves.—The ungodly rich men are foolish in supposing that they are the sole owners of their possessions: no, they are God’s, and He can take them away at any moment, even if they are many kingdoms.—Great wealth easily begets pride and forgetfulness of God; hence, those to whom God gives riches should keep their hearts with all diligence.—The longest life on earth is nothing, compared with eternity, yet our future state depends upon our conduct in this life. If we would be eternally happy, we must walk in constant readiness for eternity.—A sinner cannot redeem himself from death, much less from hell, by his earthly possessions, nor by his own power.—How different the judgments of God from those of men! How many bow down before the rich and mighty, praise and pronounce them happy, though their doings are in God’s eyes, simply folly and end only in misery!—Those who in the day of grace are accepted by grace, shall never be cast off.—Riches, sensual pleasure, and worldly glory are the devil’s dangerous baits. Ah ! beware of this poisonous sugar !—The treasures which we cannot take with us when we die are not the true ones; blessed, therefore, is he who gathers spiritual treasures, and aims to become rich in God.—Far better is it to be poor and pious, and retain God’s grace forever, than to be rich and ungodly, and bring down upon ourselves God’s eternal wrath.—In the day of grace labor diligently to become a child of light, and to walk as such, then you shall, hereafter, see the light of God’s countenance forever.—Man’s greatest dignity and honor, is to have the Divine image renewed in his soul by the Holy Ghost. But if forgetting his Creator, he gives himself to vain things and his own sensual appetites, he will sink almost below the level of the brute. Saladin ordered a long spear with a white flag attached to it to be carried through his camp, having on it this inscription: “The mighty King Saladin, the conqueror of all Asia and of Egypt, takes with him when he dies none of his possessions but this linen flag for a shroud.” The emperor Severus exclaimed upon his death-bed: “Omnia fui, et nihil mihi prodest.”—Osiander: It is the duty of all men to listen attentively to the word of God, and to follow its precepts; those who despise that word shall perish.—Selnekker: All the riches of the world are nothing compared with that genuine treasure which believers possess in their knowledge of a gracious God.—Menzel: The preacher should ever see one Lord, and two souls. The Lord is in heaven, and has called him to his office. Him he must keep before his eyes, regardless of men who trust in riches which they cannot retain forever. The two souls are described in Ezekiel 33 : one is the sinner’s, the other is the preacher’s. He is responsible for the first, and must suffer for it, if through his fault it be given over to condemnation.—Franke: The proclamation of the word of life should also produce life.—Renschel: The service of mammon yields but a poor reward. Be not deceived.—Frisch: Whatever a child of the world most highly esteems, is nothing but folly.—A man possessed of earthly honors and happiness, if he be not wise in Divine things—as few are in the hour of prosperity—will find his happiness quickly at an end, and his future state very miserable.—Tholuck: Blessed is he who, when he departs, has no treasures which he is forced to leave to others.—A rich man who wishes to deceive himself, will find many to help him.—The kingdom of God, though for a time not victorious, will conquer forever.—Umbreit: We can be delivered from the bondage of fear, only by humble, quiet submission to God’s will.—The pious man who though scorned by the world, never fears nor trembles, is God’s hero.—The more a man’s heart cleaves to the perishing things of this life, the less he enjoys them.—You may bargain for and prize all earthly things, but the soul has a priceless value, for it belongs to God.—Stier: Prosperous as the ungodly may be, there is comfort in the certainty that death makes a sure decision, when the proud children of the world shall perish, while the pious shall be redeemed and accepted by God.—Guenther: The worst kind of folly and self-deception is that of men who will not deem themselves to be higher than the brutes, nor truly learn to know themselves, nor work out their salvation with fear and trembling.—Diedrich: To live rightly is the highest wisdom, art, and courage.—If God be our daily aim, we need fear nothing from the world.—Taube: An appeal to every one concerning the folly of the worldly-minded, who can neither be feared nor called happy by the children of God.—The awful nothing out of which the All in this life is made.
[Henry: The children of God, though ever so poor, are truly happy in this, above the most prosperous of the children of this world, that they are well guarded against the terrors of death, and the judgment to come.—The way of worldliness is a very foolish way; they that lay up their treasures on earth, and set their affections on things below, act contrary both to right reason, and their own interest.—The love of the world is a disease that runs in the blood; men have it by kind, till the grace of God cures it.—The believing hopes of the soul’s redemption from the grave and reception to glory, are the great support and joy of the children of God in a dying hour.—They that are rich in the graces and comforts of the Spirit, have something which, when they die, they shall carry away with them, something which death cannot strip them of. Bishop Horne: At the call of Folly, what multitudes are always ready to assemble ! But Wisdom, eternal and essential Wisdom crieth without, she lifteth up her voice in the streets, and who is at leisure to attend her heavenly lectures?—Scott: What good will it do any man to have his name perpetuated on earth, when he has no name in the registers of heaven?—J. F.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20 incline--to hear attentively (Psa 17:6; Psa 31:2).
incline--to hear attentively (Psa 17:6; Psa 31:2).
parable--In Hebrew and Greek "parable" and "proverb" are translations of the same word. It denotes a comparison, or form of speech, which under one image includes many, and is expressive of a general truth capable of various illustrations. Hence it may be used for the illustration itself. For the former sense, "proverb" (that is, one word for several) is the usual English term, and for the latter, in which comparison is prominent, "parable" (that is, one thing laid by another). The distinction is not always observed, since here, and in Psa 78:2; "proverb" would better express the style of the composition (compare also Pro 26:7, Pro 26:9; Hab 2:6; Joh 16:25, Joh 16:29). Such forms of speech are often very figurative and also obscure (compare Mat 13:12-15). Hence the use of the parallel word--
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dark saying--or, "riddle" (compare Eze 17:2).
open--is to explain.
upon the harp--the accompaniment for a lyric.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 1. People… inhabitants of the world—The subject is of…
1. People… inhabitants of the world—The subject is of world-wide concern, and the psalmist invites attention accordingly. It would seem by this call that the occasion of the psalm was one in which foreign nations, equally with the Hebrews, had cause to consider the brief and deceptive triumph of wickedness. חלד, (hheled,) world, here means world with reference to its duration—a period of time, age. The psalmist’s call is upon all the dwellers of this age.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 1. all ye people] Rather, all ye peoples, as…
1. all ye people] Rather, all ye peoples, as in Psa_47:1. All peoples, all the inhabitants of the world, are summoned to listen, for the theme is one of universal interest; it concerns all humanity. It is characteristic of the ‘Wisdom’ or religious philosophy of Israel to view the problems of life in their wider aspect. It treats of man as man, not of Israel as the chosen people. The first line recalls the opening words of Micah’s prophecy (Mic_1:2), and the words of his older namesake (1Ki_22:28). For the form of the verse cp. Elihu’s words (Job_34:2).
the world] A peculiar word, found in this sense only in Psa_17:14. It denotes the lapse of time, the fleeting age, the world as uncertain and transitory.
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1–4. A solemn introduction, addressed to men of every nation and every class, emphasising the importance of the Psalmist’s theme.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19 (1) Hear this.—For the opening address, comp. Deu_32:1; Mic_1:2;…
(1) Hear this.—For the opening address, comp. Deu_32:1; Mic_1:2; Psa_50:7; Isa_1:2.
World.—As in Psa_17:14; properly, duration. (Comp. our expression, “the things of time.”)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–20 THIS is a didactic poem, and resembles in some…
THIS is a didactic poem, and resembles in some respects Ps 37, and Ps 73. It deals with the same problem the contrast between the lot of the righteous man, whom the wicked persecute continually (ver. 5), and these wicked themselves, who are wealthy and prosperous, found families, leave them their wealth, and even "call their lands after their own names" (vers. 6, 10, 11). The problem is solved, more distinctly than anywhere else in the Psalms, by the doctrine of compensation in a future life (vers. 15, 19), so that (as Hupfeld says) the psalm "contains a real, though crude and imperfect, theodicy." The wicked man has his good things in this life, and after death evil things, while with the good man the case is exactly the contrary. The date of the psalm is uncertain; but from its style it may be placed between the time of David and that of Hezekiah. The ascription of it to "the sons of Korah" deserves acceptance.
Metrically, the composition divides itself into three portions:
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(1) a short prelude, or introduction (vers. 1-4);
(2) a strophe, forming the main body of the psalm (vers. 5-15); and
(3) a summing-up, or conclusion (vers. 16-20).
Hear this, all ye people; rather, all ye peoples. Like Psalm 47, this psalm is addressed to the nations generally, who are all equally interested in it. The writer regards his mission as not confined to Israel, but extending to the whole of mankind. Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world; literally, of the fleeting (dlj), of this fleeting, transitory scene.
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-20. "A dark saying:" wealth in bad hands.
The author and the date of this psalm are alike unknown. There are, however, matters concerning it of much more importance, which we do know. One of these is that the writer was a believer in God; and that while the dark problems of life perplexed him, as they do and have done so many others, he saw light above and beyond them. Another is that in this psalm we have the words of one who had "inclined his ear" to hear what the great Speaker would say unto him, and what he would have him write. He would not put pen to paper till he received the word from heaven. "Antequam ad alios loquar, prius devote audiam ipse Spiritum Sanctum intus me erudientem." "In the words, "I will incline mine ear to a similitude," it is plainly implied that the wisdom which the psalmist would communicate is no self-sprung possession, but one that has been acquired by him... he only brought forth what he had learned in the school of God" (Hengstenberg, in loc. ). The theme of the psalm is suggested by the fact, so often observed, that much of the world"s wealth is in the hands of the ungodly. Concerning it, "in Psalm 37. David, in Psalm 49 the sons of Korah, and in Psalm 73. Asaph, teach the same truth" (Fausset, p. 258). In dealing therewith we shall portion out the homiletic expositions in three distinct outlines. In this we deal with the darker side of the theme.
I ONE OF LIFE"S MOST PERPLEXING FACTS IS THAT SO MUCH WEALTH SHOULD BE IN BAD HANDS. No observant man can fail to see many illustrations of this. The greatness assumed by the rich often overshadows humbler souls. It sets them wondering why God should let so many of his people struggle with poverty while many of the ungodly are rolling in wealth. And, to the eye of sense, it darkens the world"s outlook when, while "money answereth all things," the great bulk of it should be possessed by the godless, the selfish, the oppressors, and the vile. The fact creates fear (ver. 5) in the evil day, since those who have the money-power, and are in a sense the lords of the world, use their power unrighteously. So much so that our Lord employs the striking epithet, "the mammon of unrighteousness "( Luke 16). Only one hint, indeed, is given, in the word "iniquity" (ver. 5), that these rich men are evil men. "But this seems to be designed, as m our Lord"s parable of the rich man and Lazarus, to show that the selfish, proud, boastful use of riches, the mere luxuriousness of wealth, apart from violence or unscrupulousness of conduct, is evil, and finds its end in the outer darkness" But let us note
II THERE ARE FIXED CONDITIONS ON WHICH THIS WEALTH IS POSSESSED. These are here specified as fourfold.
1. Wealth cannot screen from death (vers. 7, 8, 12). There may be, (Lev_25:47-55) according to the Law, redemption from poverty; but no brother has any ransom price wherewith to prevent death or to deliver from it. Then, it must be given up altogether.
2. After death the wealth cannot be controlled; it is left to others (ver. 10).
3. The departed one must see corruption (ver. 10).
4. He can carry nothing away (ver. 17; 1Ti_6:7). The "rich" one is "bankrupt" at the moment of death.
III YET ITS POSSESSORS CHERISH MANIFOLD DELUSIONS.
1. They trust in riches. (ver. 6 Mar_10:24)
2. They boast of their wealth (ver. 6). Yet wealth can never ward off care or sickness.
3. They shut their eyes to their precarious holding of their wealth (ver. 11).
4. They even cherish "inward thoughts" of perpetuity (ver. 11).
5. They make special efforts to perpetuate their honour (vers. 11, 12).
6. They congratulate themselves on their greatness (ver. 18; Luk_12:19). And all the while they are "fools" in wisdom"s eye (ver. 13).
IV FOR SUCH THERE IS BUT A DISMAL OUTLOOK.
1. Like the brutes, they will yet be reduced to silence (ver. 12). Their proud boasts will soon be stilled.
2. They will descend to Sheol; i.e. to the realm of the departed, Neither the word "Sheol" nor the word "Hades" contains per se any moral significance, nor does either word convey per se the notion of joy or sorrow. But the connection may give such significance to the words. Such is the case here and in Luk_16:23; in both the thought of evil and of sorrow is conveyed.
3. Death will shepherd them. They will be under him, for him to lead and feed them. What a shepherd death!
4. Their flesh will consume away; their glory will be gone (vers. 14, 17, 19, 20). No light ahead!
5. In the great awakening, "in the morning the morning of the resurrection the upright, whom they despised, shall have dominion over them (LXX, katakurieusousin ). The lordship was theirs during the night, because of their riches; in the morning that lordship will be transferred to the upright, because of their righteousness. (Rev_2:26, Rev_2:27) Hence, note:
6. There is no reason to fear in the day of evil; for evil itself is in the restraint of infinite Power.
7. Where the world sees cleverness and riches, be it ours to see folly and poverty, if godliness be not also there! "The wicked is driven away in his wickedness. C.
Vers. 1-20. A contrast: unseen wealth.
To those whose character and outlook are depicted in the bulk of this psalm its writer did not belong. He looks on them; he writes of them; but he is not one with them. The emphatic and striking word "but" (ver. 15) indicates what the context shows, that there is a great gulf between him and them. While the wicked ones who are rolling in wealth despise him because of his distance from them on the ground of earthly poverty, he, on the other hand, looks down with pity upon them because of their distance from him, on the ground of his having "a life hidden with Christ in God," and possessions in heaven, where no thief approacheth nor moth corrupteth. And the expositor may well devote his attention to the five lines of contrast indicated in this psalm.
I THERE IS A CONTRAST IN CHARACTER. (Ver. 14) "The upright." This is the word often used to express the character of the people of God, in distinction from the ungodly. (Psa_33:1 Psa_32:11 Psa_112:4) The word does not mean "perfection," but true sincerity of spirit, combined with the desire to be right in the sight of God. Three things are included therein:
(1) repentance;
(2) forgiveness;
(3) sanctification.
Where sin is duly acknowledged, forsaken, forgiven, removed, there, in the sight of God, is an upright man. How great the contrast between such and the "fools," however rich the latter may be!
II THERE IS A CONTRAST IN POSSESSIONS. Such a one can say, "My God!" And he can think and write and speak of God as One who is his Life, his Hope, his Joy, his Friend, his All (ver. 15).
III THERE IS A CONTRAST IN THE IMMEDIATE OUTLOOK. Instead of being driven at death into the shades of Sheol, he will be received by God (ver. 15). "He shall receive me." The same word is used of Enoch, "He was not, for God took him;" and by Asaph, in Psa_73:24.
IV THERE IS A CONTRAST IN THE AFTER-GUARDIANSHIP, Instead of death being their shepherd by feeding on them, Jehovah is their Shepherd, and leads them beside living fountains of water.
V THERE IS A CONTRAST IN THE FAR LOOK. (Ver. 15) God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave; i.e. he will restore me at the resurrection morning. This nature will be completely redeemed body, soul, and spirit, to be for ever with the Lord. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-20. "Be not afraid.
I THE PREACHER, (Vers. 3, 4) He is marked by thoughtfulness. He lends his ear in many a secret place to learn wisdom. His inspiration is from above, and he does not speak of himself, but as moved by Divine impulses. What he has gathered by long meditation and experience he gives forth freely for the good of others. His ambition is to make the dark clear, to discern between good and evil, to strip falsehood of its disguises, and to set forth the truth concerning God and human life with all the clearness and charm in his power. Let such a man stand between God and men, and he has a right to be heard.
II THE AUDIENCE. (Vers. 1, 2) The call is to all people, for all are interested. Hearing is demanded, for without hearing all speech is vain. It is through hearing that the mind, the conscience, and the affections are reached, and that faith and all the good things which follow, come. Changes there have been, and changes there will be. The old order gives place to the new. But the subject propounded here is for all time. Rich and poor alike would do well to hear and to consider wisely what the preacher has to say; for it not only has the ring of truth, but it is backed by the experience of the ages.
III THE DISCOURSE. The subject is propounded (ver. 5). It is implied here that the wicked may become rich, and that they may even use their wealth in ways unjust and oppressive. Might and good fortune are at their command. They pursue their selfish and unholy schemes unchecked. God seems to leave them to do their pleasure. The stronger the hope of the godly that judgment will come, the greater their perplexity at its delay. Here is a dark riddle, which presses heavily on many a heart, and which has often, in evil times, constrained the cry of the psalmist: "Why?" But light will arise to the righteous. We are taught to look at things as in the presence of God, discerning between truth and falsehood, and discovering that, in spite of all the outward shows and splendour of the ungodly, their inward state is wickedness, their prosperity is folly, and their end is death death without God and without hope. Whereas the godly, though they have their trials, have peace; though they may have little of this world"s goods, are rich toward God, and rejoice in the consciousness of a life which will conquer death, and of a hope of glory strong as truth is strong, pure as Christ is pure, and eternal as the eternal God. The arguments by which these truths are enforced are weighty and powerful.
1. The impotence of wealth in the great emergencies of life. (Ver. 7)
2. The transitoriness of all earthly possessions. (Vers. 10-12)
3. The degradation of human character through covetousness and pride. (Vers. 13, 14)
4. The miserable end of the ungodly rich, as contrasted with the happy end of the righteous. (Vers. 15-20)
Hear, then, the conclusion of the whole matter. Be not afraid" (vers. 5, 16). The lessons which this old seeker after truth has set forth are elsewhere in Holy Scripture, and especially in the teaching of our Lord and his apostles, expounded and enforced with a clearness which leaves no excuse for ignorance, and with a charm which should win the conviction of all hearts. As we read the Sermon on the Mount, as we study the parables of the rich fool and of the good Samaritan, and as we grasp the great verities of the Gospels and the Epistles, our faith grows in strength and our courage in fervour, and looking unto Jesus, and to the joy set before us, we are able to say to ourselves, in the most evil times, "Be not afraid. W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-20. The issues of life.
Connected with Ps 16 Ps 17, the writer stands face to face with the great problem of the time the prosperity of the wicked. The two chief causes which forced the conviction of a hereafter on the later Hebrews were a deep dissatisfaction at the prosperity of the wicked and the misfortunes of the righteous in the world; and the earnest longing of the soul for a more perfect communion with God than was possible in the present life; for they could not but believe that God"s promises to the righteous would be made good. The subject of this psalm is that the issues of life show the difference between the lot of the righteous and the wicked.
I THE LOT OF THE PROSPEROUS WICKED, WHO TRUST IN RICHES.
1. Their riches cannot purchase a ransom from death. (Vers. 7-9) Money may bribe men, but not God, nor death.
2. They cannot carry their riches or their glory with them when they die. (Vers. 16-18) Both are only transient possessions, which soon pass away.
3. There is no deliverance for them from the grave. (Vers. 11-14) The grave is their everlasting habitation, where all their beauty consumes away.
II THE PRIVILEGE OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
1. To be fearless and undaunted in respect to the evil devices of the wicked. (Vers. 5, 6, 16)
2. They shall ultimately obtain dominion over the wicked. (Ver. 14) All the best and devoutest minds have never doubted that good shall at length triumph over evil.
3. Redemption from the grave, from Sheol, into a life with God. (Ver. 15) "No more momentous struggle ever swayed the heart of man than that which first led him to suspect himself to be immortal.
III THESE GREAT ISSUES ARE WORTHY THE STUDY OF ALL. (Vers. 1-4) High and low, rich and poor. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain On vv1–20 Title. To the Chief Musician, a Psalm for the…
Title. To the Chief Musician, a Psalm for the sons of Korah. This is precisely the same as on former occasions, and no remark is needed.
Division. The poet musician sings, to the accompaniment of his harp, the despicable character of those who trust in their wealth, and so he consoles the oppressed believer. The first four verses are a preface; from Ps 49:5-12 all fear of great oppressors is removed by the remembrance of their end and their folly; Ps 49:13 contains an expression of wonder at the perpetuity of folly; Ps 49:14-15 contrast the ungodly and the righteous in their future; and from Ps 49:16-20 the lesson from the whole is given in an admonitory form. Note the chorus in Ps 49:2, 20, and also the two Selahs.
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Ver. 1-4. In these four verses the poet prophet calls universal humanity to listen to his didactic hymn.
Ver. 1. Hear this, all ye people. All men are concerned in the subject, it is of them, and therefore to them that the psalmist would speak. It is not a topic which men delight to consider, and therefore he who would instruct them must press them to give ear. Where, as in this case, the theme claims to be wisdom and understanding, attention is very properly demanded; and when the style combines the sententiousness of the proverb with the sweetness of poesy, interest is readily excited. Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world. "He that hath ears to hear let him hear." Men dwelling in all climes are equally concerned in the subject, for the laws of providence are the same in all lands. It is wise for each one to feel I am a man, and therefore everything which concerns mortals has a personal interest to me. We must all appear before the judgment seat, and therefore we all should give earnest heed to holy admonition which may help us to prepare for that dread event. He who refuses to receive instruction by the ear, will not be able to escape receiving destruction by it when the Judge shall say, "Depart, ye cursed."
Whole Psalm. Strange it is that two Psalms so near together, as this and the forty-fifth should, and should alone imitate, or be the forerunners of, two works of David's son; thisEcclesiastes, the formerthe Canticles. J. M. Neale.
Ver. 1. None.
None.
Psalms 49:2*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15 Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye…
Psa_49:1-20
Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world: both low and high, rich and poor, together.
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The inequalities of society
Impressive and instructive that scene in the wood of Senart, when a luxurious Louis, royally caparisoned for hunting, met a wretched peasant with a coffin. For whom? . . . For a poor brother slave, whom your majesty has sometimes noticed slaving in those quarters. What did he die of? . . . Of hunger. The king gave his steed the spur. Sad is it that such a contrast was ever possible on earth, and sadder still that it may yet be witnessed even in this enlightened and philanthropic land. There are other inequalities. I read, not long since, that a Glasgow bank director, convicted of having appropriated half a million sterling, was sentenced to eight months imprisonment; and that on the same day a little half-starved boy, charged with stealing cake worth a halfpenny, was sentenced to fourteen days hard labour and four years in a reformatory. One law for the rich, and another for the poor. These social inequalities have led to much disturbance. Christian divines have abandoned the subject to philosophers, agitators, and would-be reformers. It always has seemed to me that Christianity must have something to say that the world has a right to know; and unless this is done, there never will be a complete mastery of the problem. Social inequality must have arisen from some other kind of inequality. Social inequalities sprang out of the irregularities of human nature. No two men are made alike. Social inequalities are not without relief and compensation in some other kind of inequality. Uneasy is the head that wears a crown, and uneasy the heart of him who owns millions of dollars. The Saviour did not devote His attention to surface measures of reform, but to a new heart, confident that the regeneration of man means the regeneration of society. (G. C. Lorimer, D. D.)
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The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 49
Psalms 49
THIS psalm touches the high-water mark of Old Testament faith in a future life; and in that respect, as well as in its application of that faith to alleviate the mystery of present inequalities and non-correspondence of desert with condition, is closely related to the noble Psalms 73, with Which it has also several verbal identities. Both have the same problem before them-to construct a theodicy, or "to vindicate the ways of God to man"-and both solve it in the same fashion. Both appear to refer to the story of Enoch in their remarkable expression for ultimate reception into the Divine presence. But whether the psalms are contemporaneous cannot be determined from these data. Cheyne regards the treatment of the theme in Psalms 73, as "more skilful," and therefore presumably later than Psalms 49, which he would place "somewhat before the close of the Persian period." This date rests on the assumption that the amount of certitude as to a future life expressed in the psalm was not realised in Israel till after the exile.
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After a solemn summons to all the world to hear the psalmists utterance of what he has learned by Divine teaching (Psa_49:1-4), the psalm is divided into two parts, each closed with a refrain. The former of these (Psa_49:5-12) contrasts the arrogant security of the prosperous godless with the end that awaits them; while the second (Psa_49:13-20) contrasts the dreary lot of these victims of vain self-confidence with the blessed reception after death into Gods own presence which the psalmist grasped as a certainty for himself, and thereon bases an exhortation to possess souls in patience while the godless prosper, and to be sure that their lofty structures will topple into hideous ruin.
The psalmists consciousness that he speaks by Divine inspiration, and that his message imports all men, is grandly expressed in his introductory summons. The very name which he gives to the world suggests the latter thought; for it means-the world considered as fleeting. Since we dwell in so transitory an abode, it becomes us to listen to the deep truths of the psalm. These have a message for high and low, for rich and poor. They are like a keen lancet to let out too great fulness of blood from the former, and to teach moderation, lowliness, and care for the Unseen. They are a calming draught for the latter, soothing when perplexed or harmed by "the proud mans contumely." But the psalmist calls for universal attention, not only because his lessons fit all classes, but because they are in themselves "wisdom," and because he himself had first bent his ear to receive them before he strung his lyre to utter them. The brother-psalmist, in Psalms 73, presents himself as struggling with doubt and painfully groping his way to his conclusion. This psalmist presents himself as a divinely inspired teacher, who has received into purged and attentive ears, in many a whisper from God, and as the result of many an hour of silent waiting, the word which he would now proclaim on the housetops. The discipline of the teacher of religious truth is the same at all times. There must be the bent ear before there is the message which men will recognise as important and true.
There is no parable in the ordinary sense in the psalm. The word seems to have acquired the wider meaning of a weighty didactic utterance, as in Psa_73:2. The expression "Open my riddle" is ambiguous, and is by some understood to mean the proposal and by others the solution of the puzzle; but the phrase is more naturally understood of solving than of setting a riddle, and if so, the disproportion between the characters and fortunes of good and bad is the mystery or riddle, and the psalm is its solution.
The main theme of the first part is the certainty of death, which makes infinitely ludicrous the rich mans arrogance. It is one version of
"There is no armour against Fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings."
Therefore how vain the boasting in wealth, when all its heaps cannot buy a day of life! This familiar thought is not all the psalmists contribution to the solution of the mystery of lifes unequal partition of worldly good; but it prepares the way for it, and it lays a foundation for his refusal to be afraid, however pressed by insolent enemies. Very significantly he sets the conclusion, to which observation of the transiency of human prosperity has led him, at the beginning of his "parable." In the parallel psalm (Psalms 73) the stager shows himself struggling from the depths of perplexity up to the sunny heights of faith. But here the poet begins with the clear utterance of trustful courage, and then vindicates it by the thought of the impotence of wealth to avert death. The hostility to himself of the self-confident rich boasters appears only for a moment at first. It is described by a gnarled, energetic phrase which has been diversely understood. But it seems clear that the "iniquity" (A.V. and R.V.) spoken of in Psa_49:5 b is not the psalmists sin, for a reference here to his guilt or to retribution would be quite irrelevant; and if it were the consequences of his own evil that dogged him at his heels, he had every reason to fear, and confidence would be insolent defiance. But the word rendered in the A.V. heels, which is retained in the R.V. with a change in construction, may be a participial noun, derived from a verb meaning to trip up or supplant; and this gives a natural coherence to the whole verse, and connects it with the following one. "Pursuers" is a weak equivalent for the literal "those who would supplant me," but conveys the meaning, though in a somewhat enfeebled condition. Psa_49:6 is a continuance of the description of the supplanters.
They are "men of this world," the same type of man as excites stern disapproval in many psalms: as, for instance, in Psa_17:14 -a psalm which is closely related to this, both in its portrait of the godless and its lofty hope for the future. It is to be noted that they are not described as vicious or God-denying or defying. They are simply absorbed in the material, and believe that land and money are the real, solid goods. They are the same men as Jesus meant when He said that it was hard for those who trusted in riches to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It has been thought that the existence of such a class points to a late date for the psalm; but the reliance on riches does not require large riches to rely on, and may flourish in full perniciousness in very primitive social conditions. A small elevation suffices to lift a man high enough above his fellows to make a weak head giddy. Those to whom material possessions are the only good have a natural enmity towards those who find their wealth in truth and goodness. The poet, the thinker, and, most of all, the religious man, are targets for more or less active "malice," or, at all events, are recognised as belonging to another class, and regarded as singular and "unpractical," if nothing worse. But the psalmist looks far enough ahead to see the end of all the boasting, and points to the great instance of the impotence of material good-its powerlessness to prolong life. It would be more natural to find in Psa_49:7 the statement that the rich man cannot prolong his own days than that he cannot do so for a "brother." A very slight change in the text would make the initial word of the verse ("brother") the particle of asseveration, which occurs in Psa_49:15 (the direct antithesis of this verse), and is characteristic of the parallel Psalms 73. With that reading (Ewald, Cheyne, Baethgen, etc.) other slight difficulties are smoothed; but the present text is attested by the LXX and other early versions, and is capable of defence. It may be necessary to observe that there is no reference here to any other "redemption" than that of the body from physical death. There is a distinct intention to contrast the mans limited power with Gods, for Psa_49:15 points back to this verse, and declares that God can do what man cannot. Psa_49:8 must be taken as a parenthesis, and the construction carried on from Psa_49:7 to Psa_49:9, which specifies the purpose of the ransom, if it were possible. No man can secure for another continuous life or an escape from the necessity of seeing the pit-i.e., going down to the depths of death. It would cost more than all the rich mans store; wherefore he-the would-be ransomer-must abandon the attempt forever.
The "see" in Psa_49:10 is taken by many to have the same object as the "see" in Psa_49:9. "Yea, he shall see it." (So Hupfeld, Hitzig, Perowne, and others.) "The wise die" will then begin a new sentence. But the repetition is feeble, and breaks up the structure of Psa_49:10 undesirably. The fact stares the rich man in the face that no difference of position or of character affects the necessity of death. Down into that insatiable maw of Sheol ("the ever asking"?) beauty, wisdom, wealth, folly, and animalism go alike, and it still gapes wide for fresh food. But a strange hallucination in the teeth of all experience is cherished in the "inward thought" of "the men of this world" - namely, that their houses shall continue forever. Like the godless man in Psalms 10, this rich man has reached a height of false security, which cannot be put into words without exposing its absurdity, but which yet haunts his inmost thoughts. The fond imagination of perpetuity is not driven out by the plain facts of life and death. He acts on the presumption of permanence; and he whose working hypothesis is that he is to abide always as his permanent home in his sumptuous palace, is rightly set down as believing in the incredible belief that the common lot will not be his. A mans real belief is that which moulds his life, though he has never formulated it in words. This "inward thought" either underlies the rich godless mans career, or that career is inexplicable. There is an emphatic contrast drawn between what he "sees" and what he, all the while, hugs in his secret heart. That contrast is lost if the emendation found in the LXX and adopted by many modern commentators is accepted, according to which, by the transposition of a letter, we get "their grave" instead of "their inward [thought]." A reference to the grave comes too early; and if the sense of Psa_49:11 a-is that "their grave (or, the graves) are their houses forever," there is no parallelism between Psa_49:11 a-and c. The delusion of continuance is, on the other hand, naturally connected with the proud attempt to make their names immortal by impressing them on their estates. The language of Psa_49:11 c is somewhat ambiguous; but, on the whole, the rendering "they call their lands by their own names" accords best with the context.
Then comes with a crash the stern refrain which pulverises all this insanity of arrogance. The highest distinction among men gives no exemption from the grim law which holds all corporeal life in its gripe. The psalmist does not look, and probably did not see, beyond the external fact of death. He knows nothing of a future for the men whose portion is in this life. As we shall see in the second part of the psalm, the confidence in immortality is for him a deduction from the fact of communion with God here, and, apparently, his bent ear had received no whisper as to any distinction between the godless man and the beast in the regard to their deaths. They are alike "brought to silence." The awful dumbness of the dead strikes on his heart and imagination as most pathetic. "That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once," and now the pale lips are locked in eternal silence, and some ears hunger in vain "for the sound of a voice that is still."
Hupfeld would transfer Psa_49:13, which begins the second part, so that it should stand before the refrain, which would then have the Selah, that now comes in peculiarly at the end of Psa_49:13. But there is nothing unnatural in the first verse of the second part summing up the contents of the first part; and such a summary is needed in order to bring out the contrast between the godless folly and end of the rich men on the one hand, and the hope of the psalmist on the other. The construction of Psa_49:13 is disputed. The "way" may either mean conduct or fate, and the word rendered in the A.V. and R.V. "folly" has also the meaning of stupid security or self-confidence. It seems best to regard the sentence as not pronouncing again that the conduct described in Psa_49:6-11 is foolish, but that the end foretold in Psa_49:12 surely falls on such as have that dogged insensibility to the facts of life which issues in such presumptuous assurance. Many commentators would carry on the sentence into Psa_49:13 b, and extend the "lot" to those who in after generations approve their sayings. But the paradoxical fact that notwithstanding each generations experience the delusion is obstinately maintained from father to son yields a fuller meaning. In either case the notes of the musical interlude fix attention on the thought, in order to make the force of the following contrast greater. That contrast first deals with the fate of godless men after death. The comparison with the "beasts" in the refrain may have suggested the sombre grandeur of the metaphor in Psa_49:14 a-and b: Sheol is as a great fold into which flocks are driven. There Death rules as the shepherd of that dim realm. What a contrast to the fold and the flock of the other Shepherd, who guides His unterrified sheep through the "valley of the shadow of death"! The waters of stillness beside which this sad shepherd makes his flock lie down are doleful and sluggish. There is no cheerful activity for these, nor any fair pastures, but they are penned in compelled inaction in that dreadful fold.
So far the picture is comparatively clear, but with the next clause difficulties begin. Does the "morning" mean only the end of the night of trouble; the beginning in this life of the uprights deliverance, or have we here an eschatological utterance? The whole of the rest of the verse has to do with the unseen world, and to confine this clause to the temporal triumph of the righteous over their dead oppressors drags in an idea belonging to another sphere altogether. We venture to regard the interpretation of these enigmatical words, which sees in them a dim adumbration of a great morning which will yet stream its light into the land of darkness, and in which not this or that upright man but the class as a whole shall triumph, as the only one which keeps the parts of the verse in unity. It is part of the "riddle" of the psalmist, probably not perfectly explicable to himself. We cannot say that there is here the clear teaching of a resurrection, but there is the germ of it, whether distinctly apprehended by the singer or not. The first glimpses of truth in all regions are vague, and the gazer does not know that the star he sees is a sun. Not otherwise did the great truths of the future life rise on inspired men of old. This psalmist divined, or, more truly, heard in his bent ear, that good and its lovers should triumph beyond the grave, and that somehow a morning would break for them. But he knew nothing of any such for the godless dead. And the remainder of the verse expresses in enigmatical brevity and obscurity the gloomy fate of those for whom there was no such awakening as he hoped for himself. Very different renderings have been given of the gnarled words. If we adhere to the accents, the literal translation is, "Their form is [destined] for the wasting of Sheol, from a dwelling place for it," or "without its dwelling place"-an obscure saying, which is, however, intelligible when rendered as above. It describes the wasting away of the whole man, not merely his corporeal form, in Sheol, of which the corruption of the body in the grave may stand as a terrible symbol, so that only a thin shred of personality remains, which wanders homeless, unclothed with any house either "of this tabernacle" or any other, and so found drearily naked. Homeless desolation of bare being, from which all that is fair or good has been gnawed away, is awfully expressed in the words. Other renderings, neglecting the accents, and amending the text, bring out other meanings: such as "Their form is for corruption; Hades [will be] its dwelling place" (Jennings and Lowe); "Their form shall waste away. Sheol shall be their castle forever" (so Cheyne in "Book of Psalms"; in "Orig. of Psalt." frame is substituted for form, and palace for castle. Baethgen gives up the attempt to render the text or to restore it, and takes to asterisks).
To this condition of dismal inactivity, as of sheep penned in a fold, of loss of beauty, of wasting and homelessness, the psalmist opposes the fate which he has risen to anticipate for himself. Psa_49:15 is plainly antithetical, not only to Psa_49:14, but to Psa_49:7. The "redemption" which was impossible with men is possible with God. The emphatic particle of asseveration and restriction at the beginning is, as we have remarked, characteristic of the parallel Psalms 63. It here strengthens the expression of confidence, and points to God as alone able to deliver His servant from the "hand of Sheol." That deliverance is clearly not escape from the universal lot, which the psalmist has just proclaimed so impressively as affecting wise and foolish alike. But while he expects that he, too, will have to submit to the strong hand that plucks all men from their dwelling places, he has won the assurance that sameness of outward lot covers absolute difference in the conditions of those who are subjected to it. The faith that he will be delivered from the power of Sheol does not necessarily imply the specific kind of deliverance involved in resurrection, and it may be a question whether that idea was definitely before the singers mind. But, without dogmatising on that doubtful point, plainly his expectation was of a life beyond death, the antithesis of the cheerless one just painted in such gloomy colours. The very brevity of the second clause of the verse makes it the more emphatic.
The same pregnant phrase occurs again with the same emphasis in Psa_73:24, "Thou shalt take me," and in both passages the psalmist is obviously quoting from the narrative of Enochs translation. "God took him. {Gen_5:24} He has fed his faith on that signal instance of the end of a life of communion with God, and it has; confirmed the hopes which such a life cannot but kindle, so that he is ready to submit to the common lot, bearing in his heart the assurance that, in experiencing it, he will not be driven by that grim shepherd into his gloomy fold, but lifted by God into His own presence. As in Psalms 16 and 17 we have here the certainty of immortality filling a devout soul as the result of present experience of communion with God. These great utterances as to the two contrasted conditions after death are, in one aspect, the psalmists "riddle," in so far as they are stated in "dark and cloudy words," but, in another view, are the solution of the painful enigma of the prosperity of the godless and the afflictions of the righteous. Fittingly the Selah follows this solemn, great hope.
As the first part began with the psalmists encouraging of himself to put away fear so the whole ends with the practical application of the truths declared, in the exhortation to others not to be terrified nor bewildered out of their faith by the insolent inflated prosperity of the godless. The lofty height of wholesome mysticism reached in the anticipation of personal immortality is not maintained in this closing part. The ground of the exhortation is simply the truth proclaimed in the first part, with additional emphasis on the thought of the necessary parting from all wealth and pomp. "Shrouds have no pockets." All the external is left behind, and much of the inward too-such as habits, desires, ways of thinking, and acquirements which have been directed to and bounded by the seen and temporal. What is not left behind is character and desert. The man of this world is wrenched from his possessions by death; but he who has made God his portion here carries his portion with him, and does not enter on that other state
"in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory does he come
To God who is his home."
Our Lords parable of the foolish rich man has echoes of this psalm. "Whose shall those things be?" reminds us of "He will not take away any of it"; and "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up take thine ease" is the best explanation of what the psalmist meant by "blessing his soul." The godless rich man of the psalm is a selfish and godless one. His condemnation lies not in his wealth, but in his absorption in it and reliance upon it, and in his cherishing the dream of perpetual enjoyment of it, or at least shunning the thought of its loss. Therefore, "when he dies, he goes to the generation of his fathers," who are conceived of as gathered in solemn assembly in that dark realm. "Generation" here implies, as it often does moral similarity. It includes all the mans predecessors of like temper with himself. A sad company sitting there in the dark! Going to them is not identical with death nor with burial, but implies at least some rudimentary notion of companionship according to character, in that land of darkness. The darkness is the privation of all which deserves the name of light, whether it be joy or purity. Psa_49:18 b is by some taken to be the psalmists address to the rich man, and by others to be spoken to the disciple who had been bidden not to fear. In either case it brings in the thought of the popular applause which flatters success, and plays chorus to the prosperous mans own self-congratulations. Like Psa_49:13 b, it gibbets the servile admiration of such men, as indicating what the praisers would fain themselves be, and as a disclosure of that base readiness to worship the rising sun, which has for its other side contempt for the unfortunate who should receive pity and help.
The refrain is slightly but significantly varied. Instead of "abides not," it reads "and has not understanding." The alteration in the Hebrew is very slight, the two verbs differing only by one letter, and the similarity in sound is no doubt, the reason for the selection of the word. But the change brings out the limitations under which the first form of the refrain is true, and guards the whole teaching of the psalm from being taken to be launched at rich men as such. The illuminative addition in this second form shows that it is the abuse of riches, when they steal away that recognition of God and of mans mortality which underlies the psalmists conception of understanding, that is doomed to destruction like the beasts that are put to silence. The two forms of the refrain, are, then, precisely parallel to our Lords two sayings, when He first declared that it was hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, and then, in answer to His disciples surprise, put His dictum in the more definite form, "How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom!"
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Superscription.—“To the Chief Musician, a psalm for the sons…
INTRODUCTION
Superscription.—“To the Chief Musician, a psalm for the sons of Korah.” See Introduction to Psalms 42. Both the author of the psalm, and the occasion on which it was composed, are unknown. “This psalm,” says Matthew Henry, “is a sermon, and so is the next. In most of the psalms we have the penman praying or praising; in these we have him preaching; and it is our duty, in singing psalms, to teach and admonish ourselves and one another.” The psalm meets the temptation, which arises to the righteous from the prosperity of the wicked (whose persecution it sets forth), with the very consolation which is presented for it throughout the Old Testament, viz., that the issue divides between the righteous and the wicked, that the glory and ascendancy of the latter are only temporary, that they end in terrors, while the righteous is delivered by God.”—Hengstenberg.
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THE PREACHER OF WISDOM
(Psa_49:1-4.)
The Psalmist appears as a preacher discoursing of wisdom, and in these verses, which are introductory to the main theme, he calls the attention of all men to what he is about to say. It was not of wisdom in general, but of wisdom in estimating the value of worldly wealth and honour, that he was about to speak.
I. The preacher of wisdom addresses himself to all peoples. “Hear this, all people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world.” This summoning all men to attention implies—
1. The great importance of the subject. It is common in Scripture when important announcements are made to call the whole world to listen (Deu_32:2; Psa_1:1; Mic_1:2). How important is the message of the Gospel Preacher!
2. The universal applicability of the subject. The statements he was about to make pertained not to one nation or race only, but to all mankind. The gospel of Christ pertains to the whole race of man. All men need the gospel. The gospel is sent to all men. “Go ye into all the world,” &c.
II. The preacher of wisdom addresses himself to all classes. “Both low and high, rich and poor together.” “What the Psalmist has delivered, serves to the rich for warning, to the poor for consolation.” The poor are in danger from the inordinate desire of wealth, and the rich from an inordinate delight in it. Let the poor neither fear nor envy the rich; let the rich neither trust nor boast in their riches. The message of the Christian preacher is to all classes. The gospel is addressed to man as man, without regard to any distinctions of wealth or rank.
III. The preacher of wisdom duly considers his subject. “The meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.” “The idea is,” says Barnes, “that he had meditated on the subject, and that he would now give utterance to the result of his meditations.” And Matthew Henry: “It was what he had himself well digested. What his mouth spoke was ‘the meditation of his heart;’ it was what God put into his mind, what he had himself seriously considered, and was fully apprised of the meaning of and convinced of the truth of.” “I will incline mine ear to a parable,” saith the Psalmist, implying clearly that the wisdom he was about to “communicate is no self-sprung possession, but one that has been acquired by him.” מָשָׁל = similitude, parable, proverb. Hengstenberg translates it here, “similitude.” And Fuerst; a “sententious poem.” “The Psalmist will incline his ear to it. This intimates—
1. That he was taught it by the Spirit of God and did not speak of himself. Those that undertake to teach others must first learn themselves.
2. That he thought himself nearly concerned in it, and was resolved not to venture his own soul upon that bottom which he dissuaded others from venturing theirs upon.
3. That he would not expect others should attend to that which he himself did not attend to as a matter of the greatest importance. When God gives the tongue of the learned He first wakens the ear to hear as the learned.”—M. Henry. An unthoughtful ministry is a great curse. Meditation, patient and earnest thought, should ever precede the speech of the preacher.
IV. The preacher of wisdom deals With difficult questions. “Dark sayings.” “חִידָה= entwined, hence, (a) cunning, trickery (Dan_8:23), i.e. dissimulation. (b) enigmas, riddles (Jdg_14:12). (c) pointed, enigmatical speech that surprises, a proverb (Pro_1:6); a parable (Eze_17:2); poesy (Psa_49:5); oracle” (Num_12:8).—Fuerst’s Lexicon. It seems to us to mean in this place something which was obscure, or only imperfectly understood. Hengstenberg explains it thus: “riddle, a discourse of difficult comprehension, of deep sense.” There are “dark sayings,” difficult questions, in—.
1. The Scriptures, in which there are “things hard to be understood,” not a few.
2. The Providence of God. “Thy way is in the sea,” &c. “Clouds and darkness are round about Him.”
3. Every human life. “Man’s soul is written all over with dark sayings.” The preacher deals with these “dark sayings;” looks into them, exhibits their uses, explains their significance, endeavours to make them clear and luminous.
V. The preacher of wisdom deals with difficult questions poetically, musically. “I will open my dark saying upon the harp.” He would speak them in poetry, and attune them to music. “The most sorrowful people have known most and felt most the soul of music. The expression of the sorrows and aspirations of the soul in music ministers to our reserve, while it also flows forth in a stream, sad in itself perhaps, yet productive of a divine cheerfulness. There is a mystery and a meaning in music we can never either expound or explore; and it is felt that those natures, which are the greatest burden and mystery to themselves, find most the solace of song in the combinations of all great sounds; we have known this, it is not always that in joyfulness of heart we sing. The girl oppressed by some great trial or loss, as she bends over her needle, or goes about her house-work, will sing; and while she singe, finds unconsciously that her song has been her medicine, and has given to her relief. I have known a woman, disappointed and forsaken, flying to her piano; her fingers rushing over the keys have given liberation to her spirit, and the chords opened the sealed well of tears, and the rains descended, and the floods came. And something like this is a very general experience. Hence we have poetry for all cultured people, and hymns for holy people; and do we not know what it is to become happy while we sing? Good it is sometimes to utter the dark saying to the harp rather than to others; it composes, allays, and tranquillises the mind while we utter it.”—E. P. Hood.
CONCLUSION. Let us learn how to deal with our dark sayings. Seek light and help in worship. Devotion will illuminate the mind. Intellectual difficulties will vanish before the religious fervour of a grateful and reverent heart.
THE FOOLISH WAY OF WEALTHY WORLDLINGS
(Psa_49:5-15.)
I. The characteristics of their way. Their way is marked by—
1. “Trust in their wealth.” They place confidence in their riches as the source of all good to them, and the means by which all their wants may be supplied and all their desires gratified. “How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God.” “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.”
2. Boasting in their wealth. “Boast themselves in the multitude of their riches.” They pride themselves in the extent of their possessions. “Many years ago Judge B. resided in New Jersey. His family was considered the most aristocratic in the town; and not unfrequently some of its members would give their acquaintances to understand that this was their opinion also. On a certain occasion a fishing-party was made up among the ladies. Mrs. Judge B. was one of the number. While fishing, the subject of losing property was discussed. Mrs. B. paused a little, and slipped a splendid gold ring from her finger, and dropped it into the lake, remarking as she did so, that it was ‘as impossible for them to become poor as it was for her to recover that ring.’ The party returned to their homes, and Mrs. B. gave her fish to the servants. Not long after, the cook came into the sitting-room and showed to Mrs. B. a gold ring that she had taken from one of the fish. The ring dropped into the lake was recovered. Mrs. B., who was so confident that she could never become poor, died a pauper in Elizabethtown, Nova Scotia; and her husband, the judge, died a pauper also in an adjoining town.”—Dict. of Illus.
3. Fancied power to retain wealth. “Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever,” &c. (Psa_49:11). They calculated that they should retain their possessions until death, and then transmit them to their children. There are few wealthy persons who realise the uncertain tenure by which they hold their possessions. The great majority seem to regard themselves, not as stewards, but as proprietors of their possessions, and as able to retain or dispose of them as they please.
II. The folly of their way. “This their way is their folly.” Their folly is seen in—
1. Their inability to retain their wealth. All men must die, “and leave their wealth to others.” “
(1) They cannot continue with it, nor will it serve to procure them a reprieve.
(2) They cannot carry it with them, but must leave it behind them.
(3) They cannot foresee who will enjoy it when they have left it; they must leave it to others, but to whom they know not, perhaps to a fool (Ecc_2:19), perhaps to an enemy.”—M. Henry. “Riches,” says Gataker, “though they have great eagles’ wings, to fly away from us while we are here in this world, yet have not so much as little sparrows’ wings to fly after us and follow us when we go hence. We brought nothing into this world, neither shall we carry anything hence.” Even before the rich man passes away from this world, his riches may pass away from him. A storm at sea, a spark of fire, a flood, &c., may transform him into a beggar. How foolish, then, to trust and glory in wealth!
2. The limitation of the power of wealth. The wealthiest man has no power
(1) to turn aside the stroke of death even from his dearest friend. “None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.” The wealthiest of men is unable to prolong by an hour the life that is most dear to him. “ ‘Redeeming, he cannot redeem;’ that is, according to Hebrew usage, he cannot possibly do it; it cannot be done.” “What folly is it to trust to that, and boast of that, which will not enable us so much as for one hour to respite the execution of the sentence of death upon a parent, a child, or a friend that is to us as our own soul!” The wealthiest man has no power
(2) to turn aside the stroke of death from himself. “Wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person.” “No matter what may be the character of the man of wealth, whether wise or foolish, he must certainly die. His wealth cannot save him from the grave.” It is said that a queen of England, knowing that her death was at hand, cried, “A million of money for a moment of time,” and cried in vain.
(3) Wealth has no power to favourably affect the condition of its possessors after death. “Like sheep they are laid in the grave,” &c. (Psa_49:14). When death comes to them, all their possessions and honours must be relinquished finally and for ever. Then the superiority of the portion of the upright will be apparent. All the strength and beauty of wealthy worldlings shall be consumed; but “the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” He who, when upon earth, was “clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day,” could not obtain so much as a drop of cold water in hell. How great, then, is the folly of putting our trust in and making our boast of our wealth! And yet, notice how continuous this folly is. “This their way is their folly; yet their posterity approve their sayings.” In this folly there is a sad successiveness. The children tread in the footsteps of their fathers. “They adopt their principles, and act on their maxims; and, attaching the same importance to wealth which they did, seek, as they sought, to perpetuate their names upon the earth.”
And now turning our attention from the wealthy worldling to “the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to them that love Him,” two remarks are justified.
First: The godly man has no reasonable cause to fear the power of the wealthy worldling. “Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?” It is difficult to get any reasonable meaning out of the last clause as it is rendered in our version. We take it that the word here rendered “heels”—עָקֵב is from the verb עָקב, and signifies a persecutor or lier-in-wait; and so we should translate, “When the iniquity of liers-in-wait compass me about.” See Fuerst’s Lexicon. The Psalmist was exposed to danger by reason of the crafty designs of his wealthy enemies; but why should he fear them? With all their wealth, how powerless were they! What could they do to him, they who were weak mortals like himself? They were leaning on a broken reed, and boasting in a shadow. He had no reason to fear them; for his trust was in the Lord Jehovah, in whom is everlasting strength.
Second: The portion of the godly man is far superior to that of the wealthy worldling. “The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning.… God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave; for He shall receive me.” The superiority of the portion of the upright consists in this—
1. They shall not be held in Sheol. God will rescue them from the power of the grave. They shall arise to a life of blessedness.
2. They shall be received by God. God will receive His people into glory, both soul and body, at the resurrection. So shall they ever be with the Lord.
This superiority will soon be made manifest. “In the morning,” i.e. in a little time. The night will speedily pass away, and “in the morning” the vanity of the portion of wealthy worldlings and the excellence of the portion of the godly will be clearly manifested.
CONCLUSION.—
1. My rich brother, “trust not in uncertain riches;” but use thy wealth wisely, and it shall prove a blessing to thyself and to others.
2. My poor brother, do thou neither envy nor fear the power of wealthy worldlings; but rejoice in thine own inalienable and blessed portion.
REDEMPTION
(Psa_49:8.)
I. The subject of redemption. To acquire right views of the importance of redemption as to its subject, we may glance at the powers, the affections, and the duration of the soul.
1. Its powers.
(1) It is endowed with the faculty of knowledge. Paul tells us that knowledge is a feature of the image of God. The object of redemption is not mere matter, but an intelligent being, the only being on this earth capable of apprehending the discoveries which God has made of Himself.
(2) It is endued with the power of choice. Man is a moral agent; he acts under the influence of moral motives; he is not the creature of chance; he is not willingly the prey of accident; he has the power, to a certain extent, of controlling his circumstances. He is, further, capable of knowing and of loving God, and of becoming like God.
2. Its affections. The soul has lost the image of God. The temple is in ruins, and the Great Inhabitant gone. It is utterly corrupt, polluted, debased, at enmity against God. It is the prey of every bad passion, of every polluting affection; consequently its tendency is to misery; and unless it be redeemed, it will be miserable for ever.
3. Its duration. The soul of man will live for ever, and through the eternity of its existence, it must either be a happy spirit before the throne of God, or a hopeless outcast from His heaven.
II. The price of its redemption. How vast the price paid for the redemption of the soul! The precious blood of Christ. Had the whole creation been consumed in one mighty conflagration as the price of redemption, it would have been as nothing compared with this. How precious the price of redemption! The Deity became “enshrined in man—not changed into a man, but most mysteriously united to a man; the price of redemption was His blood. This price was given (1Jn_3:16; 1Pe_1:18-19).
III. The period of its accomplishment is limited. “It ceaseth for ever.” How infinitely precious is time! It is in time only that the redemption of the soul can be ensured. The value of one opportunity of hearing the Gospel is unspeakably great.—M. A., from Sketches of Sermons.
MEN OF THE WORLD WHO HAVE THEIR PORTION IN THIS LIFE
(Psa_49:16-20.)
I. Men who have their portion in this life must resign it at death. We have here—
1. Man possessing wealth and honour. “One is made rich, the glory of his house is increased.” By means of wealth man is able to surround himself with all the luxuries and ornaments produced by nature and by man. “The rich have many friends,” who fawn upon and flatter them, and extol their state and their doings. In these days many men speedily, from small beginnings, grow rich and pompous, and fond of display.
2. Man rejoicing in wealth and honour. “In his life he blessed His soul.” He is like the rich man described by our Lord, who said to his soul, “Soul, thou hast much good laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool,” &c. Oh, the awful degradation of manhood when a man calls upon his soul to find its chief good in material possessions! In answer to the inquiry, “Who will show us any good?” such men are so far from saying, “Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us,” that they point you to their well-filled barns or their vast estates. Yet it is true that “He aims too low who aims beneath the skies.”
3. Man praised because of his wealth and honour. “Man will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself.” “This is the sentiment of all the children of this world, that those do best for themselves that do most for their bodies, by heaping up riches, though, at the same time, nothing is done for the soul, nothing for eternity.” Low-natured people abound who court and fawn upon the man of wealth. Mean sycophants are ever ready obsequiously to flatter the “men of the world, who have their portion in this life.”
4. Man compelled to relinquish his wealth and honour. “When he dieth he shall carry nothing away; his glory shall not descend after him” “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out.” To the man who elects to have his portion in this life it may be said in the future state, “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things.” “What disarrays like death? It defaces the fascination of the beautiful. It withers the strength of the mighty. It snatches the store of the rich. Kings are stripped of trapping, trophy, treasure: ‘Their glory shall not descend after them.’ ”—R. W. Hamilton.
II. Men who have their portion in this life when they depart hence are gathered to their moral ancestors. “He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light.” They depart to their own place and their own company. “Under the generation of the fathers,” says Hengstenberg, “are here to be understood, not so much the corporeal ancestors of the ungodly, as his predecessors in wickedness.” And M. Henry: “His worldly wicked fathers, whose sayings he approved, and whose steps he trod in.” They dwell in a dark and melancholy realm “They shall never see light”—i.e., they shall never have the least glimpse of any joy or comfort. They are banished into the outer darkness.
III. Men who have their portion in this life degrade their being. “Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.” How unspeakable is the degradation of a spiritual and immortal being, created in God’s image and redeemed by Christ’s blood, when he lives for this life only, the life of the senses merely! “Many there are,” says Barnes, “in exalted stations, who are surrounded by all that wealth can give, yet who no more admit the thought of a future world into their hopes and plans than if they had no other endowment than the camel or the ox, and whose conduct in this respect would not be changed if all the higher endowments which constitute the nature of man were withdrawn, and they were at once reduced to the condition of a brute.” M. Henry: “It is better to be a beast than to be a man that makes himself like a beast.”
CONCLUSION:
1. To those who have wealth, but not godliness. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
2. To those who have godliness, but not wealth. “It is a temptation,” says Dickson, “which shaketh the faith of the godly sometimes, when they see the flourishing prosperity of the wicked and their own daily affliction; but this should not move the godly, nor make them suspect themselves to be in a wrong course and the ungodly in a better way: ‘be not thou afraid when one is made rich.’ ” Your portion is incomparably superior to that of the most wealthy and distinguished of those who have their portion in this life. “The end of the wicked shall be cut off. But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them and deliver them; He shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in Him.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 There are two voices always speaking in man, and…
Psa 49:4
There are two voices always speaking in man, and attempting to govern all other influences in his soul—despondency and aspiration. The text points to two principles. (1) There is the bowing before, and hearkening to, the mystery of things, the universal, parabolic utterances; and (2) the turning the mystery and the parable into a cheerful song, the dark saying becoming, like the bird’s song in the covert of the night, a clear stream without sorrow and without care.
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I. All Scripture itself is a dark saying on a harp. There is a Divine reticence in the Bible; there is an awful secretiveness. As the voices of music lift us to worlds beyond themselves, so, in an eminent sense, it is with Scripture. It is a manifold unity, like the universe in which we live; nor have we any difficulty in finding how what is suggested and what is revealed are alike a dark saying on the harp.
II. Man himself is a dark saying on a harp. He is himself a universe of being in which life, and nature, and grace seek to combine in music. Man’s soul is written all over with dark sayings. "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me," said the Apostle. Then the handwriting flames round the chambers of the soul; until then the magnificent works of genius are aberrations and insanities; then the harp utters the word of light, and the dark saying on the soul flies before its tone.
III. Providence is a dark saying on a harp. The mysteries of Providence were as startling to David as they are to us, and this very Psalm recites and records them; it did not seem to be a world of highways to the Psalmist, and this is one of the great causes of grief and of the dark sayings—the world and its sorrows. For the people of God the hour shall come when all dark sayings shall melt on the harp, and life shall no longer represent the burden, but only the bliss, of being.
E. Paxton Hood, Dark Sayings on a Harp, p. 1.
Psa 49:7
These words ought to teach us: (1) that we cannot save other people, however much we may wish to do so, and (2) that other people cannot save us, no matter how great a desire they may feel of doing so. But though we cannot save or, as the text says, redeem our brother, by which we mean anybody, yet there is something we can do: we can try to bring him to One who can save him. Having come to Jesus yourself, the next thing is to try to bring all you can to Him.
I. What the text teaches is that religion must be personal. Every man and woman, every boy and girl, who wishes to be saved must be saved by his own or her own faith and love in the Lord Jesus. Each must himself love Christ; each must believe in Christ; each must serve Christ.
II. Religion must not be mere imitation. It is a thing to have in the heart. When you pray, you must pray with the heart, and not merely with the lips; when you read God’s word, it must be from a wish to learn God’s will, in order to please and obey Him.
III. No man can redeem himself; our redemption has been worked, and a ransom given for us. Christ laid down His precious life for us, and God has accepted the atonement on condition that we accept it also. Though you may sometimes feel downcast and fear you may fall, yet you will find that the blessed Redeemer will not allow those whom He has "purchased with His own blood" to be wrenched from Him. "Ye are Christ’s," and Christ is the safety of the Christian.
G. Litting, Thirty Children’s Sermons, p. 182.
References: Psa 49:7.—T. K. Cheyne, Expositor, 3rd series, vol. ii., p. 400. Psa 49:8.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 22.
Psa 49:17
Sadly as this announcement may present itself to us at the first, writing vanity on so many of the toils, and hopes, and accumulations of men, yet, looked at a little closer, it is not so sad as it appears.
I. For, in the first place, that a man shall carry away nothing with him when he dieth is true only of his earthly goods, which are therefore not goods in the highest and truest sense of the word. Here then is a thought of encouragement, of strong consolation: that it is only the meaner things of earth which lie under the bondage of corruption, on which the sentence of vanity is written, which refuse to accompany their owners on that long last journey which, one day or other, every man must make.
II. Even in regard of earthly things, while it is quite true that a man can carry nothing of them away with him when he dies, he may send much of them before him while he lives. The Apostle Paul declares no less when, urging those who are rich that they be glad to distribute, he proposes this as a motive, that they will be thus "laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come." God is not unrighteous, to forget the least of these things that are wrought for His name’s sake.
R. C. Trench, Sermons in Westminster Abbey, p. 364.
References: Psalm 49—Expositor, 1st series, vol. x., p. 466. 1. 1-6.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xix., p. 276. 1. 5, 6.—G. Calthrop, Temptation of Christ, p. 311. Psa 50:11.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Children’s Bread, p. 95. 1. 12.—D. G. Watt, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 292.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Completed histories.
Completed histories.
To the chief musician, a psalm of the sons of Korah.
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{* Or "transitory world," cheled; comp. Psa 17:14.
* "Sons of Adam, and sons of Ish."
* Literally, "wisdoms," "discernments."
* Literally, "mouth."
* Literally, "his soul."}
The last psalm of this series is an inspired "psalm of life," completed, as only revelation could complete it, by a glance at what is beyond this. Thus the folly is apparent which makes the incomplete story all, and in the face of incontrovertible facts, lives as if death were not, and time were eternity.
We must remember; however; that we are still in Israel; and that we have neither resurrection nor a heavenly portion presented, although one verse at first sight does seem to give the former. But it speaks rather of the delivered people as represented by the psalmist himself, their enemies being destroyed, and the "morning" of the millennial day brought in by the uprising of the "Sun of righteousness" (Mal 4:1-6) and dominion given to the "upright." This is the completion of the story on that side, as death with its Sheol mystery is on the other. In neither case have we resurrection.
1. The first section calls all people to hear a truth which has, in the events depicted in previous psalms; received a striking commentary. The psalmist characterizes those he addresses according to what is his theme in it; as dwellers in time. Whatever their various conditions, this is a condition common to all; and bringing all to more equality than commonly apprehended. He premises that he has "wisdoms" -fullness of wisdom -to communicate; and that it is not a mere message; but what has been the meditation of his own heart, and is personal discernment (once more a plural). He uses "proverbial speech," such as his own ear has been attentive to, and the accompaniment of the harp to propound his deep sayings -nature being in fact in harmonious accord with all he utters.
2. The rest of the psalm is, of course, the deep saying itself. It is divided into two equal parts, both ending in a similar refrain. The first gives the false confidence of man which leaves him ashamed at last, transparently the dupe of his own perversity. The last contrasts it with the reality for sinner and for saint.
He begins with a question, which is answered by what follows to the end of the psalm. If man with all his self-confidence is yet the poor creature which this represents, why then should he be afraid in days of evil, though encircled by the perversity of those that would trip him up? Thus it is a psalm of cheer and encouragement for a day that is not yet over when he utters it. The deliverance is not accomplished; but it is assured, and about to come. Faith predicts it and the destruction of the wicked, -inspired by the morality of nature itself, which proclaims throughout the judgment of sin and the triumph of righteousness. Folly is not wisdom, and cannot be followed by the effects of wisdom. He sees easily through these men of abundant resources, confident in what is so manifestly incompetent as against the might of that death which baffles them all. God in His holy government has ordained this for one only possible reason -sin. Let any one of these throw his shield about his brother, and give God a ransom for him, so that he may perpetuate his precious life. Plainly he cannot; it is too costly: he must let that alone forever. He sees and knows, himself, -every one does; -that as to wise and fools alike death knows no difference, makes no exception. It is the point of Ecclesiastes; there greatly enlarged on: a simple, obvious matter indeed, but which makes more astonishing the willful blindness which permits men to dwell securely in possessions held on such a tenure; and call the solid earth by the names of its passing generations. The wheel turns, and they are shaken from it. Man does not, as a rule, lodge for the little night that belongs to him; in honor. He passes; and goes down to silence like the beast.
3. Follow him now to the other side; -where is he? what of his senseless sayings, which yet those who follow him -before whose eyes he passes away -approve! They all like sheep with meek subjection are made to lie down in Sheol; death is the shepherd tending there; and in the morning (after the night of death) no deliverance is there for them: it is the day of dominion for the upright. For them; their very form wastes under the sway of Sheol, so as to find no habitation.
Sheol and the grave are not here confounded: the one is as distinctly the recipient of the soul, as the other is of the body. But Sheol having mastered and retaining the soul; this necessarily entails the wasting destruction of the form that is left behind, so that by and by it needs no habitation. Yet they had thought their dwelling-places should be forever! they -themselves soon to need none!
On the other hand the psalmist professes for himself his confidence: God shall redeem his soul from the power of Sheol: words which; no doubt, would apply to resurrection for those going down to death; but the connection seems rather to show the application to the deliverance of living men from that which might seem to have had them in its grip, -a hold marvelously and miraculously loosened. The further words "for He shall receive me" have been urged in behalf of resurrection; as being used of Enoch when "God
took* him." But the word is of various use, and by itself could decide nothing: the occurrence in Psa 73:24; ("and afterwards receive me to glory,") is perhaps really the most favorable to this view; but it needs to be examined in its connection there. The context in fact, in all cases, is that which will be found to have controlling influence upon interpretation. A largeness belongs to Scripture in such matters which will leave room (and was surely intended to leave room) for application to both Jewish and Christian verities, and these in more ways than one. Those who "are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord;" and of whom Enoch is a real type, will be caught up without seeing death, to meet the Lord in the air. They will surely be "redeemed from the power of Sheol" and received by God, as fully as any that go into it; and so with Jewish saints of similar classes.
{* Laqach, "receive" and "take."}
After this outburst of glowing confidence; the moralizing of the psalm subsides to its lower and accustomed level. Riches give a transitory glory: death dispossesses the owner of it all. Alas, the effect may not be transient; life with this brilliancy about it tends to dazzle the eyes doubly -to what is beyond and what is around alike. Every way shut up within the narrowest limits; man is ignorant of these, blesses himself; and is praised by others. He passes to the generation of his fathers; his taper-light quenched with theirs, never to revive. Alas! "Man that is in honor, and understanding not; is like the beasts that perish."
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v14 Psa 49:14. - Rev 7:17.
Psalms
TWO SHEPHERDS AND TWO FLOCKS
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Psa 49:14. - Rev 7:17.
These two verses have a much closer parallelism in expression than appears in our Authorised Version. If you turn to the Revised Version you will find that it rightly renders the former of my texts, ‘Death shall be their shepherd,’ and the latter, ‘The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd.’ The Old Testament Psalmist and the New Testament Seer have fallen upon the same image to describe death and the future, but with how different a use! The one paints a grim picture, all sunless and full of shadow; the other dips his pencil in brilliant colours, and suffuses his canvas with a glow as of molten sunlight. The difference between the two is partly due to the progress of revelation and the light cast on life and immortality by Christ through the Gospel. But it is much more due to the fact that the two writers have different classes in view. The one is speaking of men whose portion is in this life, the other of men who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And it is the characters of the persons concerned, much more than the degree of enlightenment possessed by the writers, that makes the difference between these two pictures. Life and death and the future are what each man makes of them for himself. We shall best deal with these two pictures if we take them separately, and let the gloom of the one enhance the glory of the other. They hang side by side, like a Rembrandt beside a Claude or a Turner, each intensifying by contrast the characteristics of the other. So let us look at the two-first, the grim picture drawn by the Psalmist; second, the sunny one drawn by the Seer. Now, with regard to the former,
I. The grim picture drawn by the Psalmist.
We too often forget that a psalmist is a poet, and misunderstand his spirit by treating his words as matter-of-fact prose. His imagination is at work, and our sympathetic imagination must be at work too, if we would enter into his meaning. Death a shepherd-what a grim and bold inversion of a familiar metaphor! If this psalm is, as is probable, of a comparatively late date, then its author was familiar with many sweet and tender strains of early singers, in which the blessed relation between a loving God and an obedient people was set forth under that metaphor. ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ may have been ringing in his ears when he said, ‘Death is their shepherd.’ He lays hold of the familiar metaphor, and if I may so speak, turns it upside down, stripping it of all that is beautiful, tender, and gracious, and draping it in all that is harsh and terrible. And the very contrast between the sweet relation which it was originally used to express, and the opposite kind of one which he uses it to set forth, gives its tremendous force to the daring metaphor.
‘Death is their shepherd.’ Yes, but what manner of shepherd? Not one that gently leads his flock, but one that stalks behind the huddled sheep, and drives them fiercely, club in hand, on a path on which they would not willingly go. The unwelcome necessity, by which men that have their portion in this world are hounded and herded out of all their sunny pastures and abundant feeding, is the thought that underlies the image. It is accentuated, if we notice that in the former clause, ‘like sheep they are laid in the grave,’ the word rendered in the Authorised Version ‘laid,’ and in the Revised Version ‘appointed,’ is perhaps more properly read by many, ‘like sheep they are thrust down.’ There you have the picture-the shepherd stalking behind the helpless creatures, and coercing them on an unwelcome path.
Now that is the first thought that I suggest, that to one type of man, Death is an unwelcome necessity. It is, indeed, a necessity to us all, but necessities accepted cease to be painful; and necessities resisted-what do they become? Here is a man being swept down a river, the sound of the falls is in his ears, and he grasps at anything on the bank to hold by, but in vain. That is how some of us feel when we face the thought, and will feel more when we front the reality, of that awful ‘must.’ ‘Death shall be their shepherd,’ and coerce them into darkness. Ask yourself the question, Is the course of my life such as that the end of it cannot but be a grim necessity which I would do anything to avoid?
This first text suggests not only a shepherd but a fold: ‘Like sheep they are thrust down to the grave.’ Now I am not going to enter upon what would be quite out of place here: a critical discussion of the Old Testament conception of a future life. That conception varies, and is not the same in all parts of the book. But I may, just in a word, say that ‘the grave’ is by no means the adequate rendering of the thought of the Psalmist, and that ‘Hell’ is a still more inadequate rendering of it. He does not mean either the place where the body is deposited, or a place where there is punitive retribution for the wicked, but he means a dim region, or, if I might so say, a localised condition, in which all that have passed through this life are gathered, where personality and consciousness continue, but where life is faint, stripped of all that characterises it here, shadowy, unsubstantial, and where there is inactivity, absolute cessation of all the occupations to which men were accustomed. But there may be restlessness along with inactivity; may there not? And there is no such restlessness as the restlessness of compulsory idleness. That is the main idea that is in the Psalmist’s mind. He knows little about retribution, he knows still less about transmutation into a glorious likeness to that which is most glorious and divine. But he conceives a great, dim, lonely land, wherein are prisoned and penned all the lives that have been foamed away vainly on earth, and are now settled into a dreary monotony and a restless idleness. As one of the other books of the Old Testament puts it, it is a ‘land of the shadow of death, without order, and in which the light is as darkness.’
I know, of course, that all that is but the imperfect presentation of partially apprehended, and partially revealed, and partially revealable truth. But what I desire to fix upon is that one dreary thought of this fold, into which the grim shepherd has driven his flock, and where they lie cribbed and huddled together in utter inactivity. Carry that with you as a true, though incomplete thought.
Let me remind you, in the next place, with regard to this part of my subject, of the kind of men whom the grim shepherd drives into that grim fold. The psalm tells us that plainly enough. It is speaking of men who have their portion in this life, who ‘trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches . . . whose inward thought is that their house shall continue for ever . . . who call their lands after their own names.’ Of every such man it says: ‘when he dieth he shall carry nothing away’-none of the possessions, none of the forms of activity which were familiar to him here on earth. He will go into a state where he finds nothing which interests him, and nothing for him to do.
Must it not be so? If we let ourselves be absorbed and entangled by the affairs of this life, and permit our whole spirits to be bent in the direction of these transient things, what is to become of us when the things that must pass have passed, and when we come into a region where there are none of them to occupy us any more? What would some Manchester men do if they were in a condition of life where they could not go on ‘Change on Tuesdays and Fridays? What would some of us do if the professions and forms of mental activity in which we have been occupied as students and scholars were swept away? ‘Whether there be knowledge it shall cease; whether there be tongues they shall vanish away,’ and what are you going to do then, you men that have only lived for intellectual pursuits connected with this transient state? We are going to a world where there are no books, no pens nor ink, no trade, no dress, no fashion, no amusements; where there is nothing but things in which some of us have no interest, and a God who ‘is not in all our thoughts.’ Surely we shall be ‘fish out of water’ there. Surely we shall feel that we have been banned and banished from everything that we care about. Surely men that boasted themselves in their riches, and in the multitude of their wealth, will be necessarily condemned to inactivity. Life is continuous, and all on one plane. Surely if a man knows that he must some day, and may any day, be summoned to the other side of the world, he would be a wise man if he got his outfit ready, and made some effort to acquire the customs and the arts of the land to which he was going. Surely life here is mainly given to us that we may develop powers which will find their field of exercise yonder, and acquire characters which shall be in conformity with the conditions of that future life. Surely there can be no more tragic folly than the folly of letting myself be so absorbed and entangled by this present world, as that when the transient has passed, I shall feel homeless and desolate, and have nothing that I can do or care about amidst the activities of Eternity. Dear friend, should you feel homeless if you were taken, as you will be taken, into that world?
Turn now to
II. The sunny landscape drawn by the Seer.
Note the contrast presented by the shepherds. ‘Death shall be their shepherd.’ ‘The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd.’ I need not occupy your time in trying to show, what has sometimes been doubted, that the radiant picture of the Apocalyptic Seer is dealing with nothing in the present, but with the future condition of certain men. I would just remind you that the words in which it is couched are to a large extent a quotation from ancient prophecy, a description of the divine watchfulness over the pilgrim’s return from captivity to the Land of Promise. But the quotation is wonderfully elevated and spiritualised in the New Testament vision; for instead of reading, as the Original does: ‘He that hath mercy on them shall lead them,’ we have here, ‘the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall be their Shepherd,’ and instead of their being led merely to ‘the springs of water,’ here we read that He ‘leads them to the fountains of the water of life.’
We have to think, first, of that most striking, most significant and profound modification of the Old Testament words, which presents the Lamb as ‘the Shepherd.’ All Christ’s shepherding on earth and in heaven depends, as do all our hopes for heaven and earth, upon the fact of His sacrificial death. It is only because He is the ‘Lamb that was slain’ that He is either the ‘Lamb in the midst of the Throne,’ or the Shepherd of the flock. And we must make acquaintance with Him first in the character of ‘the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,’ before we can either follow in His footsteps as our Guide, or be compassed by His protection as our Shepherd.
He is the Lamb, and He is the Shepherd-that suggests not only that the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ is the basis of all His work for us on earth and in heaven, but the very incongruity of making One, who bears the same nature as the flock to be the Shepherd of the flock, is part of the beauty of the metaphor. It is His humanity that is our guide. It is His continual manhood, all through eternity and its glories, that makes Him the Shepherd of perfected souls. They follow Him because He is one of themselves, and He could not be the Shepherd unless he were the Lamb.
But then this Shepherd is not only gracious, sympathetic, kin to us by participation in a common nature, and fit to be our Guide because He has been our Sacrifice and the propitiation of our sins, but He is the Lamb ‘in the midst of the throne,’ wielding therefore all divine power, and standing-not as the rendering in our Bible leads an English reader to suppose, on the throne, but-in the middle point between it and the ring of worshippers, and so the Communicator to the outer circumference of all the blessings that dwell in the divine centre. He shall be their Shepherd, not coercing, not driving by violence, but leading to the fountains of the waters of life, gently and graciously. It is not compulsory energy which He exercises upon us, either on earth or in heaven, but it is the drawing of a divine attraction, sweet to put forth and sweet to yield to.
There is still another contrast. Death huddled and herded his reluctant sheep into a fold where they lay inactive but struggling and restless. Christ leads His flock into a pasture. He shall guide them ‘to the fountains of waters of life.’ I need not dwell at any length on the blessed particulars of that future, set forth here and in the context. But let me suggest them briefly. There is joyous activity. There is constant progression. He goeth before; they follow. The perfection of heaven begins at entrance into it, but it is a perfection which can be perfected, and is being perfected, through the ages of Eternity, and the picture of the Shepherd in front and the flock behind, is the true conception of all the progress of that future life. ‘They shall follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth’-a sweet guidance, a glad following, a progressive conformity! ‘In the long years liker must they grow.’
Further, there is the communication of life more and more abundantly. Therefore there is the satisfaction of all desire, so that ‘they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.’ The pain of desire ceases because desire is no sooner felt than it is satisfied, the joy of desire continues, because its satisfaction enables us to desire more, and so, appetite and eating, desire and fruition, alternate in ceaseless reciprocity. To us, being every moment capable of more, more will be given; and ‘to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.’
There is one point more in regard to that pasture into which the Lamb leads the happy flock, and that is, the cessation of all pains and sorrows. Not only shall they ‘hunger no more, neither thirst any more’; but ‘the sun shall not smite them, nor any heat, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’ Here the Shepherd carried rod and staff, and sometimes had to strike the wandering sheep hard: there these are needed no more. Here He had sometimes to move them out of green pastures, and away from still waters, into valleys of the shadow of death; but ‘there,’ as one of the prophets has it: ‘they shall lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed.’
But now, we must note, finally, the other kind of men whom this other Shepherd leads into His pastures, ‘They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’ Aye! that is it. That is why He can lead them where He does lead them. Strange alchemy which out of two crimsons, the crimson of our sins and the crimson of His blood, makes one white! But it is so, and the only way by which we can ever be cleansed, either with the initial cleansing of forgiveness, or with the daily cleansing of continual purifying and approximation to the divine holiness, is by our bringing the foul garment of our stained personality and character into contact with the blood which, ‘shed for many,’ takes away their sins, and infused into their veins, cleanses them from all sin.
You have yourselves to bring about that contact. ‘They have washed their robes.’ And how did they do it? By faith in the Sacrifice first, by following the Example next. For it is not merely a forgiveness for the past, but a perfecting, progressive and gradual, for the future, that lies in that thought of washing their robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Dear brethren, life here and life hereafter are continuous. They are homogeneous, on one plane though an ascending one. The differences there are great-I was going to say, and it would be true, that the resemblances are greater. As we have been, we shall be. If we take Christ for our Shepherd here, and follow Him, though from afar and with faltering steps, amidst all the struggles and windings and rough ways of life, then and only then, will He be our Shepherd, to go with us through the darkness of death, to make it no reluctant expulsion from a place in which we would fain continue to be, but a tranquil and willing following of Him by the road which He has consecrated for ever, and deprived for ever of its solitude, because Himself has trod it.
Those two possibilities are before each of us. Either of them may be yours. One of them must be. Look on this picture and on this; and choose-God help you to choose aright-which of the two will describe your experience. Will you have Christ for your Shepherd, or will you have Death for your shepherd? The answer to that question lies in the answer to the other-have you washed your robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; and are you following Him? You can settle the question which lot is to be yours, and only you can settle it. See that you settle it aright, and that you settle it soon.
END OF VOL. I.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 There is little to fix the date of this…
There is little to fix the date of this Ps. The writer moralises, in the fashion of the book of Proverbs, on the vanity of wealth and honour apart from understanding. The rich man cannot deliver his friends or himself from death, and his prosperity need cause no dismay to those who are less fortunate in this world. The upright, among whom the Psalmist counts himself, will be received by God, and thus made superior to the power of death. Psa_49:12, Psa_49:20 form, by their similarity, a kind of refrain.
1. People] RV 'peoples,' explained by inhabitants of the world.
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4. Parable.. dark saying] We might render, 'proverb.. riddle': see Psa_78:2; Pro_1:6.
5. When the iniquity of my heels, etc.] RV 'When iniquity at my heels,' etc. RM gives a still better sense, connecting Pro_1:5-6, 'When the iniquity of them that would supplant me compasseth me about, even of them that trust,'etPsalm 7. See Exo_21:30 (RV).
Redeem.. ransom] Life that is forfeit to man may be bought back with money, but not life that is claimed by God.
8. This v. is a parenthesis, interrupting the connexion between Psa_49:7, Psa_49:9, Is precious, and it ceaseth] RV 'is costly, and must be let alone.'
10. Leave their wealth to others] losing it for themselves.
11. LXX and other versions imply a slight change of reading which gives a better sense: 'Graves are their houses for ever, the dwelling-places for all generations of those who called their lands after their own name.'
12. Being in honour abideth not] RV 'abideth not in honour.'
13. Their posterity] RV 'after them men.' Approve, etc.] persist in the same foolish view of life.
14. Like sheep, etc.] RV 'They are appointed as a flock for Sheol; Death shall be their shepherd'—a grim and forcible figure.
In the morning] when God's day of reckoning dawns. Shall consume, etc.] RV 'shall be for Sheol to consume, that there be no habitation for it.'
15. The grave] RV 'Sheol.' The hope expressed is not necessarily that of a definite resurrection after death, but may be that of deliverance from the premature ending of life in this world. But the words he shall receive me show that what the Psalmist values most is life with God as opposed to life without God, and this thought is the germ of the Christian doctrine of immortality: see on Psa_16:10, Psa_16:11.
18. Blessed his soul] congratulated himself on his wealth: cp. Luk_12:19.
19. They shall never see light] shall abide for ever in the darkness of Sheol.
20. And understandeth not] Those who perish like the beasts are not the rich as such, but the rich who do not know God.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 8, 14, 15 (See Scofield "Psa 2:12").
trust
(See Scofield "Psa 2:12").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Psalm 49
Psalm 49
Retrospects and Meditations
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1. Hear this, all ye peoples! (Psa 49:1-4)
2. His message of retrospect and encouragement (Psa 49:5-20)
If such is the outcome and the goal of the purposes of God concerning His people, why should they fear in the days of evil, which precede the coming glory? The ungodly will pass away no matter how great their riches are, nor can they redeem themselves; their way is folly; like sheep they are laid in the grave and death feeds on them. But different is the lot of the righteous. They shall have dominion over them in the morning, when the night of suffering and trouble is ended. They will be redeemed from the power of the grave and He shall receive them, “for He will swallow up death in victory.”
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Of the Vanity of Earthly Goods.
Of the Vanity of Earthly Goods.
To the chief musician, for use in liturgical worship, a psalm for the sons of Korah, a hymn of instruction and consolation written by a member of the family of Korah, to show that mere earthly advantages do not bring lasting good fortune.
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v. 1. Hear this, all ye people, a solemn call for the most careful attention; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world, all those living in this present time, in this age, which will soon pass away;
v. 2. both low and high, the Hebrew distinguishing between the children of ordinary people, mankind in general, and the sons of people out of the ordinary, the excellent, the nobles, rich and poor, together, since all men should be interested in the subject broached here, regardless of station and fortune.
v. 3. My mouth shall speak of wisdom, important and ponderous truths; and the meditation of my heart, as brought out in his whole instruction, shall be of understanding, such as goes to the root of matters, such as reveals their principles.
v. 4. I will incline mine ear, in the attitude of the most careful attention, to a parable, a proverb and illustration of true wisdom revealed by God Himself; I will open my dark saying, the counsel of God, His providential dealings with men, which often seem to the believers like an inexplicable riddle, upon the harp, that is, he would accompany his explanations by a tune on the zither, his hymn being of a nature that others could also play it and find comfort in its instructions.
v. 5. Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when misfortune strikes the believer, when the iniquity of my heels, the calamity inflicted by his oppressors, by bad men who abuse their power for such purposes, shall compass me about? It is the old complaint that the wicked surround the just, trying to attack them unawares and to inflict injury upon them.
v. 6. They that trust in their wealth, as a means of insuring them lasting happiness, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, altogether vainglorious in their entire behavior,
v. 7. none of them, the subject being generalized to include all men, can by any means redeem his brother, deliver him from the fate which will strike him on account of his sins, nor give to God a ransom for him, all the riches of the world are not sufficient to pay the guilt incurred by even one soul;
v. 8. (for the redemption of their soul is precious, too costly to be paid for by anything which mere men may supply, and it ceaseth forever, it is bound to perish, to fail, the debt must remain forever unpaid, and all attempts to settle the indebtedness are futile;)
v. 9. that he should still live forever, in an eternal life, without paying the penalty of death, and not see corruption. The passage plainly teaches the impossibility of redemption of any person in the world by the mutual assistance or by the united efforts of men, a fact which brands all so-called religions outside of Christianity as spurious and futile, for they all are unable to cope with the situation, Christianity alone affording a solution, namely, that of the vicarious suffering of Jesus Christ.
v. 10. For he, every person in the world, including him whom men try to redeem by their own works, as in the supererogatory nonsense of the papists, seeth that wise men die, the so-called solid citizens of the state are subject to death, likewise the fool and the brutish person in whom the animal desires occupy the first place, perish, and leave their wealth to others. How foolish, then, for the rich to imagine himself to be immortal on account of the wealth with which he impresses others.
v. 11. Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue forever and their dwelling-places to all generations, not subject to misfortune and destruction, so that one generation after the other may pass forward into eternity without witnessing any change in their good fortune; they call their lands after their own names, that is, they celebrate their own names, they see to it that men praise and flatter them on account of their lands, their possessions.
v. 12. Nevertheless man being in honor, occupying the highest positions of honor and glory in this world, abideth not, passing away like a lodger who does not even await the full light of morning to continue his journey; he is like the beasts that perish, whose lives are suddenly, without warning, taken away.
v. 13. This their way is their folly, it is the way all men fare who have such foolish confidence in themselves and in their riches; yet their posterity approve their sayings, the same thing happens to those who imitate them. Selah.
v. 14. Like sheep they are laid in the grave, in spite of their alleged superiority and the greatness of their wealth; death shall feed on them, they are subject to its corruption; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning, the certain triumph of the righteous over the ungodly being a fact very soon, under the conditions brought about by the fulfillment of the Messianic promises; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling, literally, "for their form is to be devoured by the kingdom of death," out of the dwelling which is theirs; they who proudly thought that they had built for eternity find themselves without a dwelling, their body rotting in the grave, and their memory being forgotten on earth.
v. 15. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, redeeming him from the hand or dominion of the realm of death; for He shall receive me, up into the glory of everlasting life. Selah. The believers of the Old Testament, like the Christians today, held the belief in the resurrection of the body and in eternal life with God. The psalmist therefore makes the encouraging application.
v. 16. Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased, when men praise him on account of his great wealth;
v. 17. for when he dieth, he shall carry nothing away, he must leave all his wealth behind him; his glory shall not descend after him, for nothing is more evanescent than honor before men.
v. 18. Though while he lived, he blessed his soul, flattering himself that he was truly happy and trying to enjoy life accordingly, Deu 29:18; Luk 12:19; and men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself, though men praise the wealthy person for enjoying life according to his own lights.
v. 19. He shall go to the generation of his fathers, being cut off from the land of the living suddenly; they, all those included in this category, shall never see light, never enjoy the light of everlasting life. And so the poet closes his hymn with an apt conclusion:
v. 20. Man that is in honor, enjoying wealth, good fortune, the esteem of men, and understandeth not, continuing in fleshly security, is like the beasts that perish, excluded from the hope of a higher and better life in heaven with God. All believers, therefore, will refrain from being offended by the apparent good fortune of the godless wealthy, knowing that their own happiness is secure in the hands of their heavenly Father.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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For the chief musician
"This is for the director of music to use in worship"
A psalm of the sons of Korah
"This is a psalm that the sons of Korah wrote"
Hear this, all you peoples; give ear, all you inhabitants
These two phrases are parallel. Together they strengthen the command for all people to listen. (See: Parallelism)
give ear
This idiomatic expression means to use one's ears to listen. AT: "listen" (See: Idiom)
both low and high
The writer speaks of people who are weak or insignificant in society as being low and of people who are important and powerful as being high. Together, the words "low" and "high" represent all people. AT: "both important people and unimportant people" or "people of every social class" (See: Metaphor and Merism)
rich and poor together
Together the words "rich" and "poor" refer to all people, regardless of wealth. AT: "all people" (See: Merism)
translationWords
chief
psalm
son
Korah
people group
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 5, 11, 13, 16 Ps 49 In this wisdom psalm, a wise teacher…
Ps 49 In this wisdom psalm, a wise teacher warns against enemies, whom he portrays as living a rich lifestyle and caring only for themselves (49:5-9). They cannot keep anyone alive, least of all themselves, even in their memories (49:10-12). Like fattened animals, they are led to slaughter (49:14-20).
49:1-4 The wisdom teacher invites everyone to the hall of wisdom; he promises to instruct with a proverb and a riddle.
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49:1-2 Anyone who will listen can gain wisdom (Prov 1:5, 8, 33).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.