Psa 49:7 | KingComments | STEP | The teacher of wisdom begins his teaching with a question ( ). It is the question of how the faithful God-fearing can be calm, without fear in days of calamity, in a time of great tribulation. It is a time when unrighteous people are on his heels and enclose him. These unrighteous are ungodly, wicked rich, who oppress the poor. Prophetically, it is about the apostate mass of the Jews oppressing the faithful remnant. According to Old Testament valuation, the rich bear the appearance of God’s approval, while the poor bear the appearance of God’s disapproval. This is how Job’s friends and also Job himself reasoned. While the preacher shows us the emptiness, the meaninglessness of wealth, the psalmist goes a step further. He considers the end of those who rely on their wealth (cf. ). In this psalm, the wisdom teacher helps us to get rid of the misconception that the rich have the favor of God and the poor have God against them. The solution to the issue is found in having the right view, God’s view, of life and death. If someone has that view, it makes him fearless of people who exercise power over him by means of their wealth. The teacher shows that wealth and the rich are only temporary, passing (cf. ). Let the God-fearing look closely at the unjust, foolish rich. What will they see? People who are so foolish that they trust in their wealth, which means they do not trust in God ( ). Serving God and at the same time serving Mammon, the god of money, is not possible. It is not only foolishness but also sin ( ; cf. ). Wealthy people in this psalm are rich, powerful people, oppressing poor people or the believing remnant. The word “wealth” contains both riches and power. These wealthy people are also haughty, for they “boast in the abundance of their riches”. But what does their wealth, no matter how great, mean at all? Can a rich fool use it to save someone from death? Just a moment of well thinking makes that clear. The poet now indicates why the God-fearing need have no fear of the foolish rich. For those people, with all their money, have no authority over death ( ). A rich person cannot save himself or anyone else from death with his money ( ). Wealth and power have limited value and are a perishable possession, for they do not secure against death (cf. ). Therefore, we need not fear or envy the proud rich. These people think that nothing can happen to them. But life cannot be bought with money. Life is therefore perishable, finite possession. This is true of all people without exception. Rich, proud people who rely on their wealth and boast of their great richness often have a bad conscience. They have often obtained their wealth through dishonest practices (cf. ). Money is not called “the unrighteous Mammon” by the Lord Jesus for nothing ( ). On earth, rich people can buy off a punishment with money, but they cannot buy off with their wealth the inevitable death as the wages of sin. In the sphere of the Old Testament, this is about a manslayer who committed premeditated murder. For him there is no redeemer, nor does the city of refuge offer him protection from death ( ). There is no way for him to escape death as punishment for his sin. Nor can the debt accumulated by a life of sin be bought off with money (cf. ). There can be no reconciliation with God for all the sins committed by paying any price, not even with all the gold of the whole world (cf. ). Nor can they use it to ransom or redeem a brother in evil and thus free him from the righteous judgment of God. Only God can do that ( ). Their lives are far too precious to be expressed in a sum of money ( ). Never, ever, will any amount of money be able to be deposited or credited to God’s bank account sufficient to safeguard from death. Any fortune will be eternally inadequate. It shows the total and eternal worthlessness of money and goods compared to the life of a human being. The rich person believes that he can continue to live forever because he has a lot of money ( ). Great investments are made that should make it medically possible for a person to become immortal. But “living on eternally and not undergo decay” is and remains a nonsensical illusion. Yet the rich fool continues to strive for it. It proves his total blindness, the complete darkening of his mind (cf. ). It is a general principle, that no man can buy spiritual life for another man or give it to him. Only the Lord Jesus can, because He became equal to the brethren. He took on blood and flesh to redeem brethren ( ). No one can do it, only He. To receive the life He gives requires confession of sins before God and faith in Christ and His work on the cross. The living man, in all his blindness, does see that no one escapes death ( ). He cannot deny that fact. He sees that this is true for the “wise” as much as for “the stupid and the senseless”. They “alike perish”. He also sees that they will “leave their wealth to others”. It is of no use to the departed themselves once they have perished. And who are these others (cf. )? That is not said. This puts even more emphasis on the fact that the rich man’s life will end one day, that it will not remain as it is now. The stupid and the senseless see it all, but it doesn’t affect them, they shut themselves off from this inescapable reality. They do not allow themselves to be warned by what they see with their own eyes. Everyone dies once, no one escapes death. They see this, but in their proud self-conceit they imagine that this will not happen to them. In their foolishness and pride they think “their houses are forever” ( ). This depraved thinking is ineradicably deep in them. If they themselves perish at all, they will continue to live on, so they think in their foolishness, in their homes, their families or the generations to come. They think they are great and put their own name on everything. They name the countries after themselves (cf. ). They attach their name to them because they believe that this is how they will continue to live. As kings they have had their names proclaimed over them and thereby made a claim on them. It is the proclamation of ownership of it, by which they will continue to live on even after death, they think, fools that they are. They ignore the truth that they are dust and will return to dust ( ). They think they control the future, that they can control it themselves. Their possessions will ensure that they do not die, they believe. That is how much their lives are intertwined with the material world. They have no thought of anything higher. This is really living on the level of the beasts ( ). This is the refrain, or summary of the psalm, repeated in almost identical terms in . “Man in [his] pomp will not endure.” Whatever he may have achieved in life, whatever prestige he may have acquired, he does not continue to live on, but “is like the beasts, that perish”. To live like a beast is to live without a sense of God. We see this in what happens to Nebuchadnezzar, which teaches us a lesson. Without God, he truly lives like a beast ( ). Only when he raises his eye to God does his mind return ( ). Man who has lived like a beast, that is, without God, will die like a beast. He leaves the world in which he was honored, in the same way a beast does, and he perishes like a beast. Therefore, the poor, oppressed psalmist is not afraid of the rich oppressor, for the oppressor awaits the same fate as a beast: death. This, of course, refers only to physical death. Only in this is a human being equal to a beast. That a human being above a beast has a spirit, which lives on after death, is not considered here. The unbeliever, the man who lives without God, does not realize that man has a spirit that returns to God and must give an account of his life to his Creator ( ). Those who believe in the doctrine of evolution are blind to this. Also, man’s body will rise once, either to life or to judgment ( ; ). Man, unlike a beast, continues to live on without end. With , the second stanza begins. “This is the way” is the way of a beast. Going that way is their foolishness. It is the way of relying on themselves and their wealth, without any thought of death. Their way is foolishness, but yet “those after them … approve their words”. The descendants of the fool praise him because he has achieved so much. He is their guru from whom they can learn the way to success. They want to learn from him, adopt his vision of life, because that’s how they want to live and let their name live on. It proves that they are just as foolish as he is. We can think in this context of the great names in the world of music and sports. The books written about these people are sold graciously. The foolish rich may imagine so many things to be true, but they are no more than sheep shepherded by death ( ). The comparison to sheep illustrates their dependence on a shepherd. Like sheep, they are in the power of another: death, which pastures them. A sheep dies, leaving nothing behind to its descendants; its name perishes. To perish means “to be silenced”. The inevitable end of the foolish rich man is like that of a sheep, for he is like that. He leaves the world in the same way as a sheep and ends up in the grave. His accumulated reputation is of no use to him, and others are deceived by his example. The God-fearing must realize that the power of satan is only for this life. After that, there is no deception anymore. That death is their shepherd, means that when they die, death will drive them like a flock into his special domain, Sheol, the realm of the dead. Behind the mask of friendliness is the grim face of death. Death is already grazing them now, during their lives. Everything they do, they do because they are prompted to do so by death as their shepherd. Their whole existence and all their possessions are connected to the realm of the dead. The contrast with the LORD as Shepherd, Who causes His sheep to lie down in green pastures and leads them beside quiet waters ( ), can hardly be presented more impressively. Because the foolish rich are in the power of death, their rule will not endure. That the upright will rule over them in the morning is a reference to the resurrection (cf. ). In this context it means that after death and in the resurrection the roles will be reversed (cf. ). This may encourage the God-fearing who are now still oppressed by the rich fools. The power of the rich is short-lived. Then they will die and “their form shall be for Sheol to consume”, meaning that all outward glory will shrivel in the grave to something insubstantial (cf. ). To perish does not have to do anything with ceasing to exist. The rich fools dwell in death for all eternity, far from their beautiful home in which they have dwelt on earth. The faithful, the remnant, trusts in God ( ). He knows that God redeems his life from the power of the grave. Redeeming also has the idea of “liberating” or “ransoming”. What man cannot do for himself or another ( ), God can. He has obtained the ransom for each of His own through the work of His Son, Who gave His life “as a ransom for many” ( ). God will raise the faithful from the grave and take them to Himself. Death has no permanent dominion over him. Death will have to give back to Him to Whom they belong, all who are of His through the work of His Son. The word “receive“ has emphasis. It means ‘to take up for certain’ and is used for Enoch and for Elijah ( ; ), over whom death has been unable to exercise power. God can keep from death so that one who belongs to Him does not enter into it, and He can resurrect from death when one who belongs to Him has entered into it. In both cases, His power over death is demonstrated. For us, this is a New Testament truth. We expect the coming of Christ through which, like Enoch, we will be taken up without seeing death ( ). Here in the Old Testament this truth is not yet known. The Old Testament believers expect to be saved from death somehow. In which way, they do not know. What they do know for sure is that death does not have the last word. All Old Testament believers lived in this faith (cf. ).

‏ Psalms 49:7

Trusting In Riches Is Foolish

The teacher of wisdom begins his teaching with a question (Psa 49:5). It is the question of how the faithful God-fearing can be calm, without fear in days of calamity, in a time of great tribulation. It is a time when unrighteous people are on his heels and enclose him. These unrighteous are ungodly, wicked rich, who oppress the poor. Prophetically, it is about the apostate mass of the Jews oppressing the faithful remnant. According to Old Testament valuation, the rich bear the appearance of God’s approval, while the poor bear the appearance of God’s disapproval. This is how Job’s friends and also Job himself reasoned.

While the preacher shows us the emptiness, the meaninglessness of wealth, the psalmist goes a step further. He considers the end of those who rely on their wealth (cf. Psa 73:17). In this psalm, the wisdom teacher helps us to get rid of the misconception that the rich have the favor of God and the poor have God against them. The solution to the issue is found in having the right view, God’s view, of life and death. If someone has that view, it makes him fearless of people who exercise power over him by means of their wealth. The teacher shows that wealth and the rich are only temporary, passing (cf. Jam 1:11).

Let the God-fearing look closely at the unjust, foolish rich. What will they see? People who are so foolish that they trust in their wealth, which means they do not trust in God (Psa 49:6). Serving God and at the same time serving Mammon, the god of money, is not possible. It is not only foolishness but also sin (Mt 6:24; cf. 1Tim 6:17).

Wealthy people in this psalm are rich, powerful people, oppressing poor people or the believing remnant. The word “wealth” contains both riches and power. These wealthy people are also haughty, for they “boast in the abundance of their riches”.

But what does their wealth, no matter how great, mean at all? Can a rich fool use it to save someone from death? Just a moment of well thinking makes that clear. The poet now indicates why the God-fearing need have no fear of the foolish rich. For those people, with all their money, have no authority over death (Psa 49:7-9).

A rich person cannot save himself or anyone else from death with his money (Psa 49:7). Wealth and power have limited value and are a perishable possession, for they do not secure against death (cf. Pro 10:2). Therefore, we need not fear or envy the proud rich. These people think that nothing can happen to them. But life cannot be bought with money. Life is therefore perishable, finite possession. This is true of all people without exception.

Rich, proud people who rely on their wealth and boast of their great richness often have a bad conscience. They have often obtained their wealth through dishonest practices (cf. Jam 5:1-6). Money is not called “the unrighteous Mammon” by the Lord Jesus for nothing (Lk 16:9).

On earth, rich people can buy off a punishment with money, but they cannot buy off with their wealth the inevitable death as the wages of sin. In the sphere of the Old Testament, this is about a manslayer who committed premeditated murder. For him there is no redeemer, nor does the city of refuge offer him protection from death (Num 35:9-21). There is no way for him to escape death as punishment for his sin.

Nor can the debt accumulated by a life of sin be bought off with money (cf. Mk 8:36-37). There can be no reconciliation with God for all the sins committed by paying any price, not even with all the gold of the whole world (cf. 1Pet 1:18). Nor can they use it to ransom or redeem a brother in evil and thus free him from the righteous judgment of God. Only God can do that (Hos 13:14a).

Their lives are far too precious to be expressed in a sum of money (Psa 49:8). Never, ever, will any amount of money be able to be deposited or credited to God’s bank account sufficient to safeguard from death. Any fortune will be eternally inadequate. It shows the total and eternal worthlessness of money and goods compared to the life of a human being.

The rich person believes that he can continue to live forever because he has a lot of money (Psa 49:9). Great investments are made that should make it medically possible for a person to become immortal. But “living on eternally and not undergo decay” is and remains a nonsensical illusion. Yet the rich fool continues to strive for it. It proves his total blindness, the complete darkening of his mind (cf. Eph 4:17-18).

It is a general principle, that no man can buy spiritual life for another man or give it to him. Only the Lord Jesus can, because He became equal to the brethren. He took on blood and flesh to redeem brethren (Heb 2:14-17). No one can do it, only He. To receive the life He gives requires confession of sins before God and faith in Christ and His work on the cross.

The living man, in all his blindness, does see that no one escapes death (Psa 49:10). He cannot deny that fact. He sees that this is true for the “wise” as much as for “the stupid and the senseless”. They “alike perish”. He also sees that they will “leave their wealth to others”. It is of no use to the departed themselves once they have perished. And who are these others (cf. Lk 12:20)? That is not said. This puts even more emphasis on the fact that the rich man’s life will end one day, that it will not remain as it is now.

The stupid and the senseless see it all, but it doesn’t affect them, they shut themselves off from this inescapable reality. They do not allow themselves to be warned by what they see with their own eyes. Everyone dies once, no one escapes death. They see this, but in their proud self-conceit they imagine that this will not happen to them.

In their foolishness and pride they think “their houses are forever” (Psa 49:11). This depraved thinking is ineradicably deep in them. If they themselves perish at all, they will continue to live on, so they think in their foolishness, in their homes, their families or the generations to come.

They think they are great and put their own name on everything. They name the countries after themselves (cf. Gen 4:17). They attach their name to them because they believe that this is how they will continue to live. As kings they have had their names proclaimed over them and thereby made a claim on them. It is the proclamation of ownership of it, by which they will continue to live on even after death, they think, fools that they are.

They ignore the truth that they are dust and will return to dust (Gen 3:19b). They think they control the future, that they can control it themselves. Their possessions will ensure that they do not die, they believe. That is how much their lives are intertwined with the material world. They have no thought of anything higher.

This is really living on the level of the beasts (Psa 49:12). This is the refrain, or summary of the psalm, repeated in almost identical terms in Psa 49:20. “Man in [his] pomp will not endure.” Whatever he may have achieved in life, whatever prestige he may have acquired, he does not continue to live on, but “is like the beasts, that perish”. To live like a beast is to live without a sense of God. We see this in what happens to Nebuchadnezzar, which teaches us a lesson. Without God, he truly lives like a beast (Dan 4:28-33). Only when he raises his eye to God does his mind return (Dan 4:34).

Man who has lived like a beast, that is, without God, will die like a beast. He leaves the world in which he was honored, in the same way a beast does, and he perishes like a beast. Therefore, the poor, oppressed psalmist is not afraid of the rich oppressor, for the oppressor awaits the same fate as a beast: death.

This, of course, refers only to physical death. Only in this is a human being equal to a beast. That a human being above a beast has a spirit, which lives on after death, is not considered here. The unbeliever, the man who lives without God, does not realize that man has a spirit that returns to God and must give an account of his life to his Creator (Ecc 3:19-21). Those who believe in the doctrine of evolution are blind to this. Also, man’s body will rise once, either to life or to judgment (Jn 5:28-29; Dan 12:2). Man, unlike a beast, continues to live on without end.

With Psa 49:13, the second stanza begins. “This is the way” is the way of a beast. Going that way is their foolishness. It is the way of relying on themselves and their wealth, without any thought of death. Their way is foolishness, but yet “those after them … approve their words”. The descendants of the fool praise him because he has achieved so much. He is their guru from whom they can learn the way to success.

They want to learn from him, adopt his vision of life, because that’s how they want to live and let their name live on. It proves that they are just as foolish as he is. We can think in this context of the great names in the world of music and sports. The books written about these people are sold graciously.

The foolish rich may imagine so many things to be true, but they are no more than sheep shepherded by death (Psa 49:14). The comparison to sheep illustrates their dependence on a shepherd. Like sheep, they are in the power of another: death, which pastures them. A sheep dies, leaving nothing behind to its descendants; its name perishes. To perish means “to be silenced”.

The inevitable end of the foolish rich man is like that of a sheep, for he is like that. He leaves the world in the same way as a sheep and ends up in the grave. His accumulated reputation is of no use to him, and others are deceived by his example. The God-fearing must realize that the power of satan is only for this life. After that, there is no deception anymore.

That death is their shepherd, means that when they die, death will drive them like a flock into his special domain, Sheol, the realm of the dead. Behind the mask of friendliness is the grim face of death. Death is already grazing them now, during their lives. Everything they do, they do because they are prompted to do so by death as their shepherd. Their whole existence and all their possessions are connected to the realm of the dead. The contrast with the LORD as Shepherd, Who causes His sheep to lie down in green pastures and leads them beside quiet waters (Psa 23:2), can hardly be presented more impressively.

Because the foolish rich are in the power of death, their rule will not endure. That the upright will rule over them in the morning is a reference to the resurrection (cf. Isa 26:19). In this context it means that after death and in the resurrection the roles will be reversed (cf. Lk 16:25). This may encourage the God-fearing who are now still oppressed by the rich fools.

The power of the rich is short-lived. Then they will die and “their form shall be for Sheol to consume”, meaning that all outward glory will shrivel in the grave to something insubstantial (cf. Lam 3:4). To perish does not have to do anything with ceasing to exist. The rich fools dwell in death for all eternity, far from their beautiful home in which they have dwelt on earth.

The faithful, the remnant, trusts in God (Psa 49:15). He knows that God redeems his life from the power of the grave. Redeeming also has the idea of “liberating” or “ransoming”. What man cannot do for himself or another (Psa 49:7-9), God can. He has obtained the ransom for each of His own through the work of His Son, Who gave His life “as a ransom for many” (Mt 20:28).

God will raise the faithful from the grave and take them to Himself. Death has no permanent dominion over him. Death will have to give back to Him to Whom they belong, all who are of His through the work of His Son. The word “receive“ has emphasis. It means ‘to take up for certain’ and is used for Enoch and for Elijah (Gen 5:24; 2Kgs 2:5), over whom death has been unable to exercise power.

God can keep from death so that one who belongs to Him does not enter into it, and He can resurrect from death when one who belongs to Him has entered into it. In both cases, His power over death is demonstrated. For us, this is a New Testament truth. We expect the coming of Christ through which, like Enoch, we will be taken up without seeing death (1Thes 4:14-18).

Here in the Old Testament this truth is not yet known. The Old Testament believers expect to be saved from death somehow. In which way, they do not know. What they do know for sure is that death does not have the last word. All Old Testament believers lived in this faith (cf. Heb 11:39-40).