Psalms 49:5

Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil,.... This is the principal thing that all are before called to hearken to.

Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?

He speaks in his own person, because he had now said that he would incline his ear, , i.e. learn and practise what he was teaching others; but his meaning is more general, that there is no sufficient cause why he or any good man should fear; which is to be understood of excessive or immoderate and prevailing fear, causing dejection or despondency, or distrust of God’ s providence and goodness, or discontent with his condition; in which sense men are bid not to fear, , compared with . Thus , Be not grieved, to wit, inordinately; for otherwise they ought, and he would have had them to grieve for their sin. Thus to lead a man into temptation, , is to suffer him to be overcome by it, by comparing . And the object or cause of this forbidden fear is double; the one, the afflictions of good men, here following; the other, the prosperity of the ungodly, as it is declared , and of which he begins to treat in the very next verse, and continues the discourse of it to the end of the Psalm. In the days of evil; either, 1. Of sin; when iniquity of all sorts abounds; which is many ways grievous and vexatious to every good man. Or, 2. Of misery; in times of great distress and calamity, either public or private, when wicked men flourish, (of which he speaks in all the rest of the Psalm,) and good men are oppressed and persecuted. The iniquity of my heels; by which he understands either, 1. His afflictions; which he might justly call the punishment of his sinful actions; for iniquity is commonly put for the punishment of it, and the heels are put for a man’ s footsteps, and metaphorically for one’ s ways or actions, as 89:51. Or, 2. The iniquity, i.e. the violent and injurious designs and practices of his ungodly and malicious enemies, who, as he here saith, did compass him about; whereby he notes their prosperous success against him, and his being endangered and vexed by them, as this phrase implies, ,11 22:12 140:9 ; and withal their intention and endeavour to vex and persecute and destroy him, as this phrase is used, 22:12,16, and in many other places. This sense is favoured both by the Syriac and Arabic interpreters; whereof the former renders the words thus, the iniquity of mine enemies hath compassed me, and the latter thus, when mine enemies shall compass me about; and by the main scope of the Psalm, which is to comfort himself and other good men against that great scandal of the prosperity of the wicked, and the oppressions and miseries of the righteous. But all the difficulty is why or how he calls this the iniquity of his heels.

Psalms 49:5 Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, [when] the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?Ver. 5. Wherfore should I fear in the days of evil?] All the days of the afflicted are evil, Proverbs 15:15. But why should either I, or any other afflicted servant of God, be overly troubled, as if some strange thing had befallen us; or staggered at the better condition of worse men, all things considered? When the iniquity of my heels] Or, of my supplanters, mine enemies, those naughty men (called here iniquity in the abstract) who seek to trip up my heels, and do surround me with their snares for that purpose. See Psalms 56:7. Or thus, "When the iniquity of my heels," &c. That is, as some will have it, when my sins come to my remembrance, or are chastened upon me. Every man’ s heel hath some iniquity. As we shall have some dirt cleaving to our heels whiles we walk in a dirty world; so there is some defilement upon all our actions, which we may call the iniquity of our heels. "He that is washed," saith our Saviour to Peter, "needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit," John 13:10. The comparison seems to be taken from those that wash in baths; for although their whole bodies are thereby made clean, yet going forth they touch the earth with their feet, and so are fain to wash again; in like manner the saints, although bathed in that blessed fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness, Zechariah 13:1, and thereby freed from the stain and reign of sin; yet their feet or heels have some filth on them, some relics of corruption do still cleave to them, and cause them some sorrow; yet ought they not to fear, or be dismayed, but by the practice of mortification purge themselves daily from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, 2 Corinthians 7:1.

(5) Should I fear?—Here the problem is stated not in a speculative, but personal form. The poet himself feels the pressure of this riddle of life. When the iniquity of my heels.—The Authorised Version seems to take “heels” in the sense of footsteps, as Symmachus does, and “when the evil of my course entangles me,” is good sense, but not in agreement with the context. Render rather, when iniquity dogs me at the heels, i.e., when wicked and prosperous men pursue him with malice. This is more natural than to give the word heel the derived term of supplanter; the sense, too, is the same. There is no direct reference to Genesis 3:15, though possibly the figure of the heel as a vulnerable part, and of wickedness lying like a snake in the path, may have occurred to the poet. The Syriac, however, suggests a different reading, “malice of my oppressors.”

Verse 5. The iniquity of my heels] Perhaps עקבי akebai, which we translate my heels, should be considered the contracted plural of עקבים akebim, supplanters. The verse would then read thus: "Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, though the iniquity of my supplanters should compass me about." The Syriac and Arabic have taken a similar view of the passage: "Why should I fear in the evil day, when the iniquity of my enemies compasses me about." And so Dr. Kennicott translates it.

5–12. The limits to the power and the possession of wealth.

Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil - This verse is designed evidently to state the main subject of the psalm; the result of the reflections of the author on what had been to him a source of

5. Wherefore should I fear—The psalmist strikes at once into his subject. Days of evil—Days of calamity, persecution, and the apparent defeat of all his hopes.