Psalms 49

Enoch: “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” Just think how significant it is, that, back in that far-off time, long before life and immortality were brought to light, the departure from life is put in this most beautiful and comforting way—being taken by God. V.

1. HEAR this, all ye peoples; Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world: 2 Both low and high, Rich and poor together. 3 My mouth shall speak 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 iniquity at my heels compasseth 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 [life] is costly, And must be let alone [it faileth] for ever:) 9 That he should still live alway, That he should not see corruption. 10 For he seeth that wise men die, The fool and the brutish together [alike] 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 But man abideth not in honour; He is like the beasts that perish. 13 This their way is their folly: Yet after them men approve their sayings. [Selah] 14 They are appointed as a flock for Sheol; Death shall be their shepherd: And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; And their beauty shall be for Sheol to consume, that there be no habitation for it. 15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol: 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 praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself, 19 He shall go to the generation of his fathers; They shall never see the light. 20 Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, Is like the beasts that perish.

The Vanity of Earthly Aggrandizement. Psalm 49 is didactic, and contains no national or historic allusions. It is addressed to all men without distinction. “It discusses the problem of temporal happiness and the prosperity of the ungodly, and is therefore related to 37 and 73”

(Moll). It exhibits the transitoriness of the success and joy of the wicked, and the sure hope of the upright resting upon God. Its character is in harmony with the title which ascribes it to David as the author. De Witt. This Psalm contains the most perfect development of Hebrew thought on the deepest problem of existence. It affirms clearly the doctrine of a future state of compensation, and establishes it on the strongest grounds. It is altogether didactic, resembling in style and rhythm the Book of Proverbs, in brief, compact, and highly poetic sentences, adapted for solemn recitation with lyric accompaniment; it brings together a series of striking thoughts on the present and future condition of men “who trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches.” Through life they prosper, leave a rich inheritance to their children, look forward to the permanence and grandeur of their posterity, who laud their names and approve their sayings; but with the end of life comes the end of all; they are the prey of death, wise and fools alike; their noble forms rot in the grave, and they have no futurity of life (v. 19). The righteous, on the contrary, is redeemed from death (v. 15), taken unto Himself by God; and in the morning he will have dominion over them. The contrast is complete: in this life the wicked has everything, even the hope of permanent prosperity for his family, but for him there is no hope after death; the righteous in this life may have absolutely none but evil days, may be beset by treacherous foes (v. 5), but he is sure of redemption, of acceptance with God, of a morning ushering in the dominion of light. Cook.

This Psalm, like the thirty-seventh, is intended to console the righteous under the trials arising from the prosperity and enmity of wicked men, by showing these to be but temporary, and by the prospect of a speedy change in the relative position of the parties. A.—It is designed as a vindication of the ways of God in sight of the different fortunes of the righteous and the wicked in this world. It is no mere commonplace on the shortness of life and the uncertainty of riches. It is no philosophical dissertation, which bids us bear up bravely in our perils and sufferings, telling us that virtue is its own reward. It goes at once to the root of the matter. It shows us not only the vanity of riches, but the end of those who “boast themselves in their riches.” It comforts the righteous in their oppression and affliction, not merely by the assurance that they shall finally triumph over the wicked, but by the more glorious hope of life everlasting with God. Here is the true ground of consolation, that God will not only not forsake those who trust in Him in this life, but that He will take them to Himself. It is this doctrine specially enunciated ated which gives the Psalm its distinctive character, and which leads the Psalmist himself to claim for it so attentive a hearing.

The Psalm consists of three parts. First, an introduction, in which the whole world is called upon to listen to the words of the poet, and in which he further declares that he speaks by Divine inspiration (vs. 1-4). Then follows the main body of the poem, in two principal divisions, marked by the refrain, which closes each (vs. 5-12 and vs. 13-20). The former of these contains, generally, a description of men prosperous and rich, whose riches puff them up with pride, and with the foolish imagination that they can secure for themselves an immortality upon earth; but who are so far from being able to save themselves or others from death by their riches, that they are no better than the beasts that perish (vs. 5-12). The remainder of the Psalm deals chiefly with the consolation to be derived from the end of the righteous, as contrasted with the end of the worldly (vs. 13-20). P.

1-4. It is a theme of common human interest that the poet means to treat of, and therefore he calls upon all the peoples and all the inhabitants of the world. This term denotes primarily temporal life, which slips away unnoticed, then the world itself which passes away in time. He purposes to proclaim to the rich the nullity of their false ground of hope and to the poor the superiority of the true ground, and therefore he desires for himself as pupils both children of common people, who are men and have nothing to distinguish them from others, and children of people of quality—rich and poor, as he adds by way of explanation. For his mouth will or shall utter not a great variety of wise doctrines, but weighty wisdom. D.

1. 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. A.

2. The Psalm opens by calling the attention of all people of every possible rank in life. The Hebrew language has two very unlike words for man; one drawn from the earth, and significant of frailty; the other significant of his relative strength and nobility. Both are brought together here: man, the low; and man, the high. This distinction is germain to the present theme; an admonition to the rich and the nobly born, suggesting that they forbear to set undue value on wealth and honor, and a comfort to the poor of humble origin, inasmuch as the more enduring good of God’s favor and love are free to their choice and fully within their attainment. C.—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 toward the wealth of the world as rich people from an inordinate delight in it. H.

3. “Wisdom” and “understanding” have here the meaning common in the Proverbs of Solomon, practical sound sense in the choice of the highest and best good of life—viz., God’s favor and love—far above all the glittering, fallacious treasures of earth. C.

4. I will incline mine ear, as one who listens patiently for the Divine revelation. The inspiration of the poet, as well as that of the prophet, is from above. He cannot speak of his own heart; he must hear what God the Lord will say. P.

5. Why should I fear in days of evil (when), the iniquity of my oppressors (or supplanters) shall surround me? The theme of the whole Psalm is the negative proposition involved in this interrogation—namely, that the righteous has no cause to fear, even when surrounded by powerful and spiteful enemies. A.—The consolatory result at which he has arrived, after looking at the world, and weighing in the balance those whose fortune seems fair and prosperous, is placed first, before he tells the tale, as in chaps. 37:1; 73:1. It should be remarked, that the rich men of the Psalm are not described as “the wicked,” “the ungodly,” “the violent,” etc., as in other Psalms. Only one hint is given, in the word “iniquity” (v. 5), that they are evil men. But this seems to be designed, as in 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.

6-9. 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 of men offering all his riches to God to escape death. P.—With all his wealth not a man of them can redeem his brother from death and the grave! They may have unbounded trust in their riches, they may make any amount of display of their abundant wealth, and may shine before the eyes of men (so the Hebrew word for “boast” implies); but God will by no means accept their gold as a ransom from the grave. Such redemption of the soul (life) is costly; it costs too much for them to pay in gold. One desists from the effort forever, or he utterly and forever fails to make up an adequate ransom, and therefore all hope of success perishes forever. The former seems to be more precisely the sense of the original; man must give over the effort in eternal despair! The richest of men will not, cannot, live forever so as not to see the corruptions of the grave. C.

6. A man may have abundance of the wealth of this world and be made better by it, may thereby have his heart enlarged in love and thankfulness and obedience, and may do that good with it which will be fruit abounding to his account; and therefore it is not men’s having riches that denominates them worldly, but their setting their hearts upon them as the best things; and so these worldly people are here described. 1. They repose a confidence in their riches; they trust in their wealth; they depend upon it as their portion and happiness, and expect that it will secure them from all evil, and supply them with all good, and that they need nothing else, no, not God Himself. 2. They take a pride in their riches; they boast themselves in the multitude of them, as if they were sure tokens of God’s favor, and certain proofs of their own ingenuity and industry. My might and the power of my hand have gotten me this wealth; as if they made them truly great and happy, and more really excellent than their neighbors. H.—As a rule, rich men are content with the world as it is—naturally; for, as they think, the world has dealt very kindly by them, and therefore they see no great need for bettering it. And then, if they hoard their money, it speedily becomes a rival with Christ in their affections; while, if they spend it, they multiply the luxuries and enjoyments which relax their moral fibre, and dispose them to an easy toleration of much that is mean and sensual in themselves and in their neighbors. If they seek to rise in the world, to make themselves a great place and name, they must give themselves to the endeavor with a devotion which is always in danger of becoming excessive. In short, wealth has many wiles; it is full of all deceitfulness; and no man is worthy of profounder honor than the rich man who keeps himself unspotted, whether by world or Church. Cox.

However acquired, if wealth is not held and kept as a solemn trust in stewardship for God, it tends to attract the heart and hold it fast to itself. It narrows the range of sympathy; it tempts one to treat his poorer neighbor with scorn and neglect. It leads him to exalt pride above humanity. He is in danger of forgetting whence his affluence came, who gave it, and who continues it, and who can make it worthless in a moment. He is in danger of forgetting God in the idolatry of his wealth; of counting himself, with the resources at his command, independent of the great Giver; of living to enjoy his money rather than employ it for God. There is danger of its becoming his greatest curse—its very touch infecting his soul with a kind of leprosy—his grasp upon it leading him to neglect to seize upon what is infinitely more important. There is danger of his regarding it as his own, exclusive of the claims of God, and employing it as an instrument of luxury and pride, building and furnishing himself a heaven with it here, to the neglect of a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. E. H. G.—The price which the rich man pays for his wealth is the temptation to be selfish. They have paid in spirituals for what they have gained in temporals. Now, if you are crying for a share in that wealth, and a participation in that power, you must be content to run the risk of becoming as hard and selfish and overbearing as the man whom you denounce. Blame their sins if you will, or despise their advantages; but do not think that you can covet their advantages and keep clear of their temptations. God is on the side of the poor, and the persecuted, and the mourners—a light in darkness and a life in death. But the poverty, and the persecution, and the darkness are the condition on which they feel God’s presence. They must not expect to have the enjoyment of wealth and the spiritual blessings annexed to poverty at the same time. If you will be rich, you must be content to pay the price of falling into temptation, and a snare, and many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in perdition; and if that price be too high to pay, then you must be content with the quiet valleys of existence, where alone it is well with us; kept out of the inheritance, but having instead God for your portion, your all-sufficient and everlasting portion. Peace, and quietness, and rest with Christ. F. W. R.

7-9. The thought of man’s redemption of himself is far from the poet’s mind; the antithesis esis he has in view is this: one man cannot redeem another; God alone can redeem man. That none of his fellows can redeem a man, is expressed in the strongest possible manner. Luther’s rendering is substantially correct: a brother can no one redeem, nor make atonement for any one to God. With a slight tinge of irony v. 8 says that the ransom which would have to be paid for the souls of men is dear or of large amount, i.e., exorbitant, and that he (who would fain pay it down) lets it alone (must let it alone) forever. This is clear grammatically and quite in keeping with the contest. We take v. 8 as a parenthesis; the principal clause (v. 10) declares: no man can give to God a ransom that defends another from death, so that he should live on without seeing the pit, i.e., without having to sink down into the grave. D.

7. Give to God a ransom for him.** Death is but the jailor or the prison; the ransom must be one which God accepts, and God is the only Redeemer.

8. The redemption . . . precious.** So costly that it cannot be achieved (see Job 36: 18, 19); when the fatal blow is once inflicted, “then a great ransom cannot deliver thee.”

And it ceaseth, or, “and he gives it up,” i.e., abandons the attempt; then each man once lost will remain unredeemed forever; no mediation will avail, or be thought of hereafter. Cook.—We cannot bribe death, that our brother should still live, much less that he should live forever in this world, nor bribe the grave, that he should not see corruption; for we must needs die and return to the dust, and there is no discharge from that war. What folly is it to trust to 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! H.

10. Wise men.** Not simply meaning that their wisdom cannot save them, but that their utmost wisdom will not lead them to make so profitable a use of their wealth as thereby to escape the grave. Die . . . perish, the words seem purposely chosen to denote the end respectively of the wise and the brutish. P.

10-14. “For” assigns a reason for accepting the truth previously stated. Every observer of human life will see that the rich, whether wise or foolish, die and are compelled to leave their hoarded wealth to others. It matters not how wise they may have been, nor, on the other hand, how foolish or even brutish; all alike must in their time go down to the grave and leave their riches to others. They may have inwardly thought that their houses would stand forever, and they may have tacitly assumed that their own life would be as permanent as their earthly mansions. They may have even given their own names to their estates and magnificent establishments; but this insures no perpetuity to their own frail life. So perish all man’s vain hopes of an earthly immortality! A few days or years only, and he is numbered with the dead, and the places that knew him once shall know him no more! C.

11. Their inward thought is. This expresses the sense of the Hebrew, which is singularly forcible; it means that their whole inner man (see v. 9) is filled with one thought: they know they must die, but then their houses will stand for many generations, their lands will bear their name, and preserve their memory. Cook.—Though he seeth that all die, the godly and the wicked, still there is the cleaving imagination of an eternity on this side of death. He builds as securely on the world as if the world were to last forever. The worldly generation that succeed him shall admire his wisdom, honor him for the prosperity to which he has risen, praise him for the success of his own selfishness, even as he congratulated his own wisdom and good fortune while he was alive. Chalmers.

Amid unbroken felicity and successes, the worldly spirit increases in power. It becomes strong, absorbing of mind and heart, far-reaching, rancorous, and unsatisfied. Then there is no end to its ambition—no limit to its hopes—no boundary to its aims; it would engross the whole soul and would gain the whole world. There never was a more blind and stupid spirit. It aims after what it does not need and cannot use. It longs to attain that which has no other tendency than to prove a burden. And this stupidity and blindness are not to be cured by moral lectures. Lecture to rock as soon. I. S. Spencer.—The man that accumulates wealth lives for himself. He gathers into his coffers, and he entertains his friends; old age creeps upon him. You know what he is; an isolation, a monument in the midst of a wilderness, a monument of miserliness, of selfishness, a monument that stands solitary Bp. Carpenter.

13. This their way. Both the meaning and the 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 késél 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 (as Ewald takes it): “This is the way of those who are foolish.” P.—The most probable meaning of this rather obscure verse is, “This is the way of men who are self-confident, and of those after them who approve their sayings.” The Selah marks the climax—viz., that they should feel such utterly foolish confidence and transmit their notions to their posterity. Cook.—Notwithstanding the gross folly of such sinners, as proved by the end to which it brings them, they will still find some to walk in their footsteps and to share their ruin. Against this propagated and perpetuated folly there is a tacit but emphatic protest in the meditative pause which follows, and in the Selah which denotes it. A.

The world reckons sins not by the inward contrariety to God, but by the outward excesses; and therefore if covetous and worldly men do not break out into acts foul and shameful, they have much of the honor and respect of the world. “Their way,” according to the Psalmist, “is folly, yet their posterity praise their sayings”—that is, praise and esteem such a course of life. It is quite possible for the Lord to abhor those whom men bless; for they do not measure sin so much by the inward enmity as by the outward excess. God’s hatred arises from His own purity—but man’s from the external inconveniences of disgrace and loss. Manton.

There is nothing more contagious than example. The multitude are possessed with foolish admiring of worldly greatness, treasures, and delights, neglecting to make a due estimation of things. It is the ordinary artifice of the devil to render temporal things more valuable and attractive to particular persons, from the common practice of men who greedily pursue them as their happiness; as some crafty merchants by false reports raise the exchange, to advance the price of their own wares. The men of the world think those only wise and happy that shine in pomp, abound in riches, and overflow in pleasures. Bates.—Let the reader note how true to the human nature and life of to-day are these records of the life and thought of the rich and worldly men of twenty-five hundred years ago. “Selah;” let this be thought of deeply and laid to heart. C.

14. A further description of the end of these rich fools. They perish like cattle (v. 12); they are laid in the grave; they descend to Hades (Sheol, the world of spirits), and there they are like a flock of sheep, with death for their shepherd, their beauty and their glory gone. P.—Like a flock to the grave they drive; death is their shepherd; and the righteous shall rule over them in the morning; and their form the grave (is) to consume; from (their) home to Him (they go or they belong). This is one of the most obscure and difficult verses in the book, although its general meaning is obvious enough. The figure of a flock is carried out by representing death as the shepherd, by whom they are led or driven. The literal meaning of the words is, Death shall feed them, but the Hebrew verb means to feed as a shepherd; or rather to perform the whole office of a shepherd. A.—Death shall be their shepherd, taking them in charge as the shepherd does his flock. This seems to be the precise sense of the Hebrew verb and its pronoun. They are as sheep, both in their wholesale slaughter and in their falling under the control of death, conceived of as the monarch of the myriads of the dead. The upright shall tread over their fresh graves “in the morning,” for their pleasure-life has been said (v. 12) not to outlast the night. These men, wicked, proud, and rich, are hurried in throngs, like sheep, from their splendid palaces and magnificent estates into the dark and dismal grave—death their shepherd there. Corruption quickly mars their beauty. The earthly homes they build for immortality are their dwelling-places no longer. C.

The upright have dominion in the morning. What is meant is a morning, which will be the end of oppression and the dawning of dominion, not only for individual righteous men, but for all the upright; the godless are rooted out, and the righteous now triumph over their graves. In this the end of all history is expressed in Old Testament fashion. According to the New Testament view also, history closes with the triumph of good over evil. D.

15. In grand contrast to all this stands the hope of the righteous. God will redeem him from the hand of Sheol, death has put forth his hand and seized him, but is forced to surrender his captive, for God takes him to Himself (Gen. 5 : 24). This is the plain meaning. To suppose that the Psalmist speaks of deliverance before death is absurd; such a hope would put him on a level with the merest fool, who knows at least that redemption from the universal doom is impossible. It is satisfactory to find those critics who are least inclined to admit anticipations of the Gospel in the Old Testament agreed in this interpretation. None defends it more forcibly than Hupfeld. He says truly that it is not stated as a revealed doctrine, but as a presentiment, a deep inward conviction inseparable from real living faith in a living God. Cook.

The lot of the righteous is now contrasted with that of the wicked, but with a personal application to the Psalmist himself, “God shall redeem my soul.” From the power of the unseen world, literally, “from the hand of Sheol,” i.e., the grave and Hades. For He shall take me. This short half-verse is, as Böttcher remarks, the more weighty from its very shortness. The same expression occurs again (73 : 24), “Thou shalt take me;” the original of both being Gen. 5 : 24, where it is used of the translation of Enoch, “He was not; for God took him.” We have, then, in this passage, again (cf. 16 : 11 ; 17 : 15), the strong hope of eternal life with God, if not the hope of a resurrection. In the preceding verse, 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 upon the earth. The wicked shall find their end in Sheol (see 9 : 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 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 even 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 he 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 this world. The end of the wicked, after all, was a thick darkness which had never been penetrated; the end of the righteous, life with God. P.

God and He only will redeem my soul from the hand of Sheol; for He will take me, i.e., to Himself. No such state awaits me in the under-world as awaits the ungodly; for my God will take me to His own mansions. The force of the first Hebrew word “only” is quite left out in the English version. It is a thought too precious to be missed. God alone; no other arm save His; I know no other; I trust none other; God by His own Divine arm will redeem my soul from the death-power of Sheol, and from his dominion, compared just before to that of the shepherd controlling his sheep. C.—It is wrong to deny to the Old Testament writers a belief in a future life. Death with them was not an eternal sleep. Death also did not leave them mere shades wandering aimlessly on another shore. No, stronger than death was love of Jehovah, and with Him there must be life hereafter. E. L. Curtis.—The righteous has hope in his death, so has the Psalmist here hope in God concerning his soul. 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. He redeems their souls that He may receive them (31:5). Into Thy hands I commit my spirit, for Thou hast redeemed it. He will receive them into His favor, will admit them into His kingdom, into the mansions that are prepared for them (John 14:2, 3), those everlasting habitations (Luke 16:9). H.

16. Be not thou afraid because a man grows rich, because the glory of his house increases. Here begins the application or practical conclusion of the foregoing meditations. It is marked by a change of form, the Psalmist now no longer speaking of himself, but to himself or to another, as the person most directly interested in his subject. A.

17. When he dies it is taken for granted that he goes into another world himself, but he shall carry nothing away with him of all that which he has been so long heaping up. The greatest and wealthiest cannot therefore be the happiest, because they are never the better for their living in this world; as they came naked into it, they shall go naked out of it. But those have something to show in the other world, for their living in this world, who can say, through grace, that though they came corrupt, and sinful, and spiritually naked into it, they go renewed and sanctified, and well clothed with the righteousness of Christ. H.—All our pieces of gold are but current to the grave; none of them will pass in the future world. Therefore as merchants when they travel make over their moneys here, to receive them by bills of exchange in another country; let us do good with our goods while we live, that when we die, by a blessed bill of exchange, we may receive them again in the kingdom of heaven. To part with that we cannot keep, that we may get that we cannot lose, is a good bargain. Wealth can do us no good, unless it help us toward heaven. Adams.

An Eastern legend furnishes a remarkable, though unconscious commentary on these words of the Psalmist. Alexander the Great, we are told, being upon his death-bed commanded that, when he was carried forth to the grave, his hands should not be wrapped, as was usual, in the sercelotts, but should be left outside the bier, so that all men might see them, and might see that they were empty; that there was nothing in them; that he, born to one empire, and the conqueror of another, the possessor, while he lived, of two worlds, of the East, and of the West, and of the treasures of both, yet now when he was dead could retain no smallest portion of those treasures; that in this matter the poorest beggar and he were at length upon equal terms. This was his comment, or the comment of those who may have devised this legend, on the text of the Psalmist. “He shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth; neither shall his pomp follow him.” This was his anticipation of the declaration of the apostle, “We brought nothing into the world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” Anon.

It is only the meaner things of the earth which lie under the bondage of corruption, which refuse to accompany their owners on that last long journey which, one day or other, every man must make. Whatever is of true value and dignity, whatever is really worth the winning, whatever is akin to the Divine and immortal in man, whatever comes to him from God through Christ (and this includes every good and perfect gift), of all that, nothing can rob him. He shall carry it away with him when he dieth, to be his riches and treasure in the life eternal, as it was his riches and treasure here. Trench.—Let us see to it that not in utter nakedness do we go hence, but clothed with that immortal robe, and rich in those possessions that cannot be taken away from us, which they have who have lived on earth as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Let us pierce, for the foundation of our life’s house, beneath the shifting sands of time down to the Rock of Ages, and build there. A. M.

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 will not forget the least of these things that are wrought for His name’s sake. Trench. —The world teacheth me that it is madness to leave behind me those goods that I may carry with me. Christianity teacheth me that what I charitably give alive, I carry with me dead; and experience teacheth me that what I leave behind, I lose. I will carry that treasure with me by giving it, which the worldling loseth by keeping it; so, while his corpse shall carry nothing but a winding cloth to his grave, I shall be richer under the earth than I was above it. Bishop II.

Character is that which alone we can carry with us out of the world. Everything else, fame, fortune, station, influence, must be left behind; but our character will be our own. If it has been built up of holy aims, and sacred emotions, and the experience of charity and faith; if it has been so shaped and featured that we may trace upon it the image of Jesus; if it is beautiful with the image of penitence, and cheerful obedience, and sweet submission; then it is our unspeakable treasure—our family likeness to the redeemed, the token of our relationship to the Holy Spirit before the throne. It constitutes, by the grace of God, our title to the rank of the nobility of heaven. E. H. G.

18. While he lived**, literally, in his life, that life which to him was all in all, to which his hopes and joys were confined. He blessed his soul, i.e., congratulated himself on his prosperity, and indulged all his appetites. Men will praise thee. A fine point in the sarcasm; the rich man’s self-congratulations are echoed by his neighbors; they admire his luxury, his self-indulgence, and repeat his axioms. It is remarkable how the Psalmist exhausts the subject; of all trials to the faith of thoughtful observers none is greater than to see the “honor, reverence, and troops of friends” which surround the rich man, as such, to the very end. Cook.

This verse assigns the reason of the fact alleged in the one before it. The wealthy sinner is to carry nothing with him when he dies, bebecause he is to have his “good things” in the present life. This is God’s appointment in accordance with his own free choice. In his life (or lifetime), as long as he lives, he is to bless his soul (or himself), i.e., to reckon himself happy, and to be so esteemed by others. In the last clause, the third person is abruptly exchanged for the second, and the wealthy sinner, of whom the Psalmist had been speaking to himself or his disciple, is directly addressed, as if personally present. This application of the figure called apostrophe is made with great skill and rhetorical effect. There is pungent sarcasm in the close of this verse; they will praise thee because thou doest good—to thyself. Or, because thou doest well—for thyself. The addition of this last phrase serves to characterize vividly not only the rich sinner, but his flatterers. There can be little doubt that our Saviour tacitly alluded to the first clause of this verse, when He made Abraham say to Dives, “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented” (Luke 16: 25). This is indeed a most instructive commentary on the passage now before us, as exhibiting the future revolution in the relative position of the parties, as a reason for not envying the wealthy sinner now. It is equally certain that the Rich Fool’s address to his own soul, in Luke 12: 19, was suggested by the same clause of the Psalm before us, in his lifetime he will bless his soul. Indeed the whole conception of the Rich Man in the one case, and the Rich Fool in the other, may be said to be borrowed from this Psalm, and may therefore derive instructive and interesting illustration from it. A.

To-day God gives us time, and with it opportunity. The precious gift is in our hands; the past cannot be recalled; the future cannot be foreseen. To-morrow, of which we so often boast ourselves, may never come to us. We do not live to-morrow. The man who owns whole blocks of real estate and great ships on the sea does not own a single minute of to-morrow! Anon.

Of the priceless gift of time, how much will one day be seen to have been lost; how ruinous shall we deem our investment of this our most precious stock! How many interests, occupations, engagements, friendships—I speak not of the avowed ways of “killing time,” as it is termed with piteous accuracy—will be then regarded only as so many expedients for assuring our failure to compass the true end of our existence! It may not now seem possible that

we should ever think thus. Life is like the summer’s day; and in the first fresh morning we do not realize the noonday heat, and at noon we do not think of the shadows lengthening across the plain, and of the setting sun, and of the advancing night. Yet, to each and all, the sunset comes at last; and those who have made most of the day are not unlikely to reflect how little they have made of it. H. P. L.