Psalms 49:6 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, we have a picture of the spirit and life of worldly people, whose share is in this life (Psalm 17:14). The psalm takes it for granted that they have wealth and much property, as in Psalm 49:6 and Psalm 49:11. God often gives the good things of this world to bad people who live in open disrespect and rebellion against him. That shows these things are not the best things in themselves, for then God would give most of them to his best friends. It also shows they are not the best things for us, for then those marked for ruin would not be so greatly prospered, only to be ripened for judgment by their success (Proverbs 1:32).

A person may have much of this world’s wealth and still be made better by it. He may use it to grow in love, thankfulness, and obedience, and do much good with it, so that it brings fruit to his account. So it is not riches themselves that make someone worldly, but setting the heart on them as the best things. That is how these worldly people are described here. They trust in their wealth (Psalm 49:6). They depend on it as their share and happiness, and expect it to protect them from every evil and supply every good thing, as if they needed nothing else, not even God. Their gold is their hope (Job 31:24), and so it becomes their god. Our Savior explains the difficulty of saving rich people this way, “How hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:24). See also (1 Timothy 6:17).

They also take pride in their riches. They boast in the great number of them, as if wealth were a sure sign of God’s favor and proof of their own skill and hard work, as if they had gotten it by their own strength. They act as if riches made them truly great and happy, and better than their neighbors. They boast that they have all they want (Psalm 10:3) and can defy the whole world, like the proud woman who says, “I sit as a queen, and I will never know sorrow.” So they call their lands after their own names, hoping to keep their memory alive. Even if the lands keep the names they gave them, that is only a small honor. And in time, lands often change names when they change owners.

They also fool themselves into thinking their worldly possessions will last forever (Psalm 49:11). Their inward thought is that their houses will continue forever, and they comfort themselves with that thought. This means the thought is deeply rooted in them, turned over in their minds, and kept in the hidden place of their hearts. A godly person may think about the world, but those are only his outer thoughts. His inward thought is kept for God and heavenly things. But a worldly person may have only light and passing thoughts about God, while his fixed inward thought is on the world. That is what lies nearest his heart and rules there.

It also means they keep this thought hidden. They may be too ashamed to say openly that they expect their houses to last forever, but inwardly they think so. If they cannot make themselves believe they will live forever, they are foolish enough to think their houses and homes will. Even if they did last, what good would that do once the owners were gone? But they will not last. The world is passing away, and so is everything in it. Time wears all things down.

Their way is foolishness (Psalm 49:13). Worldly living is a very foolish path. Those who lay up treasure on earth and set their hearts on what is below act against sound reason and against their own true good. God himself called a man a fool who thought his goods were stored up for many years and would be enough for his soul (Luke 12:19, Luke 12:20). Even so, their children often approve their ways, agree with their views, say what they said, do what they did, and follow the same path of worldliness. The love of the world runs in the blood. People keep it by nature until God’s grace heals them.

To show how foolish carnal worldlings are, the psalm says that all their wealth cannot save the life of the dearest person they have, or buy even a short delay when death comes to claim that person (Psalm 49:7-9). None of them can by any means redeem his brother, even if his brother is also a worldly man and would gladly offer his own estate in return, hoping for the same kindness later. But their goods cannot serve as payment for one another. One person’s property cannot ransom another person’s life. God does not value it that way. He sets the true value of all things, and in his books this payment has no worth.

God’s justice will not accept wealth as a trade for life. The Lord who owns our brother’s life also owns our estate, and he may take both if he chooses, without doing wrong to us or suffering any loss himself. So one person cannot be a ransom for another. We cannot bribe death so that our brother keeps living, much less so that he lives forever in this world. We cannot bribe the grave so that he does not see decay. We must all die and return to the dust, and there is no release from that battle. What foolishness, then, to trust in what cannot even delay death for an hour for a parent, child, or friend who is as dear to us as our own soul.

It is certainly true that the redemption of the soul is precious and forever beyond human payment. That is, when life is slipping away, no human skill or worldly price can stop it, and when it is gone, it cannot be brought back. But the words reach farther than that. They point to the eternal redemption that the Messiah was to accomplish, which the Old Testament believers looked toward in hope. Everlasting life is too precious a jewel to be bought with the wealth of this world. We are not redeemed with perishable things such as silver and gold (1 Peter 1:18, 1 Peter 1:19).

The learned Dr. Hammond applies Psalm 49:8 and Psalm 49:9 directly to Christ: “The redemption of the soul shall be costly, high-priced, and very dear. But once it is accomplished, it will cease forever, because it will never need to be repeated” (Hebrews 9:25, Hebrews 9:26; Hebrews 10:12). “And he,” that is, the Redeemer, “shall still live forever, and shall not see corruption. He will rise again before he sees decay, and then he will live forevermore” (Revelation 1:18). Christ did for us what all the riches of the world could never do. Therefore, he should be dearer to us than any worldly thing.

Christ did for us what no brother or friend could do, not even the best and most powerful one. That is why those who love father or brother more than him are not worthy of him. This also shows the foolishness of worldly people, who trade away their souls for things that could never truly buy them.

With all their wealth, they still cannot protect themselves from death. Worldly people see, and it troubles them to see, that wise men die, as do fools and senseless people (Psalm 49:10). So they must expect that it will one day be their own turn. They cannot find any good reason to hope they will live forever, and so they comfort themselves in a foolish way by saying that, even if they die, their house will remain. Some rich people are clever, even skilled in politics, but they cannot outsmart death or escape its blow, no matter how much they plan. Others are fools and senseless people. They may do little good, and perhaps not much harm either, but that will not excuse them. Death will take them too, just as it takes the wise who used their skill to do harm. Or we may understand the wise and foolish as the godly and the wicked. The godly die, and death is their release. The wicked perish, and death is their ruin. Yet in either case, they leave their wealth to others.

They cannot stay with their wealth, and it will not win them even a short delay from death. That is a weak excuse, even though it once was used as if it could help (Jeremiah 41:8). They cannot take their riches with them, but must leave them behind. They also cannot know who will enjoy them after they are gone. They must leave them to others, but they do not know to whom, perhaps to a fool (Ecclesiastes 2:19), perhaps to an enemy.

Just as wealth will not help them at death, neither will honor (Psalm 49:12). A man may reach the highest place of power and enjoy everything the world can give. He may seem great and happy, surrounded by every advantage he wants. Yet he does not remain. His honor does not last. It is like a passing shadow. He himself does not remain either, and he does not even stay through the night. This world is like an inn, and his stay is so short that it is hardly worth calling a night’s lodging. There is little rest in such things. He is only here for a brief stop.

He is like the animals that perish. That means he must die just as certainly as they do, and his death ends his place in this world just as theirs does. His body will decay just as theirs does. And, as Dr. Hammond notes, the greatest honors and riches, when wrongly gained by a father, often do not pass to any of his children. Like beasts that die and leave nothing for their young except the open world to live in, he may leave his wealth behind to others at once, even though he never meant to gather it for them.

Their condition after death will be far worse. The world they love so much will not save them from death. It will sink them deeper into hell (Psalm 49:14). Like sheep, they are laid in the grave. Their prosperity only fed them like sheep for slaughter (Hosea 4:16), and then death comes and shuts them in the grave like fat sheep in a pen, waiting for the day of wrath (Job 21:30). Many of them, like flocks of sheep that have died from disease, are thrown into the grave. There death will feed on them, the second death, the worm that never dies (Job 24:20). Their guilty consciences, like vultures, will keep feeding on them with the words, “Son, remember” (Luke 16:25). Death will mock and triumph over them, as in the fall of the king of Babylon, when hell stirred beneath him (Isaiah 14:9). A saint can ask proud Death, “Where is your sting?” But death will ask the proud sinner, “Where is your wealth, your splendor?” The more prosperity fattened him, the more death will feed on him.

In the morning of the resurrection, when all who sleep in the dust will awake (Daniel 12:2), the upright will have dominion over them. The righteous will not only be raised to the highest honor while the wicked are filled with everlasting shame and contempt, and lifted to heaven while the wicked sink into the lowest hell, but they will also sit with Christ in judging them and will praise God’s justice in their ruin. When the rich man in hell begged Lazarus to bring him a drop of water to cool his tongue, he admitted that that upright man had dominion over him. The foolish virgins also admitted the wise had the advantage and were at their mercy when they cried, “Give us some of your oil.” This should comfort us when the upright now often groan under oppression and the wicked seem to rule over them. The day is coming when the situation will be reversed (Esther 9:1), and the upright will have the dominion. We should judge things now as they will appear then.

But what will happen to all the beauty of the wicked? Sadly, it will all be destroyed in the grave where they dwell. Everything they prized in themselves, and everything that won praise from others, was only borrowed and temporary. It was like paint and varnish, and they will rise in their true, natural ugliness. The beauty of holiness is different. It is the one beauty that the grave, which destroys all other beauty, cannot touch or harm. Their beauty will waste away, and the grave, or hell, will be a home for each of them. And what beauty can exist there, where there is only black darkness forever?