At a funeral, the differences between people suddenly look very small. The businessman with three houses and the daily-wage labourer are carried out the same way, and neither takes anything with him. Most of us know this, yet we still feel small when someone richer walks past. Psalm 49 speaks to that feeling. It calls on everyone, high and low, rich and poor, to listen, and it sets out its teaching as a riddle played on the lyre. Its answer is blunt: nobody can pay God a ransom for their own life. Then, near the end, comes one of the Old Testament's boldest lines of hope about what lies beyond death.
Where it sits in the story: In Act 3 Solomon's kingdom is at its wealthiest, with gold arriving from Ophir. Psalm 49, a wisdom psalm of the sons of Korah, asks what all that wealth is worth in the end. It sits close to Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in its concerns. Read in order, it quietly questions the splendour around it, and its hope that God will 'take' the faithful looks forward to the fuller hope of resurrection later in the Bible.
What this chapter is doing: To free the listener from fear and envy of the rich by setting wealth against death, and to place real security in God, who alone can redeem a life.
- 49:1–4 — A call to all peoples, rich and poor together, to hear words of wisdom. The singer will open his riddle to the music of the lyre.
- 49:5–12 — Why fear when the wealthy and boastful surround me? No one can ransom another's life or pay God enough to live forever. Wise and foolish alike die and leave their riches to others; people name lands after themselves, yet in their pomp they do not last, like animals that perish.
- 49:13–15 — The fate of the self-confident: death shepherds them to the grave. But the singer says God will ransom his life from the power of the grave, for he will take him, using the same verb used of Enoch being taken in Genesis.
- 49:16–20 — So do not be afraid when someone grows rich and his house grows grand; he carries nothing away when he dies. The refrain returns: a person with riches but without understanding is like the beasts that perish.
Key verse: Psalm 49:15 · So what: This psalm is good medicine for envy and for fear of powerful people. It does not condemn wealth as such; it simply refuses to let money define worth or safety. Its hope that God can redeem a life from death is still only a glimpse here, but it is a glimpse the rest of the Bible, including Jesus' parable of the rich fool, will open wide.