Original Meaning
The Heading (49:0)
THE HEADING OF Psalm 49 introduces no new terms, being referred to “the director of music,” attributed to the “Sons of Korah,” and labeled a “psalm” (mizmor).2
Bridging Contexts
THE IDEA OF redemption or ransom was relatively common in ancient Israel. There are at least three Hebrew verbs (and related nouns) associated with the concept: kpr (“cover over, appease, atone for”), gʾl (“buy back, redeem”), and pdh (“ransom, redeem”). Kpr is largely used for atonement for sin, though the noun koper, which appears in our passage, is translated several times as “ransom,” and on other occasions as “bribe.”14 Gʾl is concerned primarily with the redemption of property (as in the story of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz), in the sense of buying back tribal property that has passed on to another. Pdh, the most common root, describes a process of replacement of persons with a payment of money and is thus more closely related to what we might understand as “ransom.” It is this latter term that figures most prominently in our psalm (49:7, 8), along with the noun koper (49:7).
The most frequent use of pdh is in the constellation of verses dealing with the phenomenon of the “redemption of the firstborn.” In Exodus, the Israelites are instructed to consecrate to Yahweh “every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to the LORD, whether man or animal” (Ex. 13:2). Parents were to teach their children that this act of consecration was a response to the deliverance of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh by means of the death of all the firstborn of men and animals (13:14–15). The firstborn of livestock “belong to the LORD” and are to be sacrificed to him. The exceptions permitted are firstborn donkeys15 and human children, both of which were to be “redeemed” (13:12–13). While the purpose of this consecration of firstborn children to Yahweh is not completely clear, it was viewed as a serious duty not to be shirked (22:29; 34:19–20).
In Numbers, the redemption of firstborn Israelites takes a new turn with the dedication of the Levites as a special tribe of servants to Yahweh, who hold no tribal allotment of land and are supported through the sacrifices and gifts of the other tribes. The initial consecration of the Levites is connected with the redemption of the firstborn Israelites in Numbers 3, when Yahweh commands a count be made of “all the firstborn Israelite males who are a month old or more” (3:40). The Levites (who have already been counted) are then taken by Yahweh “in place of all the firstborn of the Israelites” (3:41). When the count is completed, the number of firstborn exceed the number of Levites by 273, so that a redemption payment was required at the rate of five shekels each (3:42–51).
The circumstance returns again in Numbers 8:15–19, where it is acknowledged that the Levites are a special group of Israelites “who are to be given wholly to [Yahweh]” (8:16) and who have been taken “in place of the firstborn, the first male offspring from every Israelite woman” (8:16). The firstborn were originally dedicated to Yahweh because they were delivered from death by the grace of Yahweh during the Passover, and their lives were thus “set apart” for Yahweh’s purposes (8:17). The substitution of the Levites for the firstborn may indicate that before the official priesthood existed, the consecration of the firstborn to the service of Yahweh may have filled this gap.16
In the final stage of the canonical Old Testament, the question of the consecration of the firstborn son to Yahweh was resolved by “redemption” either by a substitutionary sacrifice of a lamb (Ex. 13:12–13) or for a financial consideration (Lev. 27:6; Num. 3:46). It remains unclear, however, whether originally the consecration of firstborn sons was understood as a sacrifice, as was demanded for livestock. The lack of surprise evidenced by Abraham in response to Yahweh’s command to sacrifice his firstborn son, Isaac, in Genesis 22 suggests such sacrifices may not have been unheard of. The practice is known as late as the monarchy (1 Kings 16:34; 2 Kings 3:27; Mic. 6:7). The whole idea of “redemption”—that is, paying a substitutionary price to withdraw the firstborn—suggests that sacrifice may have been an original understanding in some circles.
Contemporary Significance
WHO ARE THE ARROGANT WICKED? Sometimes it can be a dangerous thing to allow the words of the psalmists to become the word of God to us. When that strange transformation takes place, we often find those human words of complaint coming back at us in uncomfortable ways. That is particularly true for me with the psalmist’s complaint against the abusive and arrogant rich, as in this psalm. Having worked for several years in a Christian nonprofit organization concerned to develop programs of education for ministry for underserved ethnic minority communities in an urban setting, I am more and more often brought up short by the realization of how much I really have and possess in relative standards.
When I really admit it, I must acknowledge that I live among the privileged few of the world. Our standard of living here in the Eurocentric Western Hemisphere is among the highest anywhere. Our wants may be many, but our actual needs are few. I have never been hungry, unclothed, or constantly threatened. Disease is an infrequent visitor, and medical services plentiful. I may complain over rising costs, but resources are abundant and available for my use.
I said it is dangerous to hear the psalms as God’s word to me because it opens my eyes to new perspectives I would not choose on my own. I would rather identify with the voices of complaint in the psalms: the abused, struggling have-nots, under constant pressure from without and plagued by doubts within. But my life is a bit too easy to fit many of these situations. Thus, my tendency is to spiritualize the sufferings and complaints of the psalmists. Who are my spiritual enemies? How am I suffering spiritually? How can I turn the attack of the powerful abusers into an attack against my Christian beliefs and principles by unbelievers?
The problem in this approach is that it silences the voices of those who are truly suffering want, pain, abuse, exploitation, and so on. It lets me off the hook by preventing me from having to acknowledge how in many ways my own consumerism and materialism feed the cycle of abuse in which the rich few live well off the misery of the poor many. That is why I need to hear the psalms not only as my words or as words that I can appropriate as my own, but as God’s words—challenging me and confronting me with my complicity in the exploitation of others that my ease of living is grounded in.
Perhaps you are like me, spiritualizing the psalms and so masking the real challenge they speak to us from the mouths of others and the mouth of God. If so, I pray that God will send an uncomfortable spirit to convict both of us that he is a God who upholds the cause of the poor. “Blessed is he who has regard for the weak” (41:1).
The measure of life. The heart of Psalm 49 focuses on the riddle of the kind of awe we accord the ostentatiously rich. Often entertainers and athletes experience veneration far beyond what should be expected. There is a cult of envious fascination with the rich and famous. Even as the tabloids play out all the sordid aspects of their lives, we still believe there is something magic and special about those public figures who have the nerve and the wealth to live life on their own selfish terms. A certain part of us would like to do it too.
Nevertheless, Psalm 49 assures us that our awe and fascination are misplaced. There is nothing particularly special about the rich and famous. As the poet puts it: “But man, despite his riches, does not endure; he is like the beasts that perish” (49:12). Those golden people, with all their money and worldly power, are just a bunch of animals that die just as you and I do. In fact, says the psalmist, if we have the benefit of wisdom and perception, we are far better off than they could ever be. Without understanding they simply die like beasts. “But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself” (49:15).
It is not clear whether the psalmist is speaking of a developed understanding of life after death. As 49:10 indicates, even the wise cannot live forever and enjoy the wealth they establish. Thus, if all humans die and are unable to avoid death despite great wealth and power, then what is left to measure the value of a life? We cannot look to some eternal future but must make our estimation on the basis of this life, the here and now. There are, then, two ways to measure the value of such a life. (1) The first is on the basis of wealth amassed, pleasure explored, and power wielded. But these are short-lived and unlasting. They cannot be taken with us and lose all value to us when we are gone (49:11, 16–19).
(2) The other way to evaluate a life is on the basis of faithfulness. Whether one is high or low, rich or poor, wise or foolish, the proof of a life well spent is this: “In what/whom do you trust?” Those who trust in themselves and wealth or power are doomed to the decay of death. Those who, however, trust in God will find their significance there. The former way is folly, says the psalmist, and doomed to perish, while the way of enduring trust is for the psalmist the way of wisdom honored by God. What I cannot redeem for myself, God redeems for me (49:15).
The costly ransom of a life. What I cannot do for myself, God does for me. And nowhere does the idea of redemption of human life by God work itself out more clearly than in the work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is himself the costly price of redemption for human life. In the LXX of Psalm 49:7, the Hebrew verb pdh (“redeem”) is rendered by the Greek lytroo (“to free by paying a ransom, redeem”). The noun form related to this verb (lytron [“price of release, ransom]”) is used in the New Testament to describe the work of Jesus in our behalf. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28; cf. Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6; Heb. 9:15). The impossibly high cost of redemption is acknowledged in Matthew 16:24: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (16:26).
In a way similar to Psalm 49, the Matthew passage encourages us not to trust in our own ability (through power, wealth, etc.) to save lives but to take up our cross in faithful service to God—in effect, to “lose” our lives as the key to finding them (Matt. 16:24–25). The reward for such a move of reliant trust in God is the “reward” each will receive from God when the Son of Man comes.
This is a message that we who have so much need to hear. All that we have and are can never be enough to pay God the price of our lives. Recent attempts on the part of certain groups to demand “restitution” for wrongs perpetrated on them or their ancestors at an earlier date provide another image alongside the idea of “redemption.” Both redemption and restitution seek to set an equivalent financial value on some abstract experience: wartime atrocities, national bias, and exploitation of a minority group. Whenever we try this, we discover just how impossible it is to place a price on human dignity or on a human life. Just how much money can take away the horror and indignity of being forced into prostitution for enemy troops? How much is a couple of centuries of exploitation worth?
The innocent death of Jesus on behalf of sinful humanity was such an event of inequity. How do we pay God back for that? What price can you place on God’s taking the punishment for a world’s misdeeds? The price he has paid in Jesus is far too high for any hope of restitution. Our spotty attempts at good living won’t even pay off the interest. Thankfully God does not ask for repayment—only acceptance of the redemption he has made possible for us. May we have the wisdom to take it.
Original Meaning
The Sage’s Introduction (49:1–4)
THE PSALMIST BEGINS with a pluralized form of the classic opening to the Shema—Israel’s call to faith—“Hear!” (šimʿu). In the Shema (Deut. 6:4), Israel is called to acknowledge the unity and universal rule of Yahweh (“The LORD our God . . . is one”) and to obey his commandments. In our psalm, it is the plural “peoples” of the earth who are called to hear, subtly driving home the universal perspective offered in 47:9, where “the nobles of the [peoples] assemble as the people of the God of Abraham.”
It is also interesting to note that the language used here in the plural is characteristic of the singular pleas for deliverance often directed to Yahweh at the beginning of the laments (cf. 54:2). By using the language of lament, the psalmist sets the tone for the exploration of injustice and the call to enduring faith that follow.
Those called to hear are also described as those “who live in this world” (49:1b). The “world” (ḥeled) intended here is the world of time—akin to the Greek concept of aion (“the world at this time)” rather than kosmos (“the world in space”). That is, the emphasis is on those who live in this transitory age. The passing nature of human life is an important aspect of the psalmist’s argument since wealth and ease have no eternal significance to those who pass away.
Low and high. Those called to hear and acknowledge the wisdom of the psalmist’s words represent all aspects of human society, as the two merisms used in 49:2 indicate.3 They are “low and high,”4 “rich and poor.”5 The opposition of privileged and oppressed, rich and poor, sets the stage for the discussion that occupies the body of the psalm.
My mouth will speak words of wisdom. Like the sages of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job, the psalmist places great stock on the educational character of the wise utterance. Like Qohelet, the self-conscious narrator of Ecclesiastes, the psalmist makes explicit the didactic purpose of the instruction. He desires to “give understanding” (49:3), drawing insight from deep within (“from my heart”). Since the heart is the seat of moral reasoning and decision-making, such “heart talk” is neither emotional nor intellectual claptrap but represents the deep and enduring outflow of the moral character of the speaker.
Proverb . . . riddle. The psalmist promises to give attention to the traditional forms of wise speech and instruction—the “proverb” and the “riddle” (49:4). There is little in the rest of the psalm that conforms to this expectation, although the repeated refrain (49:12, 20) may well represent a core proverbial saying that the psalmist uses to hammer home the main theme. The rest of the discussion is more like the extended discussion of Proverbs 1–9 or the narrative of Ecclesiastes than proverbial instruction.
The “riddle” (ḥidah) can approximate our modern-day puzzles or brain-teasers used primarily for entertainment. The classic biblical example is the interchange between Samson and his wedding guests in Judges 14. Samson’s riddle (“Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet”) was based on a set of events known only to him and so was a “sure thing.” After wheedling the answer from Samson’s bride-to-be, the guests replied with a stinging riddle of their own: “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” The obvious answer—love—stabbed Samson with the knowledge that his beloved had betrayed him. This leads to his poetic but straightforward reply: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle.”
Besides this entertaining form of the ḥidah, the term occasionally refers to difficult language or topics that require deep insight to resolve. It is probably this kind of philosophic discussion that took place when the Queen of Sheba tested Solomon’s reputed wisdom with “riddles” (ḥidot). Undoubtedly this second meaning of ḥidah is operative in our psalm, with the difficult topic of discussion being the contradiction encountered when those who are wicked enjoy ease and prosperity while the righteous suffer oppression and want. A similar concern occupies the author of Psalm 73, who almost loses faith because of the seeming injustice that results from the prosperity of the arrogant wicked.
Bridging Contexts
THE IDEA OF redemption or ransom was relatively common in ancient Israel. There are at least three Hebrew verbs (and related nouns) associated with the concept: kpr (“cover over, appease, atone for”), gʾl (“buy back, redeem”), and pdh (“ransom, redeem”). Kpr is largely used for atonement for sin, though the noun koper, which appears in our passage, is translated several times as “ransom,” and on other occasions as “bribe.”14 Gʾl is concerned primarily with the redemption of property (as in the story of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz), in the sense of buying back tribal property that has passed on to another. Pdh, the most common root, describes a process of replacement of persons with a payment of money and is thus more closely related to what we might understand as “ransom.” It is this latter term that figures most prominently in our psalm (49:7, 8), along with the noun koper (49:7).
The most frequent use of pdh is in the constellation of verses dealing with the phenomenon of the “redemption of the firstborn.” In Exodus, the Israelites are instructed to consecrate to Yahweh “every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to the LORD, whether man or animal” (Ex. 13:2). Parents were to teach their children that this act of consecration was a response to the deliverance of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh by means of the death of all the firstborn of men and animals (13:14–15). The firstborn of livestock “belong to the LORD” and are to be sacrificed to him. The exceptions permitted are firstborn donkeys15 and human children, both of which were to be “redeemed” (13:12–13). While the purpose of this consecration of firstborn children to Yahweh is not completely clear, it was viewed as a serious duty not to be shirked (22:29; 34:19–20).
In Numbers, the redemption of firstborn Israelites takes a new turn with the dedication of the Levites as a special tribe of servants to Yahweh, who hold no tribal allotment of land and are supported through the sacrifices and gifts of the other tribes. The initial consecration of the Levites is connected with the redemption of the firstborn Israelites in Numbers 3, when Yahweh commands a count be made of “all the firstborn Israelite males who are a month old or more” (3:40). The Levites (who have already been counted) are then taken by Yahweh “in place of all the firstborn of the Israelites” (3:41). When the count is completed, the number of firstborn exceed the number of Levites by 273, so that a redemption payment was required at the rate of five shekels each (3:42–51).
The circumstance returns again in Numbers 8:15–19, where it is acknowledged that the Levites are a special group of Israelites “who are to be given wholly to [Yahweh]” (8:16) and who have been taken “in place of the firstborn, the first male offspring from every Israelite woman” (8:16). The firstborn were originally dedicated to Yahweh because they were delivered from death by the grace of Yahweh during the Passover, and their lives were thus “set apart” for Yahweh’s purposes (8:17). The substitution of the Levites for the firstborn may indicate that before the official priesthood existed, the consecration of the firstborn to the service of Yahweh may have filled this gap.16
In the final stage of the canonical Old Testament, the question of the consecration of the firstborn son to Yahweh was resolved by “redemption” either by a substitutionary sacrifice of a lamb (Ex. 13:12–13) or for a financial consideration (Lev. 27:6; Num. 3:46). It remains unclear, however, whether originally the consecration of firstborn sons was understood as a sacrifice, as was demanded for livestock. The lack of surprise evidenced by Abraham in response to Yahweh’s command to sacrifice his firstborn son, Isaac, in Genesis 22 suggests such sacrifices may not have been unheard of. The practice is known as late as the monarchy (1 Kings 16:34; 2 Kings 3:27; Mic. 6:7). The whole idea of “redemption”—that is, paying a substitutionary price to withdraw the firstborn—suggests that sacrifice may have been an original understanding in some circles.
Contemporary Significance
WHO ARE THE ARROGANT WICKED? Sometimes it can be a dangerous thing to allow the words of the psalmists to become the word of God to us. When that strange transformation takes place, we often find those human words of complaint coming back at us in uncomfortable ways. That is particularly true for me with the psalmist’s complaint against the abusive and arrogant rich, as in this psalm. Having worked for several years in a Christian nonprofit organization concerned to develop programs of education for ministry for underserved ethnic minority communities in an urban setting, I am more and more often brought up short by the realization of how much I really have and possess in relative standards.
When I really admit it, I must acknowledge that I live among the privileged few of the world. Our standard of living here in the Eurocentric Western Hemisphere is among the highest anywhere. Our wants may be many, but our actual needs are few. I have never been hungry, unclothed, or constantly threatened. Disease is an infrequent visitor, and medical services plentiful. I may complain over rising costs, but resources are abundant and available for my use.
I said it is dangerous to hear the psalms as God’s word to me because it opens my eyes to new perspectives I would not choose on my own. I would rather identify with the voices of complaint in the psalms: the abused, struggling have-nots, under constant pressure from without and plagued by doubts within. But my life is a bit too easy to fit many of these situations. Thus, my tendency is to spiritualize the sufferings and complaints of the psalmists. Who are my spiritual enemies? How am I suffering spiritually? How can I turn the attack of the powerful abusers into an attack against my Christian beliefs and principles by unbelievers?
The problem in this approach is that it silences the voices of those who are truly suffering want, pain, abuse, exploitation, and so on. It lets me off the hook by preventing me from having to acknowledge how in many ways my own consumerism and materialism feed the cycle of abuse in which the rich few live well off the misery of the poor many. That is why I need to hear the psalms not only as my words or as words that I can appropriate as my own, but as God’s words—challenging me and confronting me with my complicity in the exploitation of others that my ease of living is grounded in.
Perhaps you are like me, spiritualizing the psalms and so masking the real challenge they speak to us from the mouths of others and the mouth of God. If so, I pray that God will send an uncomfortable spirit to convict both of us that he is a God who upholds the cause of the poor. “Blessed is he who has regard for the weak” (41:1).
The measure of life. The heart of Psalm 49 focuses on the riddle of the kind of awe we accord the ostentatiously rich. Often entertainers and athletes experience veneration far beyond what should be expected. There is a cult of envious fascination with the rich and famous. Even as the tabloids play out all the sordid aspects of their lives, we still believe there is something magic and special about those public figures who have the nerve and the wealth to live life on their own selfish terms. A certain part of us would like to do it too.
Nevertheless, Psalm 49 assures us that our awe and fascination are misplaced. There is nothing particularly special about the rich and famous. As the poet puts it: “But man, despite his riches, does not endure; he is like the beasts that perish” (49:12). Those golden people, with all their money and worldly power, are just a bunch of animals that die just as you and I do. In fact, says the psalmist, if we have the benefit of wisdom and perception, we are far better off than they could ever be. Without understanding they simply die like beasts. “But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself” (49:15).
It is not clear whether the psalmist is speaking of a developed understanding of life after death. As 49:10 indicates, even the wise cannot live forever and enjoy the wealth they establish. Thus, if all humans die and are unable to avoid death despite great wealth and power, then what is left to measure the value of a life? We cannot look to some eternal future but must make our estimation on the basis of this life, the here and now. There are, then, two ways to measure the value of such a life. (1) The first is on the basis of wealth amassed, pleasure explored, and power wielded. But these are short-lived and unlasting. They cannot be taken with us and lose all value to us when we are gone (49:11, 16–19).
(2) The other way to evaluate a life is on the basis of faithfulness. Whether one is high or low, rich or poor, wise or foolish, the proof of a life well spent is this: “In what/whom do you trust?” Those who trust in themselves and wealth or power are doomed to the decay of death. Those who, however, trust in God will find their significance there. The former way is folly, says the psalmist, and doomed to perish, while the way of enduring trust is for the psalmist the way of wisdom honored by God. What I cannot redeem for myself, God redeems for me (49:15).
The costly ransom of a life. What I cannot do for myself, God does for me. And nowhere does the idea of redemption of human life by God work itself out more clearly than in the work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is himself the costly price of redemption for human life. In the LXX of Psalm 49:7, the Hebrew verb pdh (“redeem”) is rendered by the Greek lytroo (“to free by paying a ransom, redeem”). The noun form related to this verb (lytron [“price of release, ransom]”) is used in the New Testament to describe the work of Jesus in our behalf. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28; cf. Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6; Heb. 9:15). The impossibly high cost of redemption is acknowledged in Matthew 16:24: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (16:26).
In a way similar to Psalm 49, the Matthew passage encourages us not to trust in our own ability (through power, wealth, etc.) to save lives but to take up our cross in faithful service to God—in effect, to “lose” our lives as the key to finding them (Matt. 16:24–25). The reward for such a move of reliant trust in God is the “reward” each will receive from God when the Son of Man comes.
This is a message that we who have so much need to hear. All that we have and are can never be enough to pay God the price of our lives. Recent attempts on the part of certain groups to demand “restitution” for wrongs perpetrated on them or their ancestors at an earlier date provide another image alongside the idea of “redemption.” Both redemption and restitution seek to set an equivalent financial value on some abstract experience: wartime atrocities, national bias, and exploitation of a minority group. Whenever we try this, we discover just how impossible it is to place a price on human dignity or on a human life. Just how much money can take away the horror and indignity of being forced into prostitution for enemy troops? How much is a couple of centuries of exploitation worth?
The innocent death of Jesus on behalf of sinful humanity was such an event of inequity. How do we pay God back for that? What price can you place on God’s taking the punishment for a world’s misdeeds? The price he has paid in Jesus is far too high for any hope of restitution. Our spotty attempts at good living won’t even pay off the interest. Thankfully God does not ask for repayment—only acceptance of the redemption he has made possible for us. May we have the wisdom to take it.
Original Meaning
The Futility of Human Wealth (49:5–12)
WHY SHOULD I FEAR? The apparent collapse of righteous order that the prosperity of the wicked seems to herald does not undermine the psalmist’s confidence in the ultimate good intent of God for the righteous. He acknowledges the reality of “evil days” and the corrupting influence of the crowd of “wicked deceivers” (ʿawon ʿaqebay),6 who press their view of the efficacy of wealth (49:6) and use it to intimidate and oppress the poor.
The fear such a position could (and did) bring to the righteous poor is countered effectively by the psalmist’s long view—the awareness of the cold, hard truth expressed in the following verses: “No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him—the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough—that he should live on forever and not see decay” (49:7–9).7 The Old Testament law instituted a process of “redemption” whereby persons and animals dedicated for sacrifice to God (usually the firstborn) could be released from this obligation by a payment. It was also common to pay “ransom” to free captives taken in war. Any such payment to God in order to free a human from the obligation of death is impossibly expensive and doomed to failure from the start. As the psalmist shows later (49:15), only God has the right and the wherewithal to redeem a human life.8
Wise men die. The psalmist poses the question of the value of human wealth in its starkest terms. For all their prosperity, wicked fools come inexorably to their end in death—just like the impoverished sage. The rich might argue that their wealth buys much comfort, pleasure, and control, but the singing sage replies that such power is illusory and pales beside the steady faithfulness of the poor, who have been forced by circumstance to acknowledge what is truly of ultimate value and pleasing to God. Such faithfulness is pared to its essentials since, like Job and the impossible demand of the Sermon on the Mount, it acknowledges that life is more than food and the body more than raiment (Matt. 6:25). The wealth of the wicked will pass to others after their inevitable deaths; rather than living forever in their magnificently constructed mansions, all the deceased will call the grave their eternal home (Ps. 49:11a).
The naming of lands after oneself (49:11b) was a prerogative normally reserved for conquering kings. Here the rich practice the naming of lands in a vain attempt to ensure some immortality for themselves. The psalmist ironically observes that the only land they will continue to possess after death is the tombs in which they are buried.
Man . . . is like the beasts that perish. The theme of the futility of relying on human riches is driven home in encapsulated form by the first occurrence of the refrain that later concludes the psalm (49:12, 20). In the LXX and the Syriac version, verse 12 is identical with verse 20, exchanging the phrase “without understanding” (weloʾyabin) for verse 12’s “does not endure” (bal yalin). The textual tradition is varied at this point, but it seems preferable to maintain the distinctive readings between these two verses with their added meanings. In the first the point is that riches do not guarantee endurance. The second suggests it is not riches themselves that are the issue but the lack of understanding that so often accompanies them. In either case, those with riches and those without join the beasts in their ultimate vulnerability to death (49:12b).
Bridging Contexts
THE IDEA OF redemption or ransom was relatively common in ancient Israel. There are at least three Hebrew verbs (and related nouns) associated with the concept: kpr (“cover over, appease, atone for”), gʾl (“buy back, redeem”), and pdh (“ransom, redeem”). Kpr is largely used for atonement for sin, though the noun koper, which appears in our passage, is translated several times as “ransom,” and on other occasions as “bribe.”14 Gʾl is concerned primarily with the redemption of property (as in the story of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz), in the sense of buying back tribal property that has passed on to another. Pdh, the most common root, describes a process of replacement of persons with a payment of money and is thus more closely related to what we might understand as “ransom.” It is this latter term that figures most prominently in our psalm (49:7, 8), along with the noun koper (49:7).
The most frequent use of pdh is in the constellation of verses dealing with the phenomenon of the “redemption of the firstborn.” In Exodus, the Israelites are instructed to consecrate to Yahweh “every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to the LORD, whether man or animal” (Ex. 13:2). Parents were to teach their children that this act of consecration was a response to the deliverance of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh by means of the death of all the firstborn of men and animals (13:14–15). The firstborn of livestock “belong to the LORD” and are to be sacrificed to him. The exceptions permitted are firstborn donkeys15 and human children, both of which were to be “redeemed” (13:12–13). While the purpose of this consecration of firstborn children to Yahweh is not completely clear, it was viewed as a serious duty not to be shirked (22:29; 34:19–20).
In Numbers, the redemption of firstborn Israelites takes a new turn with the dedication of the Levites as a special tribe of servants to Yahweh, who hold no tribal allotment of land and are supported through the sacrifices and gifts of the other tribes. The initial consecration of the Levites is connected with the redemption of the firstborn Israelites in Numbers 3, when Yahweh commands a count be made of “all the firstborn Israelite males who are a month old or more” (3:40). The Levites (who have already been counted) are then taken by Yahweh “in place of all the firstborn of the Israelites” (3:41). When the count is completed, the number of firstborn exceed the number of Levites by 273, so that a redemption payment was required at the rate of five shekels each (3:42–51).
The circumstance returns again in Numbers 8:15–19, where it is acknowledged that the Levites are a special group of Israelites “who are to be given wholly to [Yahweh]” (8:16) and who have been taken “in place of the firstborn, the first male offspring from every Israelite woman” (8:16). The firstborn were originally dedicated to Yahweh because they were delivered from death by the grace of Yahweh during the Passover, and their lives were thus “set apart” for Yahweh’s purposes (8:17). The substitution of the Levites for the firstborn may indicate that before the official priesthood existed, the consecration of the firstborn to the service of Yahweh may have filled this gap.16
In the final stage of the canonical Old Testament, the question of the consecration of the firstborn son to Yahweh was resolved by “redemption” either by a substitutionary sacrifice of a lamb (Ex. 13:12–13) or for a financial consideration (Lev. 27:6; Num. 3:46). It remains unclear, however, whether originally the consecration of firstborn sons was understood as a sacrifice, as was demanded for livestock. The lack of surprise evidenced by Abraham in response to Yahweh’s command to sacrifice his firstborn son, Isaac, in Genesis 22 suggests such sacrifices may not have been unheard of. The practice is known as late as the monarchy (1 Kings 16:34; 2 Kings 3:27; Mic. 6:7). The whole idea of “redemption”—that is, paying a substitutionary price to withdraw the firstborn—suggests that sacrifice may have been an original understanding in some circles.
Contemporary Significance
WHO ARE THE ARROGANT WICKED? Sometimes it can be a dangerous thing to allow the words of the psalmists to become the word of God to us. When that strange transformation takes place, we often find those human words of complaint coming back at us in uncomfortable ways. That is particularly true for me with the psalmist’s complaint against the abusive and arrogant rich, as in this psalm. Having worked for several years in a Christian nonprofit organization concerned to develop programs of education for ministry for underserved ethnic minority communities in an urban setting, I am more and more often brought up short by the realization of how much I really have and possess in relative standards.
When I really admit it, I must acknowledge that I live among the privileged few of the world. Our standard of living here in the Eurocentric Western Hemisphere is among the highest anywhere. Our wants may be many, but our actual needs are few. I have never been hungry, unclothed, or constantly threatened. Disease is an infrequent visitor, and medical services plentiful. I may complain over rising costs, but resources are abundant and available for my use.
I said it is dangerous to hear the psalms as God’s word to me because it opens my eyes to new perspectives I would not choose on my own. I would rather identify with the voices of complaint in the psalms: the abused, struggling have-nots, under constant pressure from without and plagued by doubts within. But my life is a bit too easy to fit many of these situations. Thus, my tendency is to spiritualize the sufferings and complaints of the psalmists. Who are my spiritual enemies? How am I suffering spiritually? How can I turn the attack of the powerful abusers into an attack against my Christian beliefs and principles by unbelievers?
The problem in this approach is that it silences the voices of those who are truly suffering want, pain, abuse, exploitation, and so on. It lets me off the hook by preventing me from having to acknowledge how in many ways my own consumerism and materialism feed the cycle of abuse in which the rich few live well off the misery of the poor many. That is why I need to hear the psalms not only as my words or as words that I can appropriate as my own, but as God’s words—challenging me and confronting me with my complicity in the exploitation of others that my ease of living is grounded in.
Perhaps you are like me, spiritualizing the psalms and so masking the real challenge they speak to us from the mouths of others and the mouth of God. If so, I pray that God will send an uncomfortable spirit to convict both of us that he is a God who upholds the cause of the poor. “Blessed is he who has regard for the weak” (41:1).
The measure of life. The heart of Psalm 49 focuses on the riddle of the kind of awe we accord the ostentatiously rich. Often entertainers and athletes experience veneration far beyond what should be expected. There is a cult of envious fascination with the rich and famous. Even as the tabloids play out all the sordid aspects of their lives, we still believe there is something magic and special about those public figures who have the nerve and the wealth to live life on their own selfish terms. A certain part of us would like to do it too.
Nevertheless, Psalm 49 assures us that our awe and fascination are misplaced. There is nothing particularly special about the rich and famous. As the poet puts it: “But man, despite his riches, does not endure; he is like the beasts that perish” (49:12). Those golden people, with all their money and worldly power, are just a bunch of animals that die just as you and I do. In fact, says the psalmist, if we have the benefit of wisdom and perception, we are far better off than they could ever be. Without understanding they simply die like beasts. “But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself” (49:15).
It is not clear whether the psalmist is speaking of a developed understanding of life after death. As 49:10 indicates, even the wise cannot live forever and enjoy the wealth they establish. Thus, if all humans die and are unable to avoid death despite great wealth and power, then what is left to measure the value of a life? We cannot look to some eternal future but must make our estimation on the basis of this life, the here and now. There are, then, two ways to measure the value of such a life. (1) The first is on the basis of wealth amassed, pleasure explored, and power wielded. But these are short-lived and unlasting. They cannot be taken with us and lose all value to us when we are gone (49:11, 16–19).
(2) The other way to evaluate a life is on the basis of faithfulness. Whether one is high or low, rich or poor, wise or foolish, the proof of a life well spent is this: “In what/whom do you trust?” Those who trust in themselves and wealth or power are doomed to the decay of death. Those who, however, trust in God will find their significance there. The former way is folly, says the psalmist, and doomed to perish, while the way of enduring trust is for the psalmist the way of wisdom honored by God. What I cannot redeem for myself, God redeems for me (49:15).
The costly ransom of a life. What I cannot do for myself, God does for me. And nowhere does the idea of redemption of human life by God work itself out more clearly than in the work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is himself the costly price of redemption for human life. In the LXX of Psalm 49:7, the Hebrew verb pdh (“redeem”) is rendered by the Greek lytroo (“to free by paying a ransom, redeem”). The noun form related to this verb (lytron [“price of release, ransom]”) is used in the New Testament to describe the work of Jesus in our behalf. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28; cf. Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6; Heb. 9:15). The impossibly high cost of redemption is acknowledged in Matthew 16:24: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (16:26).
In a way similar to Psalm 49, the Matthew passage encourages us not to trust in our own ability (through power, wealth, etc.) to save lives but to take up our cross in faithful service to God—in effect, to “lose” our lives as the key to finding them (Matt. 16:24–25). The reward for such a move of reliant trust in God is the “reward” each will receive from God when the Son of Man comes.
This is a message that we who have so much need to hear. All that we have and are can never be enough to pay God the price of our lives. Recent attempts on the part of certain groups to demand “restitution” for wrongs perpetrated on them or their ancestors at an earlier date provide another image alongside the idea of “redemption.” Both redemption and restitution seek to set an equivalent financial value on some abstract experience: wartime atrocities, national bias, and exploitation of a minority group. Whenever we try this, we discover just how impossible it is to place a price on human dignity or on a human life. Just how much money can take away the horror and indignity of being forced into prostitution for enemy troops? How much is a couple of centuries of exploitation worth?
The innocent death of Jesus on behalf of sinful humanity was such an event of inequity. How do we pay God back for that? What price can you place on God’s taking the punishment for a world’s misdeeds? The price he has paid in Jesus is far too high for any hope of restitution. Our spotty attempts at good living won’t even pay off the interest. Thankfully God does not ask for repayment—only acceptance of the redemption he has made possible for us. May we have the wisdom to take it.
Original Meaning
The Fate of Those Who Trust Themselves (49:13–20)
THE SECOND STANZA begins with a descriptive heading that sets the scene for what follows: “This is the fate of those who trust in themselves.” Until now it has been the power of wealth that was trusted, but the subtle shift indicates the real issue, namely, the attitude of self-reliance that refuses to acknowledge dependence on Yahweh alone. It is this latter acceptance of one’s absolute dependence on the undeserved mercy of Yahweh that is at the core of Israel’s understanding of “the fear of the LORD.” Such fear—which is considered the requisite attitude of the righteous—is not terror but submission of one’s whole being to the vulnerable state of Yahweh’s control. This is what the arrogant rich lack in our psalm—the willingness to give up control and to allow Yahweh to rule.
Like sheep.9 Like trusting sheep who follow their shepherd to pasture, those who trust in themselves find their true shepherd in Death, who leads them to pasture in Sheol. Picking up on a certain ambiguity within the verb “lead to pasture” (rʿh), which can also mean “graze,” the NIV and other commentators find a more sinister wordplay in the text. Rather than just leading these unperceptive sheep to pasture, Death will in fact “graze on them”—violating the role of shepherd as protector of his flock.10
The upright will rule. Not only will the rich find their hopes dashed when they descend to Sheol as food for Death, but the tables will also be turned as they discover themselves ruled over by the “upright” (yešarim). As well as an admonition to the rich who trust in their wealth and power, this verse offers encouragement to the righteous poor, who have been experiencing fear and deception in their oppression by the rich (49:5). Whether this ruling is thought to take place before death or in some retributive form of afterlife is unclear.11
The reversals of the expectations of the rich continue with the decay of their bodies in the grave (49:14c; cf. 49:9) and their loss of their “princely mansions” (49:14d; cf. 49:11, 16b).
God will redeem my life from the grave. This verse has traditionally been taken as an affirmation of confidence made by all the faithful poor who have been oppressed by the arrogant rich. The result is a studied contrast between the dashed hopes of the rich, who trust in themselves but can find no way to extend life or avoid death, and the faithful poor, who cast themselves totally on the strength and care of Yahweh. These latter will experience the redemption that the rich so fruitlessly seek.
Despite this longstanding tradition of interpretation, I find it tempting to understand these words not as the affirmation of the faithful but as a quotation of the futile hopes of the wicked.12 The sense then is: “Their bodies rot in the grave, although they had confidently proclaimed, ‘God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself.’ ”
Do not be overawed. In a backward glance at the intimidation of the poor described in 49:5, the psalmist counsels the reader/listener not to be “overawed” (lit., “don’t be afraid”; cf. 49:5) at the increasing wealth of another individual (in contrast with their own continuing poverty). The reasons he gives for this have nothing to do with the very real prospect of oppression by the nouveau riche, who use their disdain as a way of distinguishing between themselves and the poor from whom they have only recently come. Rather, he gives two reasons.
(1) Wealth is a temporal distinction limited to this life; neither wealth or “splendor” (kabod [“glory”])13—that recognizable dignity or honor a person receives in public circles—is of any value in the grave. This seems to leave enjoyment here and now as the primary purpose for amassing wealth. (2) The psalmist’s second reason cuts at the root of the misguided assumption that wealth is an indication of divine affirmation and blessing. Although the rich person’s inward self-estimation (nepeš) of his own blessedness is matched by public perception (“men praise you when you prosper”), neither has effect on the estimation of God.
Man . . . is like the beasts that perish. The final message is emphasized at the conclusion by the subtle adaptation of the refrain in 49:12. In its first sounding the refrain simply indicated that riches have no staying power and cannot help one avoid the inevitability of death. Here, however, the substitution of weloʾ yabin (“and does not understand”) for the earlier bal yalin (“will not endure”) indicates that it is the attitude of the rich and not the riches themselves that constitute the fatal error. The rich lack an awareness of their absolute dependence on Yahweh in life and in death—they lack any fear of Yahweh—which in turn leads the psalmist to describe them as “like the [unthinking] beasts that perish” (49:20b).
Bridging Contexts
THE IDEA OF redemption or ransom was relatively common in ancient Israel. There are at least three Hebrew verbs (and related nouns) associated with the concept: kpr (“cover over, appease, atone for”), gʾl (“buy back, redeem”), and pdh (“ransom, redeem”). Kpr is largely used for atonement for sin, though the noun koper, which appears in our passage, is translated several times as “ransom,” and on other occasions as “bribe.”14 Gʾl is concerned primarily with the redemption of property (as in the story of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz), in the sense of buying back tribal property that has passed on to another. Pdh, the most common root, describes a process of replacement of persons with a payment of money and is thus more closely related to what we might understand as “ransom.” It is this latter term that figures most prominently in our psalm (49:7, 8), along with the noun koper (49:7).
The most frequent use of pdh is in the constellation of verses dealing with the phenomenon of the “redemption of the firstborn.” In Exodus, the Israelites are instructed to consecrate to Yahweh “every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to the LORD, whether man or animal” (Ex. 13:2). Parents were to teach their children that this act of consecration was a response to the deliverance of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh by means of the death of all the firstborn of men and animals (13:14–15). The firstborn of livestock “belong to the LORD” and are to be sacrificed to him. The exceptions permitted are firstborn donkeys15 and human children, both of which were to be “redeemed” (13:12–13). While the purpose of this consecration of firstborn children to Yahweh is not completely clear, it was viewed as a serious duty not to be shirked (22:29; 34:19–20).
In Numbers, the redemption of firstborn Israelites takes a new turn with the dedication of the Levites as a special tribe of servants to Yahweh, who hold no tribal allotment of land and are supported through the sacrifices and gifts of the other tribes. The initial consecration of the Levites is connected with the redemption of the firstborn Israelites in Numbers 3, when Yahweh commands a count be made of “all the firstborn Israelite males who are a month old or more” (3:40). The Levites (who have already been counted) are then taken by Yahweh “in place of all the firstborn of the Israelites” (3:41). When the count is completed, the number of firstborn exceed the number of Levites by 273, so that a redemption payment was required at the rate of five shekels each (3:42–51).
The circumstance returns again in Numbers 8:15–19, where it is acknowledged that the Levites are a special group of Israelites “who are to be given wholly to [Yahweh]” (8:16) and who have been taken “in place of the firstborn, the first male offspring from every Israelite woman” (8:16). The firstborn were originally dedicated to Yahweh because they were delivered from death by the grace of Yahweh during the Passover, and their lives were thus “set apart” for Yahweh’s purposes (8:17). The substitution of the Levites for the firstborn may indicate that before the official priesthood existed, the consecration of the firstborn to the service of Yahweh may have filled this gap.16
In the final stage of the canonical Old Testament, the question of the consecration of the firstborn son to Yahweh was resolved by “redemption” either by a substitutionary sacrifice of a lamb (Ex. 13:12–13) or for a financial consideration (Lev. 27:6; Num. 3:46). It remains unclear, however, whether originally the consecration of firstborn sons was understood as a sacrifice, as was demanded for livestock. The lack of surprise evidenced by Abraham in response to Yahweh’s command to sacrifice his firstborn son, Isaac, in Genesis 22 suggests such sacrifices may not have been unheard of. The practice is known as late as the monarchy (1 Kings 16:34; 2 Kings 3:27; Mic. 6:7). The whole idea of “redemption”—that is, paying a substitutionary price to withdraw the firstborn—suggests that sacrifice may have been an original understanding in some circles.
Contemporary Significance
WHO ARE THE ARROGANT WICKED? Sometimes it can be a dangerous thing to allow the words of the psalmists to become the word of God to us. When that strange transformation takes place, we often find those human words of complaint coming back at us in uncomfortable ways. That is particularly true for me with the psalmist’s complaint against the abusive and arrogant rich, as in this psalm. Having worked for several years in a Christian nonprofit organization concerned to develop programs of education for ministry for underserved ethnic minority communities in an urban setting, I am more and more often brought up short by the realization of how much I really have and possess in relative standards.
When I really admit it, I must acknowledge that I live among the privileged few of the world. Our standard of living here in the Eurocentric Western Hemisphere is among the highest anywhere. Our wants may be many, but our actual needs are few. I have never been hungry, unclothed, or constantly threatened. Disease is an infrequent visitor, and medical services plentiful. I may complain over rising costs, but resources are abundant and available for my use.
I said it is dangerous to hear the psalms as God’s word to me because it opens my eyes to new perspectives I would not choose on my own. I would rather identify with the voices of complaint in the psalms: the abused, struggling have-nots, under constant pressure from without and plagued by doubts within. But my life is a bit too easy to fit many of these situations. Thus, my tendency is to spiritualize the sufferings and complaints of the psalmists. Who are my spiritual enemies? How am I suffering spiritually? How can I turn the attack of the powerful abusers into an attack against my Christian beliefs and principles by unbelievers?
The problem in this approach is that it silences the voices of those who are truly suffering want, pain, abuse, exploitation, and so on. It lets me off the hook by preventing me from having to acknowledge how in many ways my own consumerism and materialism feed the cycle of abuse in which the rich few live well off the misery of the poor many. That is why I need to hear the psalms not only as my words or as words that I can appropriate as my own, but as God’s words—challenging me and confronting me with my complicity in the exploitation of others that my ease of living is grounded in.
Perhaps you are like me, spiritualizing the psalms and so masking the real challenge they speak to us from the mouths of others and the mouth of God. If so, I pray that God will send an uncomfortable spirit to convict both of us that he is a God who upholds the cause of the poor. “Blessed is he who has regard for the weak” (41:1).
The measure of life. The heart of Psalm 49 focuses on the riddle of the kind of awe we accord the ostentatiously rich. Often entertainers and athletes experience veneration far beyond what should be expected. There is a cult of envious fascination with the rich and famous. Even as the tabloids play out all the sordid aspects of their lives, we still believe there is something magic and special about those public figures who have the nerve and the wealth to live life on their own selfish terms. A certain part of us would like to do it too.
Nevertheless, Psalm 49 assures us that our awe and fascination are misplaced. There is nothing particularly special about the rich and famous. As the poet puts it: “But man, despite his riches, does not endure; he is like the beasts that perish” (49:12). Those golden people, with all their money and worldly power, are just a bunch of animals that die just as you and I do. In fact, says the psalmist, if we have the benefit of wisdom and perception, we are far better off than they could ever be. Without understanding they simply die like beasts. “But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself” (49:15).
It is not clear whether the psalmist is speaking of a developed understanding of life after death. As 49:10 indicates, even the wise cannot live forever and enjoy the wealth they establish. Thus, if all humans die and are unable to avoid death despite great wealth and power, then what is left to measure the value of a life? We cannot look to some eternal future but must make our estimation on the basis of this life, the here and now. There are, then, two ways to measure the value of such a life. (1) The first is on the basis of wealth amassed, pleasure explored, and power wielded. But these are short-lived and unlasting. They cannot be taken with us and lose all value to us when we are gone (49:11, 16–19).
(2) The other way to evaluate a life is on the basis of faithfulness. Whether one is high or low, rich or poor, wise or foolish, the proof of a life well spent is this: “In what/whom do you trust?” Those who trust in themselves and wealth or power are doomed to the decay of death. Those who, however, trust in God will find their significance there. The former way is folly, says the psalmist, and doomed to perish, while the way of enduring trust is for the psalmist the way of wisdom honored by God. What I cannot redeem for myself, God redeems for me (49:15).
The costly ransom of a life. What I cannot do for myself, God does for me. And nowhere does the idea of redemption of human life by God work itself out more clearly than in the work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is himself the costly price of redemption for human life. In the LXX of Psalm 49:7, the Hebrew verb pdh (“redeem”) is rendered by the Greek lytroo (“to free by paying a ransom, redeem”). The noun form related to this verb (lytron [“price of release, ransom]”) is used in the New Testament to describe the work of Jesus in our behalf. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28; cf. Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6; Heb. 9:15). The impossibly high cost of redemption is acknowledged in Matthew 16:24: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (16:26).
In a way similar to Psalm 49, the Matthew passage encourages us not to trust in our own ability (through power, wealth, etc.) to save lives but to take up our cross in faithful service to God—in effect, to “lose” our lives as the key to finding them (Matt. 16:24–25). The reward for such a move of reliant trust in God is the “reward” each will receive from God when the Son of Man comes.
This is a message that we who have so much need to hear. All that we have and are can never be enough to pay God the price of our lives. Recent attempts on the part of certain groups to demand “restitution” for wrongs perpetrated on them or their ancestors at an earlier date provide another image alongside the idea of “redemption.” Both redemption and restitution seek to set an equivalent financial value on some abstract experience: wartime atrocities, national bias, and exploitation of a minority group. Whenever we try this, we discover just how impossible it is to place a price on human dignity or on a human life. Just how much money can take away the horror and indignity of being forced into prostitution for enemy troops? How much is a couple of centuries of exploitation worth?
The innocent death of Jesus on behalf of sinful humanity was such an event of inequity. How do we pay God back for that? What price can you place on God’s taking the punishment for a world’s misdeeds? The price he has paid in Jesus is far too high for any hope of restitution. Our spotty attempts at good living won’t even pay off the interest. Thankfully God does not ask for repayment—only acceptance of the redemption he has made possible for us. May we have the wisdom to take it.