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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 49:13 - 49:13
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(Heb.: 49:14-21) Second part of the discourse, of equal compass with the first. Those who are thought to be immortal are laid low in Hades; whilst, on the other hand, those who cleave to God can hope to be redeemed by Him out of Hades. Olshausen complains on this passage that the expression is abrupt, rugged, and in part altogether obscure. The fault, however, lies not, as he thinks, in a serious corruption of the text, but in the style, designedly adopted, of Psalms like this of a gloomy turn. זֶה דַרְכָּם refers back to Psa 49:13, which is the proper mashal of the Psalm: this is their way or walk (דֶּרֶךְ as in Psa 37:5, cf. Hag 1:5). Close upon this follows כֵּסֶל לָמֹו (their way), of those (cf. Psa 69:4) who possess self-confidence; כֵּסֶל signifies confidence both in a good and bad sense, self-confidence, impudence, and even (Ecc 7:25) in general, folly. The attributive clause is continued in Psa 49:14: and of those who after them (i.e., when they have spoken, as Hitzig takes it), or in a more universal sense: after or behind them (i.e., treading in their footsteps), have pleasure in their mouth, i.e., their haughty, insolent, rash words (cf. Jdg 9:38). If the meaning were “and after them go those who,” etc., then one would expect to find a verb in connection with אַחֲרֵיהֶם (cf. Job 21:33). As a collateral definition, “after them = after their death,” it would, however, without any reason, exclude the idea of the assent given by their contemporaries. It is therefore to be explained according to Job 29:22, or more universally according to Deu 12:30. It may seem remarkable that the music here strikes in forte; but music can on its part, in mournfully shrill tones, also bewail the folly of the world.
Psa 49:14, so full of eschatological meaning, now describes what becomes of the departed. The subject of שַׁתּוּ (as in Psa 73:9, where it is Milra, for שָֽׁתוּ) is not, as perhaps in the case of ἀπαιτοῦσιν, Luk 12:20, higher powers that are not named; but שׁוּת (here שָׁתַת), as in Psa 3:7, Hos 6:11; Isa 22:7, is used in a semi-passive sense: like a herd of sheep they lay themselves down or they are made to lie down לִֽשֲׁאֹול (thus it is pointed by Ben-Asher; whereas Ben-Naphtali points לִשְׁאֹול, with a silent Shebâ), to Hades = down into Hades (cf. Psa 88:7), so that they are shut up in it like sheep in their fold. And who is the shepherd there who rules these sheep with his rod? מָוֶת יִרְעַם. Not the good Shepherd (Psa 23:1), whose pasture is the land of the living, but Death, into whose power they have fallen irrecoverably, shall pasture them. Death is personified, as in Job 18:14, as the king of terrors. The modus consecutivus, וַיִּרְדּוּ, now expresses the fact that will be realized in the future, which is the reverse side of that other fact. After the night of affliction has swiftly passed away, there breaks forth, for the upright, a morning; and in this morning they find themselves to be lords over these their oppressors, like conquerors, who put their feet upon the necks of the vanquished (the lxx well renders it by κατακυριεύσουσιν). Thus shall it be with the upright, whilst the rich at their feet beneath, in the ground, are utterly destroyed. לַבֹּקֶר has Rebia magnum, יְשָׁרִים has Asla-Legarme; accordingly the former word does not belong to what follows (in the morning, then vanishes...), but to what precedes. צוּר or צִיר (as in Isa 45:16) signifies a form or image, just as צוּרָה (Arab. tsûrat) is generally used; properly, that which is pressed in or pressed out, i.e., primarily something moulded or fashioned by the pressure of the hand (as in the case of the potter, יֹצֵר) or by means of some instrument that impresses and cuts the material. Here the word is used to denote materiality or corporeity, including the whole outward appearance (φαντασία, Act 25:23). The לֹו which refers to this, shows that וְצוּרָם is not a contraction of וְצוּרָתָם (vid., on Psa 27:5). Their materiality, their whole outward form belonging to this present state of being, becomes (falls away) לְבַלֹּות שְׁאֹול. The Lamed is used in the same way as in הָיָה לְבָעֵר, Isa 6:13; and שְׁאֹול is subject, like, e.g., the noun that follows the infinitive in Psa 68:19; Job 34:22. The same idea is obtained if it is rendered: and their form Hades is ready to consume (consumturus est); but the order of the words, though not making this rendering impossible (cf. Psa 32:9, so far as עדיו there means “its cheek”), is, however, less favourable to it (cf. Pro 19:8; Est 3:11). בִּלָּה was the most appropriate word for the slow, but sure and entire, consuming away (Job 13:28) of the dead body which is gnawed or destroyed in the grave, this gate of the lower world. To this is added מִזְּבֻל לֹו as a negative definition of the effect: so that there no longer remains to it, i.e., to the pompous external nature of the ungodly, any dwelling-place, and in general any place whatever; for whatever they had in and about themselves is destroyed, so that they wander to and fro as bare shadows in the dreary waste of Hades. To them, who thought to have built houses for eternity and called great districts of country after their own names, there remains no longer any זְבֻל of this corporeal nature, inasmuch as Hades gradually and surely destroys it; it is for ever freed from its solid and dazzling shell, it wastes away lonesome in the grave, it perishes leaving no trace behind. Hupfeld's interpretation is substantially the same, and that of Jerome even is similar: et figura eorum conteretur in infero post habitaculum suum; and Symmachus: τὸ δὲ κρατερὸν αὐτῶν παλαιώσει ᾴδης ἀπὸ τῆς οἰκήσεως τῆς ἐντίμου αὐτῶν.
Other expositors, it is true, solve the riddle of the half-verse in a totally different way. Mendelssohn refers צוּרָם to the upright: whose being lasts longer than the grave (survives it), hence it cannot be a habitation (eternal dwelling) to it; and adds, “the poet could not speak more clearly of the resurrection (immortality).”
(Note: In the fragments of a commentary to his translation of Psalms, contributed by David Friedländer.)
A modern Jewish Christian, Isr. Pick, looked upon in Jerusalem as dead, sees here a prediction of the breaking through of the realm of the dead by the risen One: “Their Rock is there, to break through the realm of the dead, that it may no longer serve Him as an abode.”
(Note: In a fugitive paper of the so-called Amen Congregation, which noo unhappily exists no longer, in München-Gladbach.)
Von Hofmann's interpretation (last of all in his Schriftbeweis ii. 2, 499, 2nd edition) lays claim to a more detailed consideration, because it has been sought to maintain it against all objections. By the morning he understands the end of the state or condition of death both of the righteous and of the ungodly. “In the state of death have they both alike found themselves: but now the dominion of death is at an end, and the dominion of the righteous beings.” But those who have, according to Psa 49:15, died are only the ungodly, not the righteous as well. Hofmann then goes on to explain: their bodily form succumbs to the destruction of the lower world, so that it no longer has any abode; which is said to convey the thought, that the ungodly, “by means of the destruction of the lower world, to which their corporeal nature in common with themselves becomes subject, lose its last gloomy abode, but thereby lose their corporeal nature itself, which has now no longer any continuance:” “their existence becomes henceforth one absolutely devoid of possessions and of space, [“the exact opposite of the time when they possessed houses built for eternity, and broad tracts of country bore their name.”] But even according to the teaching of the Old Testament concerning the last things, in the period after the Exile, the resurrection includes the righteous and the unrighteous (Dan 12:2); and according to the teaching of the New Testament, the damned, after Death and Hades are cast into the lake of fire, receive another זבול, viz., Gehenna, which stands in just the same relation to Hades as the transformed world does to the old heavens and the old earth. The thought discovered in Psa 49:15, therefore, will not bear being put to the proof. There is, however, this further consideration, that nothing whatever is known in any other part of the Old Testament of such a destruction of Sheôl; and לְבַלֹּות found in the Psalm before us would be a most inappropriate word to express it, instead of which it ought to have been לְכַלֹּות; for the figurative language in Psa 102:27; Isa 51:6, is worthless as a justification of this word, which signifies a gradual wearing out and using up or consuming, and must not, in opposition to the usage of the language, be explained according to עָב and בְּלִי. For this reason we refrain from making this passage a locus classicus in favour of an eschatological conception which cannot be supported by any other passage in the Old Testament. On the other side, however, the meaning of לַבֹּקֶר is limited if it be understood only of the morning which dawns upon the righteous one after the night of affliction, as Kurtz does. What is, in fact, meant is a morning which not merely for individuals, but for all the upright, will be the end of oppression and the dawn of dominion: the ungodly are totally destroyed, and they (the upright) now triumph above their graves. In these words is expressed, in the manner of the Old Testament, the end of all time. Even according to Old Testament conception human history closes with the victory of good over evil. So far Psa 49:15 is really a “riddle” of the last great day; expressed in New Testament language, of the resurrection morn, in which οἱ ἅγιοι τὸν κόσμον κρινοῦσι (1Co 6:2).
With אַךְ, in Psa 49:16 (used here adversatively, as e.g., in Job 13:15, and as אָכֵן is more frequently used), the poet contrasts the totally different lot that awaits him with the lot of the rich who are satisfied in themselves and unmindful of God. אַךְ belongs logically to נַפְשִׁי, but (as is moreover frequently the case with רַק, גַּם, and אַף) is, notwithstanding this relation to the following member of the sentence, placed at the head of the sentence: yet Elohim will redeem my soul out of the hand of Sheôl (Psa 89:49; Hos 13:14). In what sense the poet means this redemption to be understood is shown by the allusion to the history of Enoch (Gen 5:24) contained in כִּי יִקָּחֵנִי. Böttcher shrewdly remarks, that this line of the verse is all the more expressive by reason of its relative shortness. Its meaning cannot be: He will take me under His protection; for לָקַח does not mean this. The true parallels are Psa 73:24, Gen 5:24. The removals of Enoch and Elijah were, as it were, fingerposts which pointed forward beyond the cheerless idea they possessed of the way of all men, into the depth of Hades. Glancing at these, the poet, who here speaks in the name of all upright sufferers, gives expression to the hope, that God will wrest him out of the power of Sheôl and take him to Himself. It is a hope that possesses not direct word of God upon which it could rest; it is not until later on that it receives the support of divine promise, and is for the present only a “bold flight” of faith. Now can we, for this very reason, attempt to define in what way the poet conceived of this redemption and this taking to Himself. In this matter he himself has no fully developed knowledge; the substance of his hope is only a dim inkling of what may be. This dimness that is only gradually lighted up, which lies over the last things in the Old Testament, is the result of a divine plan of education, in accordance with which the hope of eternal life was gradually to mature, and to be born as it were out of this wrestling faith itself. This faith is expressed in Psa 49:16; and the music accompanies his confidence in cheerful and rejoicing strains.
After this, in Psa 49:17, there is a return from the lyric strain to the gnomic and didactic. It must not, with Mendelssohn, be rendered: let it (my soul) not be afraid; but, since the psalmist begins after the manner of a discourse: fear thou not. The increasing כָבֹוד, i.e., might, abundance, and outward show (all these combined, from כָּבֵד, grave esse), of the prosperous oppressor is not to make the saint afraid: he must after all die, and cannot take hence with him הַכֹּל, the all = anything whatever (cf. לַכֹּל, for anything whatever, Jer 13:7). כִּי, Psa 49:17, like ἐάν, puts a supposable case; כִּי, Psa 49:18, is confirmatory; and כִּי, Psa 49:19, is concessive, in the sense of גַּם־כִּי, according to Ew. §362, b: even though he blessed his soul during his life, i.e., called it fortunate, and flattered it by cherished voluptuousness (cf. Deu 29:18, הִתְבָּרֵךְ בְּנַפְשֹׁו, and the soliloquy of the rich man in Luk 12:19), and though they praise thee, O rich man, because thou dost enjoy thyself (Luk 16:25), wishing themselves equally fortunate, still it (the soul of such an one) will be obliged to come or pass עַד־דֹּור אֲבֹותָיו. There is no necessity for taking the noun דֹּור here in the rare signification dwelling (Arabic dâr, synonym of Menzı̂l), and it appears the most natural way to supply נַפְשֹׁו as the subject to תָּבֹוא (Hofmann, Kurtz, and others), seeing that one would expect to find אֲבֹותֶיךָ in the case of תבוא being a form of address. And there is then no need, in order to support the synallage, which is at any rate inelegant, to suppose that the suffix יָו-takes its rise from the formula אֶל־אֲבֹתָיו (נֶֽאֱסַף) בֹּוא, and is, in spite of the unsuitable grammatical connection, retained, just as יַחְדָּו and כֻּלָּם, without regard to the suffixes, signify “together” and “all together” (Böttcher). Certainly the poet delights in difficulties of style, of which quite sufficient remain to him without adding this to the list. It is also not clear whether Psa 49:20 is intended to be taken as a relative clause intimately attached to אֲבֹותָיו, or as an independent clause. The latter is admissible, and therefore to be preferred: there are the proud rich men together with their fathers buried in darkness for ever, without ever again seeing the light of a life which is not a mere shadowy life.
The didactic discourse now closes with the same proverb as the first part, Psa 49:13. But instead of בַּל־יָלִין the expression here used is וְלֹא יָבִין, which is co-ordinate with בִּיקָר as a second attributive definition of the subject (Ew. §351, b): a man in glory and who has no understanding, viz., does not distinguish between that which is perishable and that which is imperishable, between time and eternity. The proverb is here more precisely expressed. The gloomy prospect of the future does not belong to the rich man as such, but to the worldly and carnally minded rich man.