Verses 7-9 are what immediately stand out to me in this psalm. In these verses I hear what sounds like a foreshadowing of atonement, of the metaphor of sin as a debt that only God himself could pay. But these verses don’t go there. They just tell us to give up. Literally; “One should forever stop trying.” What a pep talk!
But this is only in the first section, a section that ends with “This is the way of those who are arrogant, and of their followers…”, followed by a selah. After this we find a comparison between these arrogant people, compared to sheep, and not in a friendly or even patronizing but compassionate way, calling “Death” their shepherd. (Where is the soothing shepherd of Psalm 23?) But this section ends with an assertion of confidence in God’s redemption for the psalmist. Arrogance is contrasted with “The upright”, which may suggest that uprightness has something to do with the opposite of arrogance… humility. The confidence in wealth described in the first movement is contrasted with confidence in God’s redemption, more powerful that Sheol.
The psalm ends with an encouragement against fear, specifically fear of others’ wealth. I find this a little strange, but maybe this is the idea of being afraid of bad people “getting ahead”. That fits with themes in many other psalms. To me, the ending of this psalm feels like an awkward cliff hanger. “Mankind, with his assets but without understanding, is like the animals that perish.” Shouldn’t there be an exhortation? A statement about God’s goodness and power? Just this depressing statement comparing humans to animals? Well, it does say “… but without understanding,” suggesting maybe with understanding we could be more than animals. Still, this feels like a cliff hanger… what is understanding? How do we get it? Does it have something to do with the contrast between the arrogant people described earlier and the psalmist? Yes, there’s an obvious “moral’; trust in God and not in stuff. But surely the psalmist didn’t take 20 verses to say just that. It feels like 20 verses of teasers. Maybe that is the point; to stoke our appetite and wake us up to crave more.
There are so many threads one could pull out of Psalm 49. But let’s finish with the answer to verses 7-9, in verse 15; “But God will redeem me from the power of Sheol, for he will take me.” Yes, Lord, please take us, or we die; save us from the beasts lurking in our flesh and threatening to devour us; let us be what we are, much more than animals; coheirs with Christ, who redeems us and pays our debt! (Opps; I read ahead. Forgive me for the spoiler!)
- M.A. V.