Psalms 49

Shared with both camps: a wisdom summons to all peoples and all you inhabitants of the world—no hearer left outside the call.

Give ear with the whole world to wisdom about wealth and death. Refuse a private piety that never hears the public call.

Calvin: Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world—one of the most important principles in divine philosophy; comfort under sufferings by expecting God's interposition; God sits supreme even when the wicked triumph; calls upon all men indiscriminately because all were equally concerned.

Hear the elevated summons as truth for high and low alike. Let patience wait God's day; refuse fear that treats present disorder as final.

Shared with both camps: low and high, rich and poor together—the same wisdom addresses every rank.

Stand with rich and poor under one word. Refuse a wisdom that flatters only one class.

Calvin: Both ye sons of Adam and ye sons of men, rich and poor together—sons of Adam as the meaner class, sons of men as the high and noble; purpose to instruct high and low without exception; subject in which the whole human family was interested.

Receive the word as meant for every estate. Refuse a gospel that never crosses the line between low and high.

My mouth will speak words of wisdom. My heart will utter understanding. Shared with both camps: wisdom and understanding from a heart that meditates before it speaks.

Let the mouth speak only what the heart has first understood. Refuse clever talk that never meditates.

Calvin: My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding—speaks as a humble scholar who, in teaching, has an eye to his own improvement; no intention to vend fancies of his own, but what he learned in the school of God; wisdom is not the growth of human genius; it must be sought from above.

Teach as one first taught at God's feet. Seek wisdom from above; refuse genius that never sits as a scholar.

I will incline my ear to a proverb. I will solve my riddle on the music of the lyre. Wesley: I will—I will hearken what God by his Spirit speaks to me, and that will I now speak to you. A parable—often taken for an important, and withal, dark doctrine or sentence. Open—I will not smother it in my own breast, but publish it to the world. Dark—because the thing in question ever hath been thought hard to be understood.

Incline the ear to hear what the Spirit gives, then publish the hard saying. Refuse smothering dark doctrine in private.

Calvin: I will incline my ear to a parable; I will open my enigma upon the harp—mashal as weighty saying; opens his dark saying—nothing farther from his intention than to wrap the subject in perplexing obscurity; the Holy Spirit has adapted truth so far to our capacity that Scripture profits for instruction; none can plead ignorance.

Open the riddle so the simple may profit. Receive weighty truth made plain; refuse obscurity for its own sake.

Why should I fear in the days of evil, when iniquity at my heels surrounds me? Wesley: In the days—In times of great distress and calamity, when wicked men flourish, and good men are oppressed. Supplanters—This character fitly agrees to David's enemies, who were not only malicious, but deceitful and treacherous.

Ask why fear when cheats surround you in evil days. Refuse panic that treats flourishing wickedness as the last word.

Calvin: Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil? the iniquity of my heel shall compass me about—people of God must not yield to despondency when enemies seem to enclose them; God, though he connives for a time, is awake and watches the best opportunity of executing his judgments; enemies pursuing him and treading, as it were, upon his heel.

Refuse despondency when enemies tread on your heel. Trust God who watches the hour of judgment; refuse fear of man as if he were final.

“Those who trust in their wealth, and boast in the multitude of their riches?” Wesley: Trust—As that which will secure them from calamities. Having said that good men had no cause of fear from their present sufferings from ungodly men, now he proceeds to shew that the ungodly had no reason to be secure because of their riches.

Strip security from wealth that cannot stop calamity. Refuse the boast of abundant riches as a wall.

Calvin: They trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches—boasted power fleeting and evanescent; fear of man unwarrantable; ignorance of what man is even at his best; condition of man in this world fluctuating and transitory; convincing sign of folly when one cannot discern what is before his eyes.

Measure rich boasting against man's fleeting best. Refuse fear and envy of wealth that cannot outlast a day.

None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give God a ransom for him; Wesley: Redeem—Neither from the first death, nor from the second. Brother—Whom he would do his utmost to preserve.

Confess that no brother can buy another out of death. Refuse a ransom-price offered to God from human wealth.

Calvin: The brother shall not be able to redeem; none shall give to God the price of his redemption—men's lives are absolutely at the disposal of God; they never can be extended by any human arrangement one moment beyond the period which God has fixed.

Hold life as God's to fix, not man's to purchase. Refuse a price that pretends to stretch the term God has set.

For the redemption of their life is costly, and no payment is ever enough; Wesley: Soul—Of their life. Precious—Hard to be obtained. Ceaseth—It is never to be accomplished, by any mere man, for himself or for his brother.

Count the ransom too costly for any mere man. Refuse a sufficiency that wealth claims and never pays.

Calvin: The redemption of their soul is precious—not merely rare, but that it never can take place; no man can hope to purchase an immortality either for himself or others in this world.

Hear precious as never accomplished by human price. Refuse buying forever on earth.

“That he should live on forever, that he should not see the pit.” Shared with both camps: no human ransom can purchase forever-life or exemption from the pit.

Drop the dream of forever by payment. Refuse a life-plan that never sees the pit.

Calvin: That he should still live for ever, and not see the grave—not merely impossible to redeem the dead, but impossible while living to extend the term; a definite limit has been assigned to every man's life; this he cannot pass over; unfounded confidence even at the brink of the grave.

Accept the fixed limit God has set. Refuse confidence that boasts immortality at the grave's edge.

For he sees that wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless perish, and leave their wealth to others. Wesley: He seeth—Every man sees that all men die, the wise and the foolish; the evil and the good. To others—Not to sons or kindred, because he is wholly uncertain to whom he shall leave them—friends, strangers, or enemies; a great vanity in riches. They neither can save them from death, nor will accompany him in and after death.

See wise and fool alike perish and leave wealth to others. Refuse a vanity that trusts riches past the grave.

Calvin: For he shall see that wise men die; likewise the fool and the brutish person shall perish together, and shall leave their wealth to strangers—they persist in imagining they will remain here always though death is the universal lot; experience teaches fools, yet they will not lay mortality to heart; wealth often passes to those who are not lawful heirs.

Let daily death teach what wealth cannot buy. Refuse an imaginary forever on earth while strangers inherit.

Their inward thought is that their houses will endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands by their own names. Wesley: Thought—Though they are ashamed to express, yet it is their secret hope. Houses—Either their posterity, often called men's houses, or their mansion-houses. For ever—To them and theirs in succeeding generations. Call—Fondly dreaming by this means to immortalize their memories.

Unmask the secret hope that houses and names last forever. Refuse immortalizing memory by land titles alone.

Calvin: Their inward thought is their houses for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations; they have called out their names upon the earth—secret thoughts occupied with an imaginary eternity which they hope to enjoy upon earth; wholly bent upon earthly renown; fame of the ungodly but an empty sound.

Read forever-houses as imaginary eternity on earth. Seek the name in the book of life; refuse empty renown on the earth.

Man, despite his riches, doesn’t endure. He is like the animals that perish. Wesley: Man—Living in all splendor and glory. Abideth not—All his dreams of perpetuating his name and estate shall be confuted by experience.

Watch pomp fail to remain. Let experience confute dreams of forever name and estate.

Calvin: And man shall not abide in honour; he has become like the beasts: they perish—however fondly they cherish fancies, they must experience the same fate with the beasts of the field; speaks of things as they appear in this world; death will humble presumptuous thoughts and put them on a level with the meanest of the lower creatures.

Measure honour against the beasts that perish. Refuse exemption-fantasies; death levels the proud.

This is the destiny of those who are foolish, and of those who approve their sayings. Selah. Wesley: Way—Their contrivance to immortalize themselves.

Name the path foolish confidence even when crowds approve the boasts. Refuse inheriting the same vanity.

Calvin: This their way is foolishness in them, and their posterity will acquiesce in their sayings—the event proves them wholly destitute of wisdom in placing happiness upon earthly objects; monstrous infatuation in posterity who, with this example before their eyes, set their affections upon the same trifles.

Do not acquiesce in fathers' empty sayings. Learn from their end; refuse repeating their folly.

Like sheep They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, with no place to dwell. Wesley: Sheep—Which for a season are in sweet pastures, but at the owner's pleasure are led away to the slaughter. Death—The first death shall consume their bodies, and the second death shall devour their souls. The upright—Good men whom they abused at their pleasure. Morning—In the day of the general judgment, and the resurrection of the dead. Beauty—All their glory and felicity. Dwelling—They shall be hurried from their large and stately mansions into a close and dark grave.

See the rich appointed for Sheol with death as shepherd. Wait for the morning when the upright rule; refuse sweet pastures as if slaughter never came.

Calvin: Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed them—gathered into the grave as sheep into the fold; death their shepherd; the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning—life here compared to night; the coming of the Lord resembles the morning when elect and reprobate awake; Christ the Sun of Righteousness; members share the victory of their Head; their form shall wax old; the grave awaits them from their dwelling.

Hand the swollen proud over to death as shepherd. Hope the morning of the Lord's coming; refuse a night that never ends in Christ's dawn.

But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah. Wesley: God—Though no man can find out a ransom to redeem himself, yet God can and will redeem me. The grave—The grave shall not have power to retain me, but shall be forced to give me up into my father's hands. Receive—Into heaven.

Rest where no man can ransom: God will ransom your soul from Sheol and receive you. Refuse a hope that stops at human price.

Calvin: But God shall redeem my soul from the hand of the grave; for he hath taken me up—does not deny liability to death, but looks to God as defender and redeemer from it; views directed to another and higher life; faith of the saints under the Law; applies the general promise to himself; the soul, though it appears to vanish, is gathered to the bosom of God until the day of the resurrection.

Trust God to redeem from the power of the grave and keep the soul until resurrection. Refuse despair that treats death as the destruction of the whole man.

Don’t be afraid when a man is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased. Wesley: Afraid—Discouraged.

Do not be discouraged when a house's glory rises. Refuse envy of increasing riches.

Calvin: Be not thou afraid when one shall be made rich, when the glory of his house shall be increased—children of God have no reason to dread the wealth and power of their enemies or to envy their evanescent prosperity; best preservative is to direct eyes habitually to the end of life.

Look to life's end when wealth climbs. Refuse dread and envy of fading house-glory.

For when he dies he will carry nothing away. His glory won’t descend after him. Shared with both camps: death strips glory; nothing of the house descends with him.

Watch him carry nothing away. Refuse a glory that claims to go down after him.

Calvin: For when he dieth he shall not carry all away: his glory shall not descend after him—glory necessarily bounded by the present world; they never can escape the corruption and nakedness of the tomb.

Bound every house-glory by the tomb. Refuse monuments that pretend to descend with the dead.

For Though while he lived he blessed his soul— and men praise you when you do well for yourself— Wesley: Blessed—He applauded himself as a happy man. Men—And as he flatters himself, so parasites flatter him for their own advantage. When—When thou dost indulge thyself, and advance thy worldly interest.

Unmask self-blessing and parasite praise. Refuse calling yourself happy for indulging worldly interest alone.

Calvin: For he will bless his soul in his lifetime, and they shall praise thee when thou doest well to thyself—indulge and pamper with earthly pleasures like the rich man who said, Soul, take thine ease; preposterous pride partly from delusive applause of the world.

Refuse the rich fool's soul-talk and the world's applause. Do not let flatterers seal a false blessedness.

“He shall go to the generation of his fathers.” They shall never see the light. A man who will never again see light. Wesley: He—Now he returns to the third person. Go—To the grave and hell, where he shall meet with his wicked parents, who by their counsel and example led him into his evil courses. See—Neither the light of this life, to which they shall never return, nor of the next life, to which they shall never be admitted.

Trace the self-blessed soul to the fathers' generation without light. Refuse a course that never returns to life's light or enters the next.

Calvin: He shall come to the age of his fathers, and will not see the light even for ever—cannot prolong life beyond the common term of mortality; consignment to everlasting darkness; having never aspired after heaven, they come at last to the same fate with their fathers.

Hear forever-darkness where heaven was never sought. Refuse flattery that cannot stretch life past the fathers' age.

A man who has riches without understanding, is like the animals that perish. Wesley: Understandeth not—Hath not true wisdom. The beasts—Though he hath the outward shape of a man, yet in truth he is a beast, a stupid and unreasonable creature.

Shared closing with both camps—pomp without understanding is beast-like ruin. Seek true wisdom; refuse a human shape that never understands.

Calvin: Man is in honour, and will not understand: he is like the animals that perish—corrects contempt of the present life itself; those who riot in God's bounties without recognizing God, and devote themselves to passing glory instead of rising to things above, reduce themselves to the level of the beasts that perish.

Shared closing with both camps—honour without understanding ends with the beasts. Receive life's gifts with recognition of God; refuse glory that never rises above.