The Lodestar

This teaching Psalm focuses on essential aspects of a godly life, unlike Psalms that pray to or praise God. It focuses on a paradox in life: when the pious encounter troubles, while the unfaithful seem to prosper. Popular wisdom has taught the righteous that God favours those faithful to him; if true, why do the ungodly prosper in life? Psalms 37 and 73 also probe this question from a similar angle.

The answer is simple: though the ungodly may prosper and the godly may suffer, what matters is the distinction that is evident when they die.

Though all may amass wealth during their lifetime, the godly and the ungodly have the same outcome: we all die. The Psalmist affirms that death never takes a bribe! Nobody can avoid dying or postpone death for another day. “Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit” (Psa 49:7—9).

The wise die, as do the fools. The rich die, and the poor die, too. Death is a leveller.

The psalmist drives home the point in the last line: “Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish” (Psalm 49:20). The ungodly dies without understanding that all that he has is only for his period of life. Still, the poor person has the divine wisdom that life’s struggles are not forever.

When we do not have as much as others have, what brings solace to life is the realisation that we have nothing in this world and will take nothing from it. In Saint Paul’s words, “for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world” (1 Tim 6:7).

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