Psalm 49:10-15
‘Wise men die…. The fool and the brutish person perish…. Man, having been in honour, does not abide. He is like the beasts that perish…. Like sheep, they are laid in the grave…. Death shall feed on them, and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning…. Their beauty shall consume in the grave…. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave! For He shall receive me!’ Psalm 49:10-15.
Calvin comments: “‘Wise men die’…. It is the intention of the Psalmist to censure the folly of those who dream of spending an eternity in this world…, though they cannot but see their fellow creatures cut down daily before their eyes by the stroke of death…. They will not lay to heart their mortality, when surrounded by so many convincing illustrations of it!… All, without exception of discrimination, are involved in the common mortality….
“There is a great difference, so far as the soul is concerned, between man and the brute…. But the Psalmist…was warranted to say of the ungodly, that they die as the beasts. His subject does not lead him to speak of the world to come. He put them (the ungodly) on a level with the meanest of the lower creatures…. The Psalmist’s great aim is to show the vanity of the boasting of the wicked — from the nearness of death, which must join them in one common fate with the beasts of the field…. The ungodly may be compare to the beasts — ‘they perish’!… They go down into the grave, as sheep are gathered into the fold by the shepherd…. The Psalmist…hands them over to death….
“A different fate…awaits the children of God…. Infidel worldlings reject a better life to come…. We may expect a happy outcome…, by coming to that everlasting inheritance which awaits us in Heaven…. The wicked must all be prostrated before…Christ and made His footstool. His members will share in the victory…. The coming of the Lord will resemble the morning, when both the elect and reprobate will wake. The former will then cast aside their lethargy…. Freed from the darkness which rested upon them, they will behold Christ the Sun of Righteousness…. There will dawn ere long, a new morning which will introduce us to a better and an eternal existence!…
“The righteous shall have dominion…. The Prophet does not deny his liability to death; but he looks to God as He Who would defend and redeem him from it…. The saints under the Law lived and died (and)…were directed to another and a higher life to which the present was only preparatory…. The Prophet…hoped for a life beyond the grave…in Heaven…. Our soul, though it
appears to vanish upon its separation from the body, is in reality only gathered to the bosom of God — there to be kept until…resurrection.” ‘God will redeem my soul from…the grave!’ (Psalm 49:15).
Calvin also says in his Institutes II:10:17: “‘Wise men die; likewise, the fool and the brutish person perish…. He is like the beasts that perish…. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning…. Psalm 49:10-15…. He more clearly unfolds the hidden doctrine of the resurrection, when He sets up a Kingdom for the righteous — after the wicked are cast down and destroyed. For what…are we to understand by the ‘morning‘ — unless it be the revelation of a new life, commencing when the present comes to an end?” Even wise men don’t abide but die; yet God redeems my soul!
