Psalm 49 Playing A Little Music While Pondering Big Questions

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Psalm 49 is considered a Wisdom Psalm. It focuses on wisdom and understanding, and it sounds very much like a mashup of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

When commenting on this song, about 80%of the time my emphasis has been on the second stanza (v.5-9) and verse 15’s victoriously confident statement, “But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.”

However inevitable it may be that I again consider those verses, my emphasis in reading the psalm this time was on the first stanza (v.1-4) and specifically verse 4.

Hear this, all peoples!
    Give ear, all inhabitants of the world,
both low and high,
    rich and poor together!
My mouth shall speak wisdom;
    the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.
I will incline my ear to a proverb;
    I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre.

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The psalmist declares the nature of the psalm from the beginning and then in v. 4 paints a picture of his pondering or thinking through or considering a weighty matter while noodling around on his lyre (guitars were much harder to come by back then). This process of thinking, meditating, and creatively working out the big questions in the heart can be very profound.

Too often, our lives are filled with so many distractions that we never seem to find time to quietly think through the goodness of God and the ridiculous pride of humanity. Other times it is not distractions but a residual distrust that keeps us from honestly considering the evidence regarding the big questions. That distrust produces fear and fear is then masked with anger. In the end, we find it easier to yell at someone else than it is to consider the truth of God’s heart amid the difficulties of a broken world.

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Now back to v. 4. What riddle does he work out in this psalm? He wrestled with the big questions… seeking wise perspectives on power and wealth, fear and hope, and even on human mortality and redemption. As he pondered and played, it seems that he worked through all of his concerns and realized that he didn’t need to live in fear (v. 5, 15).

It should be noted that while the third stanza (v.10-12) speaks of the finality of the grave, the sons of Korah had no clear grasp on the idea of the resurrection. Many truths in the Bible were progressively revealed as God’s plan unfolded down through the centuries. Yet, even in this psalm, there is the confident expectation that as v. 15 states,

But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol,
    for he will receive me. 

But what was the riddle?

Is this post starting to sound like a click-bait article that keeps stringing you along as long as possible before giving you the answer to your simple question? Maybe. But what I was hoping was that you would read the psalm and find the answer for yourself before I confirmed your answer.

The answer to the riddle the psalmist works out in this passage is first stated in v.12,

Man in his pomp will not remain;
    he is like the beasts that perish.

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The psalmist solved the riddle as he saw behind the deceptive curtain of human pride and self-importance. Proud, self-important, powerful people still die and rot in the grave. Humans are not God; we are not even capable of saving ourselves from our sins (v.7-8). Our wealth, and the social trappings that go with it, cannot redeem us… yet we waste so much time trying. And in the end, we die like everything else. And everything we may have accumulated goes back into the box. I remember a popular psychologist telling the story of thoroughly beating his family at the board game Monopoly and how in the face of his excess celebration they left him to clean it up all by himself. It was then that he realized that it all goes back in the box—all the hotels, houses, property deeds, and the money too. This is true of real life as well. Such understanding, which the Bible calls wisdom, is what we still need today.

Apparently, the people this was written to needed to hear it again as well, for verse 20 repeats, “Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish” with the addition of “without understanding.”

Are we merely selfish animals that live without understanding and die without purpose, meaning, or any lasting legacy? Or are we invited to join God in his mission to heal the broken universe? It starts with the understanding that only God can ransom our souls! The price he paid was costly, even the precious blood of Jesus! What mere bauble that this world offers could be worth enough to turn me away from trusting Jesus? So, we cannot save ourselves, and neither can we continue to live forever without dying. The good news is that God has ransomed me at the cross!

While the psalmist may not have understood how the Lord would do it, he knew that his soul would be redeemed from the grave. And thus there was no reason for fear and anxiety to direct his life.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (Hebrews 2:14-15) 

As a result of the psalmist’s inspired pondering and playing, I am reminded that I no longer need to fear in times of trouble or when the wrong people grow rich and famous. Neither of those situations can determine my value for that is secure in the finished work of Christ Jesus! 

Psalm 14:4-6 "Wise Up!"

Psalm 14:4-6

Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
    who eat up my people as they eat bread
    and do not call upon the Lord?

There they are in great terror,
    for God is with the generation of the righteous.
You would shame the plans of the poor,
    but the Lord is his refuge.

Comments:

This psalm is part wisdom psalm and partly a lament. There is another almost identical psalm (53) that we will consider later (if I pick up the pace a little). I have always focused on the first two verses that set out the perspectives of the fool who, “says in his heart, ‘There is no God'” (v.1) and that of the Lord who, “looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.” (v.2)

However, ...today I will ponder v.4-6. It is almost as if the psalmist is beside himself in consternation. I don’t mean the ironic “I could have had a V8!” head-slapping moment, but a deep cry of “Don’t-they-get-it” agony from the heart of his compassionate frustration. They not too metaphorically devour the psalmist’s/God’s people like bread instead of entering into a relationship with the Giver of the Bread from Heaven. They come together only in their corruption…a mocking of relational unity.

It should be noted that “the fool” is not unintelligent, but one who lives as though there was no God who has entered into a covenant relationship of love with the poor. In reading the late Peter Craigie’s rather technical commentary on Psalms I was surprised by this wonderfully affective insight,

“The fool is one whose life is lived without the direction or acknowledgment of God. Thus the precise opposite of fool and folly is not wise man and wisdom; the opposite of folly in the wisdom literature is lovingkindness [hesed]…That is to say, the fool is defined by the absence of lovingkindness…”[1]

There is an extended section that is present in some Greek manuscripts between v. 2 & 3 that is actually quoted in Romans 3:13-18

“Their throat is an open grave;
    they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
   “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
    in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Such verses only serve to emphasize the lack of hesed (lovingkindness) on the part of the fool. 

So often we tend to direct our thinking about wisdom along the "judging/discerning rightly" track. However, if Craigie is right, then perhaps wisdom is neither easily isolated from the heart’s response to the love of God, nor from the hand of mercy extended to one another!

In Psalm 14:5 we see that the fools’ plans fail to satisfy them, but instead, leave them in a state of terror even as they seek to terrorize others. Why is this? Because they don’t understand that though the righteous poor may be consumed, they are not cowed for the Lord is their refuge. The powerful fool cannot steal the hope of the Lord’s people…and it threatens the fool’s own corrupted worldview. It isn't wise to shame the poor…ever. Not just because God is their defender, but because wise people are full of lovingkindness!

One other comment about unity from this psalm…it makes it clear that we all have gone astray and become corrupt…which means we all need the same mercy of God.

We cannot say that such bad behavior and heart attitudes only apply to “those people” or the out-group de jour. I am reminded of that well-used parental proverb, “When you point the finger at someone else, you are pointing three back at yourself!” It is only because “salvation has come out of Zion” through the costly grace of Jesus Christ, that any of us stray dogs can claim to be the people of God. Paul makes no bones about this for after quoting from this psalm he stated,

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3:22-25)

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[1] Peter C. Craigie, Word Biblical Commentary: Psalms 1-50 (Waco, TX: Word, 1983) 147.

Psalm 90 "Return Address"

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Psalm for Today = 90:3-4, 12

       “You return man to dust
and say, “Return, O children of man!”
For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
              or as a watch in the night…

So teach us to number our days
   that we may get a heart of wisdom."

Comments: 
This is one of the earliest of the psalms, as it was written by Moses. (As a side note, don’t skip over the contextual clues the writer gives you, even in the ascription before the first verse of a psalm.)

Have you ever been so caught up in something that you don't seem to notice the passage of time? Well, God is eternal, and our lives are but a moment, a moment that is best spent in fellowship with the eternal God!

Moses was in a unique place to watch an entire generation die off before his eyes while in the wilderness, “You return man to dust." 

I am challenged by Moses' dedication, that even there in the hopelessness of unchanging circumstances, he called on the people to return to the Lord and learn wisdom. 

Our days like theirs are limited, so we need to use our days wisely… being full of the Spirit of God who gives wisdom.

Will we return to the Lord in the moments that we have been given, or stubbornly insist on being returned to the dust?