Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 39:6 Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.
Luke 12:20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
Ecclesiastes 5:13-16 There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.
Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
Proverbs 30:2 Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man.
Jeremiah 10:8 But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.
Psalms 49:17 For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 49:6-14
In these verses we have,
I. A description of the spirit and way of worldly people, whose portion is in this life, Psa 17:14. It is taken for granted that they have wealth, and a multitude of riches (Psa 49:6), houses and lands of inheritance, which they call their own, Psa 49:11. God often gives abundance of the good things of this world to bad men who live in contempt of him and rebellion against him, by which it appears that they are not the best things in themselves (for then God would give most of them to his best friends), and that they are not the best things for us, for then those would not have so much of them who, being marked for ruin, are to be ripened for it by their prosperity,…
For he seeth--that is, corruption; then follows the illustration.
wise . . . fool-- (Psa 14:1; Pro 1:32; Pro 10:1).
likewise--alike altogether-- (Psa 4:8) --die--all meet the same fate.
John Gill on Psalms 49:10
For he seeth that wise men die,.... This is a reason convincing the rich man, that with all his riches he cannot redeem his brother from death; since he must see, by daily and constant experience, that none are exempted from dying, no, not even the wise man; and therefore, not the rich, since wisdom is better than riches, and is said to give life, Ecclesiastes 7:12; and yet wise men die, yea, Solomon, the wisest of men, died. Worldly wise men, such who are wiser in their generation than the children of light, know how, to get money and estates, and to provide for futurity, and yet cannot secure themselves from death: men that are wise in natural things, know the secrets of nature, the consti…
Psalm 49:10-12
10. For he shall see that wise men die, the fool and the brutish person shall perish together, and shall leave their wealth to strangers. 11. Their inward thought is their houses for ever, [219] and their dwelling-places to all generations; they have called out their names upon the earth. 12. And man shall not abide in honour; he has become like the beasts: they perish.
10 For he shall see that wise men die. I consider the ninth and tenth verses to be connected, and that it is the intention of the Psalmist to censure the folly of those who dream of spending an eternity in this world, and set themselves seriously to establish a permanent settlement in it, though they cannot b…
The Church Fathers
All those great, wise and outspoken will die, not only the foolish and those who gather riches. They are unwilling to have mercy on the ones in need, and they leave their riches behind for others. Although they have many houses, their tombs are their house for eternity. Wretched person. He does not understand that while he is in this body he begins to die.
A fool has no discernment, and his thoughts are stupid. The unwise person can think, but what he thinks is bad: "The unwise person has said that there is no God." He is culpably wicked because he knows what goodness is. Yet, though he knows it, he commits iniquity in the evil of his own heart. He is also dishonest. Again, not because he does not know what honesty is but because he is so twisted that he would wish to destroy honesty.
"For he shall not see death, though he shall have seen wise men dying" (ver. 10). The man who laboured for ever and shall live till the end, "shall not see death, though he shall have seen wise men dying." What is this? He shall not comprehend what death is, whenever he shall have seen wise men dying. For he saith to himself, "this fellow, for all he was wise and dwelled with wisdom and worshipped God with piety, is he not dead? Therefore I will enjoy myself while I live; for if they that are wise in other respects, could do anything, they would not have died." Just as the Jews saw Christ hanging on the Cross and despised Him, saying, "If this Man were the Son of God, He would come down from the Cross:" not seeing what death is. If they had seen what death is; if they had seen, I say, He died for a time, that He might live again for ever: they lived for a time, that they might die for ever. But because they saw Him dying, they saw not death, that is to say, they understood not what was very death. What say they even in Wisdom? "Let us condemn Him with a most shameful death, for by His own sayings He shall be respected;" for if he is indeed the Son of God, He will deliver Him from the hands of His adversaries: He will not suffer His Son to die, if He is truly His Son. But when they saw themselves insulting Him upon the Cross, and Him not descending from the Cross, they said, He was indeed but a Man. Thus was it spoken: and surely He could have come down from the Cross, He that could rise again from the tomb: but He taught us to bear with those who insult us; He taught us to be patient of the tongues of men, to drink now the cup of bitterness, and afterwards to receive everlasting salvation....
Dictionary and topics
Riches · The wicked: Must leave, to others — The wicked: Must leave, to others
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
(Heb.: 49:6-13) First division of the sermon. Those who have to endure suffering from rich sinners have no need to fear, for the might and splendour of their oppressors is hastening towards destruction. ימי רע are days in which one experiences evil, as in Psa 94:13, cf. Amo 6:3. The genitive r` is continued in Amo 6:6 in a clause that is subordinate to the בימי of Psa 49:6 (cf. Sa1 25:15; Job 29:2; Psa 90:15). The poet calls his crafty and malicious foes עקבי. There is no necessity for reading עקבי as Bttcher does, since without doubt a participial noun עקב, supplantator, can be formed from עקב, supplantare; and although in its branchings out it coincides with עקב, planta, its meaning is mad…
If enemies who live for material rewards cannot sustain themselves, how can they give life to others?
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 49:10
For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others.
For he seeth that wise men die. Every one sees this. The proud persecuting rich man cannot help seeing it. He cannot shut his eyes to the fact that wiser men than he are dying, and that he also, with all his craft, must die. Likewise the fool and the brutish person perish. Folly has no immunity from death. Off goes the jester's cap, as well as the student's gown. Jollity cannot laugh off the dying hour; death who visits the university, does not spare the tavern. Thoughtlessness and brutishness meet their end as surely as much care and wasting study. In fact, while the truly wis…
