Psalms 49:16-20

The Upright Are Not Therefore To Be Concerned About The Way That The Rich Seem To Flourish, For In The End The Rich Who Do Not Have True Understanding Will Simply Perish Like The Beasts (Psalms 49:16).

The Psalm ends with the assurance that there is no need to fear, or be puzzled, when the rich flourish and increase in wealth and glory, and lord it over men, because when those who lack true understanding die they will take nothing with them. They will no longer be rich. Their glory will not follow them. Rather they will go into everlasting darkness, and will be like the beasts which perish. It is very much a warning to the rich that they ensure that they walk in the ways of the Lord in all their doings.

Psalms 49:16

‘Do not be afraid when one is made rich,

When the glory of his house is increased.

For when he dies he will carry nothing away,

His glory will not descend after him.

Though while he lived he blessed his soul,

(And men praise you, when you do well to yourself,)

He will go to the generation of his fathers,

They will never see the light.

Man who is in honour, and understands not,

Is like the beasts which perish.

Jesus may well have had this Psalm in mind when He told the story of the rich fool (Luke 12:13). The picture is of men who appear to be blessed because their prosperity grows and their glory and fame increases. But the Psalmist assures us that they are not to be envied. For when they die they will leave it all behind. And then they will receive the due reward of their behaviour. While they are alive they preen themselves, and ‘bless their souls', and others praise them because they do well for themselves, but eventually they must go to those who have died before them, and once there they will be in perpetual darkness. ‘They will never see the light.'

And the Psalmist ends the Psalm with the assurance that men who are held in honour on earth, but do not have true understanding (they do not walk in God's ways), will simply be like the beasts that perish. For that is what by their behaviour they will have revealed themselves to be, mere brute beasts. (Compare how in Daniel 7 the people of God are likened to a ‘son of man', while those who oppose God are seen as being like wild beasts).