Psalms 49:15

While the wicked become the prey of Sheol, the Psalmist is delivered from its power. But in what sense? In this life, or after death? A careful study of the context and of similar phrases elsewhere seems to shew that the Psalmist looks with confidence for deliverance from the premature and penal death of the wicked, but does not anticipate escape from death or express his belief in a resurrection. The verse corresponds to Psalms 49:7. While wealth is powerless to avert death, God can and will deliver His servant. Similar phrases are constantly used of deliverance from imminent peril of death. Cp. Psalms 30:3; Psalms 33:18 f.; Psalms 86:13; Psalms 103:4; Psalms 138:7; and particularly Psalms 89:48; Job 33:22 ff.; Hosea 13:14; see also Psalms 16:10, and note there. For he shall receive meis to be explained by the use of the same word in Psalms 18:16 (A.V. he took me): He will take hold of me and deliver me. It is possible that the verse should be divided thus: But God will redeem my life [soul]: out of the grasp of Sheol will he surely take me.

Delitzsch indeed thinks that he shall receive mecontains an allusion to the history of Enoch (Genesis 5:24), where the same word is used, "He was not; for God took him." He holds that in a moment of lofty aspiration the Psalmist expresses a bold hope that he may escape death, and be taken directly into the presence of God. But this interpretation is improbable: it does not appear that he, any more than the author of Psalms 89, anticipates that any mortal man can finally escape death.

Many commentators find in the passage "the strong hope of eternal life with God, if not the hope of a resurrection." But the context and the parallel passages lead to a different conclusion. Certainly the doctrine of a future life was not to the Psalmist a revealed certainty to which he could appeal for a solution of the enigmas of life which were perplexing him. Probably, as has been said before on Psalms 16, the truth is that the antithesis in the Psalmist's mind is not between life here and life hereafter (as we speak), but between life with and life without God; and for the moment, in the consciousness of the blessedness of fellowship with God, death fades from his view. The rich man's wealth, which he is tempted to envy, cannot buy from God one moment's prolongation of life; nay, the wicked are doomed to a premature and miserable death: while the Psalmist rejoices in the assured protection and fellowship of God.

But whatever may have been the extent or the limitation of the Psalmist's view, his words contain the germ and principle of the doctrine of the Resurrection; and for ourselves, as we use them, they will bear the fuller meaning with which they have been illuminated by Christ's Resurrection.