Psalms 49:1-20

There is little to fix the date of this Ps. The writer moralises, in the fashion of the book of Proverbs, on the vanity of wealth and honour apart from understanding. The rich man cannot deliver his friends or himself from death, and his prosperity need cause no dismay to those who are less fortunate in this world. The upright, among whom the Psalmist counts himself, will be received by God, and thus made superior to the power of death. Psalms 49:12; Psalms 49:20 form, by their similarity, a kind of refrain.