Psalms 49:14

Like sheep they are laid in the grave,.... They are not in life like sheep, harmless and innocent; nor reckoned as such for the slaughter, as the people of God are; unless it be that they are like

Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.

Like sheep; which for a season are fed in large and sweet pastures, but at the owner’ s pleasure are put together in close and comfortless folds, and led away to the slaughter, not knowing nor considering whither they are going. In the grave; or, in hell; for the Hebrew word signifies both. Death shall feed on them; the first death shall consume their bodies in the grave, and the second death shall devour their souls. The upright; good men, whom here they oppressed and abused at their pleasure. In the morning; either, 1. Suddenly, or within a very little time, as this phrase is oft used, as 46:5 101:8 113:8. Or, 2. In the day of general judgment, and the resurrection of the dead. For death being called the night, , and sleep in many places, that day is fitly compared to the morning, when men awake out of sleep, and enter upon that everlasting day. But whether this or the former be the true meaning of the phrase, it is sufficiently evident the thing here spoken of is not done in this life, but in the next; for, 1. This proposition and privilege being general, and common to all upright persons, is not verified here, it being the lot of many good men to be oppressed and killed by the wicked, as is manifest both from Scripture, as 9:2, and from the experience of all ages of the church. 2. This dominion of the just over the wicked happens after the wicked are laid in their grave, as is here expressed, and consequently supposeth their future life and resurrection; for when one person rules over another, both are supposed to exist or have a being. Nor is there any argument against this sense, but from a vain and absurd conceit which some men have entertained, that the saints in the Old Testament had no firm belief nor expectation of the recompences of the life to come; which is against evident reason, and against many clear places of the Old Testament that cannot without force be wrested to any other sense, and against the express testimony of the New Testament concerning them, Hebrews 11, and in many other places. Their beauty; or, their form or, their figure, or image; all which come to one, and seems to intimate that all their glory and felicity had in this life was rather imaginary than real, and indeed but a shadow, as it is called, 8:13. Shall consume, Heb. is to consume, or to be consumed, i.e. shall be consumed; the infinitive verb being here put for the future, as it Isaiah 12:10. From their dwelling i.e. they shall be hurried from their large, and stately, and pleasant mansions, into a close and dark grave.

Psalms 49:14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.Ver. 14. Like sheep they are laid in the grave] These fatlings of the world, these brainless young nobleman, that will not be warned by other men’ s harms, but walk on in the same dark and dangerous ways, whatever cometh of it, these chop into the grave (as a man that walketh in the snow may do suddenly into a marl pit, and there be smothered), or rather are there pent up, as sheep are thrust up in a stall, or stable, to be slaughtered there (and in hell their souls); they lie as grapes in a winepress, pickled herrings in a barrel, stones in a lime furnace, tiles in a brick kiln, &c. Tanquam pecudes, like sheep, saith the psalmist here; and Junius’ s note is, Morticinas puta in cloacis, exquiliis vel puticulis proiectas; like sheep, that dying of the murrain, are thereupon cast into ditches, jakes, bogs. Death shall feed on them] They shall be meat for worms, yea, they shall be killed with death, Revelation 2:23, which is worse than all the rest; sin, as a heavy gravestone, presseth them to death, &c. And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning] i.e. At the resurrection, when the saints shall share with Christ in his kingdom (when the wicked shall be his footstool), and shall judge the world, yea, the angels. Others by morning understand suddenly, or seasonably, as Psalms 46:5. And their beauty shall consume in the grave] All their pomp and bravery wherein they came abroad while alive (as Agrippa and Bernice came to the tribunal with a great deal of fancy, Acts 25:23), and with which they affect to be buried in state. Sic transit gloria mundi . So passes the honour of the world. 1 Corinthians 7:31. From their dwelling] Whence they are carried to the grave, that dark house of all living, Job 30:23. Some render the text thus, Infernus habitaculum ipsis, Hell shall be their habitation. Tremellius thus, Et formam corum consumat infernus receptam ex habitaculo eius, and hell consume their shape (that is, their bodies now reunited to their souls), received out of its house, that is, out of the grave.

(14) Like sheep they are laid in the grave.—Rather, like a flock for sheol they are arranged; death is their shepherd. While planning for a long life, and mapping out their estates as if for a permanent possession, they are but a flock of sheep, entirely at the disposal and under the direction of another, and this shepherd is death. Comp. Keble’s paraphrase. “Even as a flock arrayed are they For the dark grave; Death guides their way, Death is their shepherd now.” The rendering, “feed on them,” is an error. The rest of the verse as it stands is quite unintelligible. Among the many conjectured emendations, the best is (Burgess) to point the verb as the future of yârad, and render, “and the upright shall go down to the grave amongst them (i.e., amongst the ungodly) until the morning” (for the last words compare Deuteronomy 16:4), when in contrast to the wicked they shall see light (Psalms 49:20). Adopting this emendation, a new force is lent to the next two clauses, which have puzzled modern commentators, as they did the ancient translators (LXX., “their help shall grow old in hell from their glory.”) By a slight change of points and accents, and taking mizbul as a derivative noun equivalent to zebul (so also Grätz), we get, “Their beauty (is) for corruption; sheol (is) its dwelling,” i.e., all, wise and unwise, good and bad, must descend to the under world (Psalms 49:11), so that the upright accompany the wicked thither, and it becomes the dwelling-place of their beauty, i.e., their bodies.

Verse 14. Like sheep they are laid in the grave] לשאול lishol, into sheol, the place of separate spirits. Death shall feed on them] מות ירעם maveth yirem, "Death shall feed them!" What an astonishing change! All the good things of life were once their portion, and they lived only to eat and drink; and now they live in sheol, and Death himself feeds them! and with what? Damnation. Houbigant reads the verse thus: "Like sheep they shall be laid in the place of the dead; death shall feed on them; their morning shepherds rule over them; and their flesh is to be consumed. Destruction is to them in their folds."

14. Like sheep are they put into Sheol; Death shepherdeth them; And the upright have dominion over them in the morning, And their form shall Sheol consume, that it have no more habitation. What becomes of the wicked? They are driven down to Sheol like a flock of sheep, mere animals that they are (Psalms 49:12); there Death is their shepherd: the king of terrors rules them at his will. They perish in the night, and in the morning the righteous awake, triumphant over their fallen oppressors. The night of trouble is over; the morning of deliverance has dawned (Psalms 30:5). But what is meant by ‘the morning’? Not, as yet, the resurrection morning; but the morning of the day which Jehovah is making, in which “all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be as stubble … and ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be as ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I do make, saith the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 4:1; Malachi 4:3): a day in the history of the world corresponding to the day when the restored Israel “shall rule over their oppressors” (Isaiah 14:2). Comp. Psalms 104:35, and Psalms 37. The precise meaning of the last line is doubtful and the text possibly corrupt. Their form, or perhaps, their beauty, is delivered up to Sheol to consume: a poetical way of expressing that their bodies moulder in the grave: all that made such a brave show upon earth has no more existence, no longer needs any abode. Possibly we should make a slight change in the text, and render, Their form shall be consumed, Sheol shall be their habitation. Cp. A.V. marg.

Like sheep they are laid in the grave - The allusion here is to a flock as “driven” forward by the shepherd; and the meaning is that they are driven forward to the grave, as it were, in flocks, or as

14. Like sheep—The imagery is startling. Death is personified as a shepherd, to whom these sensuous worldlings are committed. He leads or drives them into sheol, the region of the dead.