13This is the way of those who are foolish,
         And of those after them who approve their words.

14As sheep they are appointed for Sheol;
         Death shall be their shepherd;
         And the upright shall rule over them in the morning,
         And their form shall be for Sheol to consume
         So that they have no habitation.

15But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol,
         For He will receive me.

16Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich,
         When the glory of his house is increased;

17For when he dies he will carry nothing away;
         His glory will not descend after him.

18Though while he lives he congratulates himself—
         And though men praise you when you do well for yourself—

19He shall go to the generation of his fathers;
         They will never see the light.

20Man in his pomp, yet without understanding,
         Is like the beasts that perish.

Parallel Verses

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
But man in his pomp will not endure; He is like the beasts that perish.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
But mortals will not continue here with what they treasure. They are like animals that die.

King James Bible
Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And man when he was in honour did not understand; he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them.

Darby Bible Translation
Nevertheless, man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish.

English Revised Version
But man abideth not in honour: he is like the beasts that perish.

Webster's Bible Translation
Nevertheless man being in honor abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish.

World English Bible
But man, despite his riches, doesn't endure. He is like the animals that perish.

Young's Literal Translation
And man in honour doth not remain, He hath been like the beasts, they have been cut off.

Cross References

Psalm 49:20 Man in his pomp, yet without understanding, Is like the beasts that perish.

Psalm 82:7 "Nevertheless you will die like men And fall like any one of the princes."

Ecclesiastes 3:18 I said to myself concerning the sons of men, "God has surely tested them in order for them to see that they are but beasts."

Ecclesiastes 3:19 For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity.

Commentary

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

Verses 6-14

In these verses we have,

I. A description of the spirit and way of worldly people, whose portion is in this life, Ps. 17:14. It is taken for granted that they have wealth, and a multitude of riches (v. 6), houses and lands of inheritance, which they call their own, v. 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, Prov. 1:32. A man may have abundance of the wealth of this world and be made better by it, may thereby have his heart enlarged in love, and thankfulness, and obedience, and may do that good with it which will be fruit abounding to his account; and therefore it is not men's having riches that denominates them worldly, but their setting their hearts upon them as the best things; and so these worldly people are here described. 1. They repose a confidence in their riches: They trust in their wealth (v. 6); they depend upon it as their portion and happiness, and expect that it will secure them from all evil and supply them with all good, and that they need nothing else, no, not God himself. Their gold is their hope (Job 31:24), and so it becomes their God. Thus our Saviour explains the difficulty of the salvation of rich people (Mk. 10:24): How hard is it for those that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! See 1 Tim. 6:17. 2. They take a pride in their riches: They boast themselves in the multitude of them, as if they were sure tokens of God's favour and certain proofs of their own ingenuity and industry (my might, and the power of my hand, have gotten me this wealth), as if they made them truly great and happy, and more really excellent than their neighbours. They boast that they have all they would have (Ps. 10:3) and can set all the world at defiance (I sit as a queen, and shall be a lady for ever); therefore they call their lands after their own names, hoping thereby to perpetuate their memory; and, if their lands do retain the names by which they called them, it is but a poor honour; but they often change their names when they change their owners. 3. They flatter themselves with an expectation of the perpetuity of their worldly possessions (v. 11): Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever, and with this thought they please themselves. Are not all thoughts inward? Yes; but it intimates, (1.) That this thought is deeply rooted in their minds, is rolled and revolved there, and carefully lodged in the innermost recesses of their hearts. A godly man has thoughts of the world, but they are his outward thoughts; his inward thought is reserved for God and heavenly things: but a worldly man has only some floating foreign thoughts of the things of God, while his fixed thought, his inward thought, is about the world; that lies nearest his heart, and is upon the throne there. (2.) There it is industriously concealed. They cannot, for shame, say that they expect their houses to continue for ever, but inwardly they think so. If they cannot persuade themselves that they shall continue for ever, yet they are so foolish as to think their houses shall, and their dwelling-places; and suppose they should, what good will that do them when they shall be no longer theirs? But they will not; for the world passes away, and the fashion of it. All things are devoured by the teeth of time.

II. A demonstration of their folly herein. In general (v. 13), This their way is their folly. Note, The way of worldliness is a very foolish way: those that lay up their treasure on earth, and set their affections on things below, act contrary both to right reason and to their true interest. God himself pronounced him a fool who thought his goods were laid up for many years, and that they would be a portion for his soul, Lu. 12:19, 20. And yet their posterity approve their sayings, agree with them in the same sentiments, say as t hey say and do as they do, and tread in the steps of their worldliness. Note, The love of the world is a disease that runs in the blood; men have it by kind, till the grace of God cures it. To prove the folly of carnal worldlings he shows,

1. That with all their wealth they cannot save the life of the dearest friend they have in the world, nor purchase a reprieve for him when he is under the arrest of death (v. 7-9): None of them can by any means redeem his brother, his brother worldling, who would give counter-security out of his own estate, if he would but be bail for him: and gladly he would, in hopes that he might do the same kindness for him another time. But their words will not be taken one for another, nor will one man's estate be the ransom of another man's life. God does not value it; it is of no account with him; and the true value of things is as they stand in his books. His justice will not accept it by way of commutation or equivalent. The Lord of our brother's life is the Lord of our estate, and may take both if he please, without either difficulty to himself or wrong to us; and therefore one cannot be ransom for another. We cannot bribe death, that our brother should still live, much less that he should live for ever, in this world, nor bribe the grave, that he should not see corruption; for we must needs die, and return to the dust, and there is no discharge from that war. What folly is it to trust to that, and boast of that, which will not enable us so much as for one hour to respite the execution of the sentence of death upon a parent, a child, or friend that is to us as our own soul! It is certainly true that the redemption of the soul is precious and ceaseth for ever; that is, life, when it is going, cannot be arrested, and when it is gone it cannot be recalled, by any human art, or worldly price. But this looks further, to the eternal redemption which was to be wrought out by the Messiah, whom the Old-testament saints had an eye to as the Redeemer. Everlasting life is a jewel of too great a value to be purchased by the wealth of this world. We are not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, 1 Pt. 1:18, 19. The learned Dr. Hammond applies the 8th and 9th verses expressly to Christ: "The redemption of the soul shall be precious, shall be high-prized, it shall cost very dear; but, being once wrought, it shall cease for ever, it shall never need to be repeated, Heb. 9:25, 26; 10:12. And he (that is, the Redeemer) shall yet live for ever, and shall not see corruption; he shall rise again before he sees corruption, and then shall live for evermore," Rev. 1:18. Christ did that for us which all the riches of the world could not do; well therefore may he be dearer to us than any worldly things. Christ did that for us which a brother, a friend, could not do for us, no, not one of the best estate or interest; and therefore those that love father or brother more than him are not worthy of him. This likewise shows the folly of worldly people, who sell their souls for that which would never buy them.

2. That with all their wealth they cannot secure themselves from the stroke of death. The worldling sees, and it vexes him to see it, that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, v. 10. Therefore he cannot but expect that it will, at length, come to his own turn; he cannot find any encouragement to hope that he himself shall continue for ever, and therefore foolishly comforts himself with this, that, though he shall not, his house shall. Some rich people are wise, they are politicians, but they cannot out-wit death, nor evade his stroke, with all their art and management; others are fools and brutish (Fortuna favet fatuis-Fools are Fortune's favourites); these, though they do no good, yet perhaps do no great hurt in the world: but that shall not excuse them; they shall perish, and be taken away by death, as well as the wise that did mischief with their craft. Or by the wise and the foolish we may understand the godly and the wicked; the godly die, and their death is their deliverance; the wicked perish, and their death is their destruction; but, however, they leave their wealth to others. (1.) They cannot continue with it, nor will it serve to procure them a reprieve. That is a frivolous plea, though once it served a turn (Jer. 41:8), Slay us not, for we have treasures in the field. (2.) They cannot carry it away with them, but must leave it behind them. (3.) They cannot foresee who will enjoy it when they have left it; they must leave it to others, but to whom they know not, perhaps to a fool (Eccl. 2:19), perhaps to an enemy.

3. That, as their wealth will stand them in no stead in a dying hour, so neither will their honour (v. 12): Man, being in honour, abides not. We will suppose a man advanced to the highest pinnacle of preferment, as great and happy as the world can make him, man in splendour, man at his best estate, surrounded and supported with all the advantages he can desire; yet then he abides not. His honour does not continue; that is a fleeting shadow. He himself does not, he tarries not all night; this world is an inn, in which his stay is so short that he can scarcely be said to get a night's lodging in it; so little rest is there in these things; he has but a baiting time. He is like the beasts that perish; that is, he must as certainly die as the beasts, and his death will be as final a period to his state in this world as theirs is; his dead body likewise will putrefy as theirs does; and (as Dr. Hammond observes) frequently the greatest honours and wealth, unjustly gotten by the parent, descend not to any one of his posterity (as the beasts, when they die, leave nothing behind them to their young ones, but the wide world to feed in), but fall into other hands immediately, for which he never designed to gather them.

4. That their condition on the other side of death will be very miserable. The world they dote upon will not only not save them from death, but will sink them so much the lower into hell (v. 14): Like sheep they are laid in the grave. Their prosperity did but feed them like sheep for the slaughter (Hos. 4:16), and then death comes, and shuts them up in the grave like fat sheep in a fold, to be brought forth to the day of wrath, Job 21:30. Multitudes of them, like flocks of sheep dead of some disease, are thrown into the grave, and there death shall feed on them, the second death, the worm that dies not, Job 24:20. Their own guilty consciences, like so many vultures, shall be continually preying upon them, with, Son, remember, Lu. 16:25. Death insults and triumphs over them, as it is represented in the fall of the king of Babylon, at which hell from beneath is moved, Isa. 14:9, etc. While a saint can ask proud Death, Where is thy sting? Death will ask the proud sinner, Where is thy wealth, thy pomp? and the more he was fattened with prosperity the more sweetly will death feed on him. And in the morning of the resurrection, when all that sleep in the dust shall awake (Dan. 12:2), the upright shall have dominion over them, shall not only be advanced to the highest dignity and honour when they are filled with everlasting shame and contempt, elevated to the highest heavens when they are sunk to the lowest hell, but they shall be assessors with Christ in passing judgment upon them, and shall applaud the justice of God in their ruin. When the rich man in hell begged that Lazarus might bring him a drop of water to cool his tongue he owned that that upright man had dominion over him, as the foolish virgins also owned the dominion of the wise, and that they lay much at their mercy, when the begged, Give us of your oil. Let this comfort us in reference to the oppressions which the upright are now often groaning under, and the dominion which the wicked have over them. The day is coming when the tables will be turned (Esther 9:1) and the upright will have the dominion. Let us now judge of things as they will appear at that day. But what will become of all the beauty of the wicked? Alas! that shall all be consumed in the grave from their dwelling; all that upon which they valued themselves, and for which others caressed and admired them, was adventitious and borrowed; it was paint and varnish, and they will rise in their own native deformity. The beauty of holiness is that which the grave, that consumes all other beauty, cannot touch, or do any damage to. Their beauty shall consume, the grave (or hell) being a habitation to every one of them; and what beauty can be there where there is nothing but the blackness of darkness for ever?

Calvin's Commentary

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 but see their fellow-creatures cut down daily before their eyes by the stroke of death. It is a common proverb, that experience teaches fools, and they may be looked upon as something worse who will not lay to heart their mortality, when surrounded by so many convincing illustrations of it. This seems obviously to be the connection. These infatuated enemies of God, as if he had said, cannot fail to perceive that death is the universal lot of mankind, that the wise are equally liable to it with the foolish; and yet they persist in the imagination that they will remain here always, and will live as if they were never to quit with this world! They see what happens to others, that all, without exception or discrimination, are involved in the common mortality; and they must observe how often it happens that wealth passes into the hands of strangers The word 'chrym, acherim, I translate strangers, rather than others; for although it may be extended to successors of any kind, yet I think that the Psalmist here supposes the case of wealth passing into the hands of those who are not our natural and lawful heirs, and cannot be considered in any sense as representing us. Many not only die, but die childless, and their name becomes extinct, which is an additional ingredient of bitterness in the cup of the worldling. And yet all these affecting lessons of experience are entirely lost upon them, and they still in their secret thoughts fondly cherish the idea of living here for ever. The Hebrew word qrv, kereb, means the middle of anything; but it is taken metaphorically to signify the heart, or inward parts of the man. Here it denotes that their secret thoughts are occupied with an imaginary eternity which they hope to enjoy upon earth. Another and more ingenious interpretation has been suggested by some, that as the word occasionally means a tomb, the Psalmist may here be satirising those who think to perpetuate their memory after death by rearing expensive mausoleums. [220] This view of the words is strained and unnatural; and what immediately follows proves that the other is the most correct, when it is added, that worldly men call out their names upon the earth; that is, make every exertion in their power to win reputation amongst their fellow-creatures. Their desire should be to have their names written in the book of life, and to be blessed before God and his holy angels; but their ambition is of another kind -- to be renowned and extolled upon earth. By the expression, calling out, it is insinuated that the fame of ungodly men is but an empty sound. Some interpreters prefer reading, They have called their lands by their own names, [221] that they might leave some monument of themselves to posterity. But what the Psalmist seems chiefly to insist upon is, that they are wholly bent upon earthly renown.

12 And man shall not abide in honor Having exposed the vain and delusory nature of the fancies entertained by the ungodly, he next shows that however fondly they may cherish them, they must experience the same fate with the beasts of the field. It is true that there is a great difference, so far as the soul is concerned, between man and the brute creation; but the Psalmist speaks of things as they appear in this world, and in this respect he was warranted to say of the ungodly that they die as the beasts. His subject does not lead him to speak of the world to come. He is reasoning with the children of this world, who have no respect to another, and no idea of a farther happiness than that which they enjoy here. He accordingly ridicules their folly in conceiving of themselves as privileged with exemption from the ordinary lot of humanity, and warns them that death will soon be near to humble their presumptuous thoughts, and put them on a level with the meanest of the lower creatures. This I prefer to the more ingenious interpretation which some would put upon the words, that they reduced themselves to the level of beasts by not recognising the true dignity of their nature, which consists in the possession of a never-dying soul. The Psalmist's great aim is to show the vanity of the boasting of the wicked, from the nearness of death, which must join them in one common fate with the beasts of the field. The last word in the verse gives the reason why the ungodly may be compared to the beasts -- they perish It matters little whether or not we consider the relative 'sr, asher, as understood, and read, that perish

Footnotes:

[219] "C'est, ils ne pensent a autre chose si non comment ils pourront faire durer leurs maisons." -- Fr. marg. "That is, they think of nothing else but how they shall be able to make their houses continue for ever."

[220] The reading of the Septuagint is, "Kai hoi taphoi auton oikiai auton eis ton aiona." "And their sepulchres are their houses for ever." The Vulgate, Syriac, and Chaldee, also read "sepulchres." Kennicott supposes that the authors of these versions must have read qvrm, kaberam, their graves, instead of qrvm, kirbam, their inward part The text as it stands admits of a good sense. Some eminent critics, however, are disposed to think that the reading of the ancient versions is the true one.

[221] Some also read the verse thus, "Their grave is their house for ever, their dwelling-place through all generations, though their names are celebrated over countries."

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John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

The Resurrection of the Dead, and Eternal Judgment:
OR, THE TRUTH OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODIES, BOTH OF GOOD AND BAD AT THE LAST DAY: ASSERTED, AND PROVED BY GOD'S WORD. ALSO, THE MANNER AND ORDER OF THEIR COMING FORTH OF THEIR GRAVES; AS ALSO, WITH WHAT BODIES THEY DO ARISE. TOGETHER, WITH A DISCOURSE OF THE LAST JUDGMENT, AND THE FINAL CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE WORLD. BY JOHN BUNYAN, A SERVANT OF THE LORD'S CHRIST. "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Notes on the Third Century
Page 161. Line 1. He must be born again, &c. This is a compound citation from John iii. 3, and Mark x. 15, in the order named. Page 182. Line 17. For all things should work together, &c. See Romans viii. 28. Page 184. Lines 10-11. Being Satan is able, &c. 2 Corinthians xi. 14. Page 184. Last line. Like a sparrow, &c. Psalm cii. Page 187. Line 1. Mechanisms. This word is, in the original MS., mechanicismes.' Page 187. Line 7. Like the King's daughter, &c. Psalm xlv. 14. Page 188. Med. 39. The best …
Thomas Traherne—Centuries of Meditations

Appendix ix. List of Old Testament Passages Messianically Applied in Ancient Rabbinic Writings
THE following list contains the passages in the Old Testament applied to the Messiah or to Messianic times in the most ancient Jewish writings. They amount in all to 456, thus distributed: 75 from the Pentateuch, 243 from the Prophets, and 138 from the Hagiorgrapha, and supported by more than 558 separate quotations from Rabbinic writings. Despite all labour care, it can scarcely be hoped that the list is quite complete, although, it is hoped, no important passage has been omitted. The Rabbinic references …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament