Psalms 49:15 - Exposition

But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave . Here is the solution of the "dark saying," the key to the" parable." The souls of the righteous will be redeemed, not by themselves, but by God—they will be delivered "from the power of the grave," or rather of Hades; and, while the ungodly are held under by death and the grave ( Psalms 49:14 ), they will be released, and enter upon a higher life. For he shall receive me . As God "took Enoch," when he "was not" ( Genesis 4:24 )—took him to be with himself—so he will "receive" every righteous soul, and take it home, and give it rest and peace in his own dwelling-place. As Professor Cheyne observes, "It is the weakest of explanations to say that the psalmist rejoices thus in the prospect of mere deliverance from the danger of death. A few years later, and the prospect will return in a heightened form." The fact is that "the poet has that religious intuition which forms the kernel of the hope of immortality." At the same time, we may admit, as Hupfeld argues, that the belief in immortality is "not here stated as a revealed doctrine, but as a presentiment, a deep inward conviction, inseparable from real living faith in a living God."