Verse 14
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.
Laid in the grave Placed, or appointed there.
Death shall feed on them “On” is not in the original. The idea is rather, “death shall feed them,” that is, as a shepherd does his sheep. So also the Septuagint, ποιμανει αυτους , feed them. The feeding also implies tending, governing. They are completely under his power and dictation. What a shepherd, and what a flock!
Upright shall have dominion Literally, shall tread on them, as the conqueror does upon the vanquished. The idea is that of complete domination.
In the morning בקר , ( boker,) here, will not bear the figurative sense of soon, early, speedily, for the scene is laid in the invisible world. The word almost universally means “morning” literally, and so, also, here. The old commentators here found an allusion to the resurrection, and the eternal reign of the saints, and the language is perfectly suited to such an application, and to no other. There is no “morning” after “death” but at the resurrection, when the perfect and everlasting “dominion” of the saints here intended will obtain. See on Psalms 49:15, and Matthew 19:28
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