As with others of the psalms of the sons of Korah in this section of the Psalter, the author addresses a worldwide audience, including all levels of society. He also adopts a wisdom style of writing which was common with the practices of the wisdom teachers in Israel, and this method included within its range sources of wisdom from outside Israel. As a son of Korah, he would play music as he mused (vv. 1-4).
The issue that he contemplates is the inevitability of death and the futility of boasting about life. It is pointless for people to sin in obtaining wealth and then depending on and boasting about what they gather because no amount of riches can prevent a person’s life ending when God decrees. No-one lives forever (vv. 5-9).
Death comes to everyone, even to the wise. All that the future brings is a permanent home in the grave, no matter how important and powerful a person was before they died. Their name may live on in a bit of real estate, but in reality those people are just like the lower creatures — they all die (vv. 10-12).
The author observes that great foolishness is revealed in how people react to death. Despite the fact that their predecessors died, their successors continue the same outlook of not preparing for death. They don’t realise that what is happening to them in time is that they are being gathered like sheep for a meaningless end, with the shepherd being death. This is a graphic picture of what is going on every day.
In contrast to them, the author has a hope after death. For the upright, they are not heading into the night; ahead of them is the morning of the eternal day. They will live in the presence of God because he has arranged for the ransom price to be paid for them. They have an eternal home whereas the worldly person will have nothing (vv. 13-15). What a contrast to what he prioritised on earth! Endless destruction awaits him, but the welcome of God awaits his people.
The obvious conclusions that we should make is that everything in this life is temporary, that we should not be surprised at the demise of prominent people who live only for this world, that the foolish opinions of worldly people don’t really matter in the longterm, that it is a disastrous end for unbelieving people, and that we should bear in mind the destiny of everyone in a very short time.
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