Ps. 49.13-14a (like sheep shipped to Sheol)

“This is their way / their folly – and that of those after them / who approve their words. – Like sheep / shipped to Sheol – Death / shall graze / on them.” The psalmist continues his mockery of those who cannot perceive the consequences of death in these lines. By turns both humorous and dark he now begins to deconstruct their ‘wisdom’ by a countervailing ‘way’. We see this in the first line, “this is their way, their folly.” The term “way” is a wisdom term, indicating one’s entire approach to life. It is typically associated with the ‘way’ of wisdom; that course in life that produces success and blessing. Here, though, the psalmist shows that those who refuse death’s ramifications are pursuing a ‘way’ that is, essentially, foolish (the opposite of wisdom). “This is their way, their folly.´ By attempting to inject death with some form of ‘worthiness’ or ‘glory’ they have, in effect, become fools, and their ‘way’ has been tainted. It is an important point—the lives ‘above-ground’ is infected by their view of how they will be after they die. The psalmist is showing that how one views death is how one will live. That, arguably, is the heart of the psalm. The fool’s problem is not wealth, per se, but the fact that they perceive in it a bargaining chip or bartering tool against death; they think that they, somehow, can participate within its durability (it will be left on the earth when they go down). They waste their lives attempting to thwart the consuming nature of death, only to find that, by doing so, they are living in its shadow while above ground (they become fools). In this they become the reverse of the wise man who is to be a teacher/father and hand down the wisdom sayings—“and those who follow after them who approve their words”. Importantly, wisdom is, as we said, to be a form of ‘right living’; it makes us suited to our roles as humans. In effect, it ‘makes us man’. However, the fools, rather than being these lights, they have made their students into senseless sheep, led to the slaughter. They have stupefied them, degraded them, causing them to lose their human form and become “like the brutes” who are unaware of where they are going. Rather than finding “green pastures” (Ps. 24), they become the ones ‘grazed upon’ by Death as they descend to its lair; they live “in the valley of the shadow of death” but are completely oblivious to it. This ‘grazing’ is also important for its reversal: typically, sheep grazing is life-giving and sustaining. Here, death’s grazing is the systematic removal of all of man’s ‘worthiness’. It is precisely the opposite of what one would expect to find: rather than strengthen, it weakens; rather than building up, it tears down; rather than enlightening, it darkens. It is, and should be, a shocking and disturbing image. This is not merely literary, though. The contrast is essential to grasp as death is this contrast. What the psalmist does in literary form (reversing images of life for death) is what happens in death. Man is ‘reversed’, stripped and consumed.