For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.
Hear this, all ye peoples;
Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world,
Both low and high,
Rich and poor together.
My mouth shall speak wisdom;
And the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.
I will incline mine ear to a parable:
I will open my dark saying upon the harp.
Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil,
When {Or, the iniquity of them that would supplant me compasseth me about, Even of them that trust…riches?}iniquity at my heels compasseth me about?
They that trust in their wealth,
And boast themselves in the multitude of their riches;
None of them can by any means redeem his brother,
Nor give to God a ransom for him;
(For the redemption of their life is costly,
And it faileth for ever),
That he should still live alway,
That he should not see {Or, the pit}corruption.
For {Or, he seeth that wise men &c.}he shall see it. Wise men die;
The fool and the brutish alike perish,
And leave their wealth to others.
Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever,
And their dwelling-places to all generations;
They call their lands after their own names.
But man being in honor abideth not:
He is like the beasts that perish.
This {Or, is the way of them that are foolish}their way is {Or, their confidence: and after &c.}their folly:
Yet after them men approve their sayings. [Selah
They are appointed as a flock for Sheol;
Death shall be their shepherd;
And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning;
And their beauty shall be for Sheol to consume,
That there be no habitation for it.
But God will redeem my soul from the {Hebrew: hand.}power of Sheol;
For he will receive me. [Selah
Be not thou afraid when one is made rich,
When the {Or, wealth}glory of his house is increased:
For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away;
His glory shall not descend after him.
Though while he lived he blessed his soul
(And men praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself),
{Hebrew: Thou shall go, or, It shall go.}He shall go to the generation of his fathers;
{Or, Who never more see}They shall never see the light.
Man that is in honor, and understandeth not,
Is like the beasts that perish.
Querverweise zu Psalm 49,10 Ps 49,10
For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no remembrance for ever; seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. And how doth the wise man die even as the fool!
So I hated life, because the work that is wrought under the sun was grievous unto me; for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
And I hated all my labor wherein I labored under the sun, seeing that I must leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
And who knoweth whether he will be a wise man or a fool? yet will he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.
Therefore I turned about to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labor wherein I had labored under the sun.
For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, and with knowledge, and with {Or, success}skilfulness; yet to a man that hath not labored therein shall he {Hebrew: give.}leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil.
So brutish {Or, am}was I, and ignorant;I was as a beast {Hebrew: with thee.}before thee.
For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away;His glory shall not descend after him.
For all this I laid to my heart, even to explore all this: that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; whether it be love or hatred, man knoweth it not; all is before them.
A brutish man knoweth not;Neither doth a fool understand this:
From {Or, men who are thy hand}men by thy hand, O Jehovah,From men {Or, whose portion in life is of the world}of the world, whose portion is in this life,And whose belly thou fillest with thy treasure:They are satisfied with children,And leave the rest of their substance to their babes.
All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
When the wicked spring as the grass,And when all the workers of iniquity do flourish;It is that they shall be destroyed for ever.
Surely every man walketh {Or, as a shadow}in a vain show;Surely they are disquieted {Or, for vanity}in vain:He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.
Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned:—
for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come.
Consider, ye brutish among the people;And ye fools, when will ye be wise?
Riches profit not in the day of wrath;But righteousness delivereth from death.
And inasmuch as it is {Greek: laid up for. Colossians 1:5; 2 Timothy 4:8}appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment;
Whoso loveth {Or, instruction}correction loveth knowledge;But he that hateth reproof is brutish.
And I hated all my labor wherein I labored under the sun, seeing that I must leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
Surely I am more brutish than any man,And have not the understanding of a man;
And who knoweth whether he will be a wise man or a fool? yet will he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.
But they are {Or, through one thing}together brutish and foolish: {Or, the stock is a doctrine of vanities}the instruction of idols! it is but a stock.
For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, and with knowledge, and with {Or, success}skilfulness; yet to a man that hath not labored therein shall he {Hebrew: give.}leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil.
For to the man that pleaseth him God giveth wisdom, and knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that pleaseth God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.
There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept by the owner thereof to his hurt:
and those riches perish by evil {Or, travail}adventure; and if he hath begotten a son, there is nothing in his hand.
As he came forth from his mother's womb, naked shall he go again as he came, and shall take nothing for his labor, which he may carry away in his hand.
And this also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that he laboreth for the wind?
As the partridge {Or, gathereth young which she hath not brought forth }that sitteth on eggs which she hath not laid, so is he that getteth riches, and not by right; in the midst of his days {Or, he shall leave them}they shall leave him, and at his end he shall be a fool.
But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night {Greek: they require thy soul.}is thy {Or, life}soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?
But godliness with contentment is great gain:
for we brought nothing into the world, for neither can we carry anything out;
but having food and covering {Or, in these we shall have enough}we shall be therewith content.
But they that are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition.
For the love of money is a root of all {Or, evils.}kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.