The psalmist's consciousness that he speaks by Divine inspiration, and that his message imports all men, is grandly expressed in his introductory summons. The very name which he gives to the world suggests the latter thought; for it means--the world considered as fleeting. Since we dwell in so transitory an abode, it becomes us to listen to the deep truths of the psalm. These have a message for high and low, for rich and poor. They are like a keen lancet to let out too great fulness of blood from the former, and to teach moderation, lowliness, and care for the Unseen. They are a calming draught for the latter, soothing when perplexed or harmed by "the proud man's contumely." But the psalmist calls for universal attention, not only because his lessons fit all classes, but because they are in themselves "wisdom," and because he himself had first bent his ear to receive them before he strung his lyre to utter them. The brother-psalmist, in Psalm lxxiii., presents himself as struggling with doubt and painfully groping his way to his conclusion. This psalmist presents himself as a divinely inspired teacher, who has received into purged and attentive ears; in many a whisper from God, and as the result of many an hour of silent waiting, the word which he would now proclaim on the housetops. The discipline of the teacher of religious truth is the same at all times. There must be the bent ear before there is the message which men will recognise as important and true.
There is no parable in the ordinary sense in the psalm. The word seems to have acquired the wider meaning of a weighty didactic utterance, as in Psalm lxxviii. 2. The expression "Open my riddle" is ambiguous, and is by some understood to mean the proposal and by others the solution of the puzzle; but the phrase is more naturally understood of solving than of setting a riddle, and if so, the disproportion between the characters and fortunes of good and bad is the mystery or riddle, and the psalm is its solution.
The main theme of the first part is the certainty of death, which makes infinitely ludicrous the rich man's arrogance. It is one version of
"There is no armour against Fate; Death lays his icy hand on kings."
Therefore how vain the boasting in wealth, when all its heaps cannot buy a day of life! This familiar thought is not all the psalmist's contribution to the solution of the mystery of life's unequal partition of worldly good; but it prepares the way for it, and it lays a foundation for his refusal to be afraid, however pressed by insolent enemies. Very significantly he sets the conclusion, to which observation of the transiency of human prosperity has led him, at the beginning of his "parable." In the parallel psalm (lxxiii.) the singer shows himself struggling from the depths of perplexity up to the sunny heights of faith. But here the poet begins with the clear utterance of trustful courage, and then vindicates it by the thought of the impotence of wealth to avert death.
The hostility to himself of the self-confident rich boasters appears only for a moment at first. It is described by a gnarled, energetic phrase which has been diversely understood. But it seems clear that the "iniquity" (A.V. and R.V.) spoken of in ver. 5 _b_ is not the psalmist's sin, for a reference here to his guilt or to retribution would be quite irrelevant; and if it were the consequences of his own evil that dogged him at his heels, he had every reason to fear, and confidence would be insolent defiance. But the word rendered in the A.V. _heels_, which is retained in the R.V. with a change in construction, may be a participial noun, derived from a verb meaning to trip up or supplant; and this gives a natural coherence to the whole verse, and connects it with the following one. "Pursuers" is a weak equivalent for the literal "those who would supplant me," but conveys the meaning, though in a somewhat enfeebled condition. Ver. 6 is a continuance of the description of the supplanters. They are "men of this world," the same type of man as excites stern disapproval in many psalms: as, for instance, in xvii. 14--a psalm which is closely related to this, both in its portrait of the godless and its lofty hope for the future. It is to be noted that they are not described as vicious or God-denying or defying. They are simply absorbed in the material, and believe that land and money are the real, solid goods. They are the same men as Jesus meant when He said that it was hard for those who trusted in riches to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It has been thought that the existence of such a class points to a late date for the psalm; but the reliance on riches does not require large riches to rely on, and may flourish in full perniciousness in very primitive social conditions. A small elevation suffices to lift a man high enough above his fellows to make a weak head giddy. Those to whom material possessions are the only good have a natural enmity towards those who find their wealth in truth and goodness. The poet, the thinker, and, most of all, the religious man, are targets for more or less active "malice," or, at all events, are recognised as belonging to another class, and regarded as singular and "unpractical," if nothing worse. But the psalmist looks far enough ahead to see the end of all the boasting, and points to the great instance of the impotence of material good--its powerlessness to prolong life. It would be more natural to find in ver. 7 the statement that the rich man cannot prolong his own days than that he cannot do so for a "brother." A very slight change in the text would make the initial word of the verse ("brother") the particle of asseveration, which occurs in ver. 15 (the direct antithesis of this verse), and is characteristic of the parallel Psalm lxxiii. With that reading (Ewald, Cheyne, Baethgen, etc.) other slight difficulties are smoothed; but the present text is attested by the LXX. and other early versions, and is capable of defence. It may be necessary to observe that there is no reference here to any other "redemption" than that of the body from physical death. There is a distinct intention to contrast the man's limited power with God's, for ver. 15 points back to this verse, and declares that God can do what man cannot. Ver. 8 must be taken as a parenthesis, and the construction carried on from ver. 7 to ver. 9, which specifies the purpose of the ransom, if it were possible. No man can secure for another continuous life or an escape from the necessity of seeing the pit--_i.e._, going down to the depths of death. It would cost more than all the rich man's store; wherefore he--the would-be ransomer--must abandon the attempt for ever.